Same-Sex Couples' Experiences with Homonegativity

Abstract

Same-sex couples face many challenges in forming and maintaining committed relationships. Challenges unique to same-sex couples include experiences with homonegativity. Sixteen same-sex couples were asked to share their experiences with homonegativity that had an influence on their relational commitment. Data from their conversations were analyzed using Consensual Qualitative Research methodology (Hill, Thompson,&Williams, 1997). Analyses revealed that same-sex couples commonly experienced homonegativity from general societal sources and family of origin. Additionally, some couples experienced homonegativity from religious and legal sources. The implications of these results for relational commitment and future research on same-sex couple relationships are discussed.     

Inclusion and Control in Resort Family Businesses: A Developmental Approach to Conflict

This study investigated the relationship between inclusion tension and business and family conflict intensity for 183 couples in resort family businesses. Using path analysis, age, education, role, and decision involvement discrepancy predicted husbands' inclusion tension, and inclusion tension predicted their business and family conflict intensity. Age, locus of control, and gross sales predicted inclusion tension for wives; inclusion tension predicted wives' business and family conflict intensity. Age had an indirect effect for husbands on their inclusion tension and their business conflict intensity, whereas the role involvement discrepancy had an indirect effect on husbands' business conflict intensity. For wives, age had an indirect effect on their business conflict intensity, and locus of control had an indirect effect on wives' business as well as family conflict intensity.     

Lived Experiences of Childless Couples: A Phenomenological Study From the Indian Rural Context

This study sought to create an in-depth understanding of the experiences of being an involuntary childless couple from the social and personal points of view through qualitative research. The study used an essentially phenomenological methodology. Fifteen participants were recruited through purposive and snowball method. Data were collected via an open-ended narrative inviting the informants to focus on the experiences of being childless and were analyzed thematically. The issue of personal context emerged as a key theme in understanding perceptions of the respondents. Another important theme was that from the social context. This study has tried to explore the emotional sufferings faced by childless couples in the Indian context. Findings of this study suggest that prevalence of the social culture largely influences the psychosocial state of childless couples and hence coping strategies adopted by them are largely influenced by the prevailing culture.     

Religion in families 1999 to 2009: A relational spirituality framework

This review examines the role of religion, for better and worse, in marital and parent-child relationships according to peer reviewed studies from 1999-2009. A conceptual framework labeled "relational spirituality" is used to: (a) organize the breadth of findings into the three stages of the formation, maintenance, and transformation of family relationships, and (b) illustrate three in-depth sets of mechanisms to delve into unique ways religion may shape family bonds. Topics include union formation, fertility, spousal roles, marital satisfaction and conflict, divorce, domestic violence, infidelity, pregnancy, parenting children, parenting adolescents, and coping with family distress. Conclusions emphasize moving beyond markers of general religiousness and identifying specific spiritual beliefs and practices that could prevent or intensify problems in traditional and nontraditional families.     

People who live apart together (LATs): new family form or just a stage?

‘Living apart together’ – that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else (LAT) – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where partners can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both couple intimacy, but at the same time maintain personal autonomy and pre-existing commitments. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? We take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey and from in-depth interviews with LAT partners. We find that LATs do resemble cohabitating (unmarried) couples in demographic and social terms, but also display quite diverse origins and motivations. One group of LATs do not see themselves as couple partners at all, but more as special boy/girlfriends. Others live apart mainly in response to external circumstances. But some LATs do seem to be developing a new way of living in their relationships, as a means of balancing both couple intimacy and personal autonomy over the longer term.     

The Experience of Remarried Couples in Blended Families

This study examines the effect of the previous marriage on remarried couples within the context of a blended family. Fifteen couples in stepfamilies married from 1 to 38 years were interviewed. Qualitative analysis, using constructivist grounded theory, revealed four significant themes: (a) Most couples exhibited caution when considering marrying their spouse. (b) Differing loyalties caused stepparents to feel their needs came last and the biological parents to feel caught in the middle. (c) Antagonism toward the ex-spouse brought couples together but also resulted in their feeling powerless and frustrated. (d) Role confusion created frustration for the stepparents and guilt for their spouses. Self-psychology was the theory used to analyze the results, and implications for treatment are discussed.     

A Typology of Dual Earner Marriages Based on Work and Family Arrangements

Qualitative research has investigated distinct couple types that divide work and family responsibilities based on employment circumstances and relationship characteristics, but such research is not conducive to identifying frequencies of couple types or statistically comparing work-family circumstances across couple types. The current study incorporated both employment and family variables in identifying four distinct dual-earner couple types among respondents from the National Survey of the Changing Workforce. Couple types were compared regarding demographic information, and memberships in couple types were predicted based on this information. Some significant differences emerged that may begin to explain the circumstances and motivations behind selecting certain work-family arrangements, though the more peer-like couples were less distinct and in some ways less economically advantaged than expected.

Differences Between Partners From Heterosexual,Gay, and Lesbian Cohabiting Couples

Partners from four types of couples without children (gay unmarried, lesbian unmarried, heterosexual unmarried, and heterosexual married, Ns=1,412, 1,310, 1,036, and 1,728, respectively) were compared to partners from heterosexual married couples with children (N =3,116) on mean levels of variables from a model of relationship adjustment as well as on the strength of links posited by the model. Although 82% of the mean‐level comparisons were significant, only 36% of the comparisons had effect sizes that were at least small in strength. Type of couple affected links between variables in only 33% of the instances, with effect sizes trivial in strength. Findings support the view that despite variability in structure, close dyadic relationships work in similar ways.     

Farm Business-Owning Couples: Interrelationships among Business Tensions,Relationship Conflict Quality,and Spousal Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among business tensions, relationship conflict quality, and satisfaction with spouse for 206 farm business-owning couples. The Sustainable Family Business Model and the Family FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation) model guided the path analysis. For both husbands and wives, locus of control was negatively related to business tensions; decision involvement discrepancy was positively related to relationship conflict quality; and business tensions were negatively related to relationship conflict quality. For husbands, relationship conflict quality was positively related to satisfaction with spouse; for wives, business tensions were negatively related to satisfaction with business-owning spouse. This material is based on work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, US Department of Agriculture under Agreement No. 95-37401-1820. Any opinion, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the US Department of Agriculture.     

Changes in couple,parenting, and individual functioning following Family Expectations program participation

The current study investigated changes in couple, parenting, and individual functioning following participation in Family Expectations, a relationship and parenting education program for new or expectant parents. The sample comprised 339 couples who participated in most sessions of the Family Expectations program and completed assessments at three different time points over a 12-month period. Study analyses examined: (a) change shortly following completion of the program, (b) associations between short-term change and subsequent change in outcomes at 12-month follow-up, and (c) differences in short-term change between married and unmarried couples. Significant improvements were observed in all three domains at short-term follow-up. Short-term changes, particularly for psychological distress, were predictive of long-term change in multiple domains. Few moderation effects by marital status were evident; those that appeared suggested stronger effects for married participants compared to unmarried. Study findings inform ongoing discussions into the utility of federally-funded relationship and parenting programming.     

Children Living With Uninsured Family Members: Differences by Family Structure

Despite increased access to insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, uninsurance rates are expected to remain relatively high. Having uninsured family members may expose children to financial hardships. Eligibility rules governing both private and public health insurance are based on outdated expectations about family structure. Using 2009–2011 data from the National Health Interview Survey (N = 65,038), the authors investigated family structure differences in family‐level insurance coverage of households with children. Children living with married biological parents were the least likely to have uninsured family members and most likely to have all family members covered by private insurance. Controlling for demographic characteristics and income, children in single‐mother families had the same risk of having an uninsured family member as children in married‐parent families. Children with cohabiting biological parents had higher rates of family uninsurance than children with married biological parents, even accounting for other characteristics.     

Characteristics of Couples Who Attend Family Services Counselor Visits in Relationship Education

Case management services for low-income couples receiving relationship education have been required by federal funding agencies. Studies examining relationship education outcomes for low-income couples have yet to address participant characteristics of those who attend case management services (e.g., distressed vs. nondistressed). Thus, this study examined the influence of baseline relationship satisfaction and demographics on attendance at case management visits for 2,628 low-income, partnered participants who attended relationship education. Findings indicated that participants who reported higher baseline relationship distress attended more family services counselor (FSC) visits. However, when we added demographics to the model, relationship distress no longer predicted FSC visits, whereas income served as a predictor for men and women, with those reporting greater monthly income attending more FSC visits.     

Ten Research Questions for Family Therapy

A growing evidence‐base shows that family therapy works, but many gaps in our knowledge remain about the conditions under which family therapy is effective and how it works. In this paper, ten critical research questions about family therapy that need to be addressed are considered. In short these are:

• 1 Is family therapy as effective in community settings as it is in specialist clinics?
• 2 For what problems is family therapy cost‐effective?
• 3 Does family therapy work for under‐researched problems and populations?
• 4 Do social‐constructionist and narrative approaches to family therapy work?
• 5 Can family therapy protocols be enhanced for non‐responders?
• 6 Can family therapy be combined with other psychotherapies to effectively treat specific problems?
• 7 Can family therapy be combined with pharmacotherapy to effectively treat specific problems?
• 8 What specific factors contribute to the effectiveness of family therapy with particular problems?
• 9 What common factors contribute to the effectiveness of family therapy?
• 10 What therapist and client factors contribute to the effectiveness of family therapy?

     

Explaining Gender Inequalities That Follow Couple Migration

By exploiting the unique social and economic differences between East and West Germany, the authors investigated how macro‐level opportunities interact with couple‐level decision making to explain gender differences in the determinants and economic outcomes of household migration. By incorporating regional socioeconomic conditions into household bargaining theory, 4 hypotheses for each region were derived. The hypotheses were tested using cross‐classified multilevel regressions and the German Socio‐Economic Panel (1992–2012) combined with regional economic indicators. First, gender‐specific determinants of couples' West–West (i.e., within West Germany) and East‐to‐West migration were analyzed; second, subsequent economic consequences were investigated by comparing couples with singles. The results confirm that gender differences in macro‐conditions can impose decision logics that seemingly contradict the initial power relation within couples. Despite more traditional gender arrangements in West Germany, well‐educated partnered women earn significant absolute and relative income gains from migration; their egalitarian East German counterparts suffer significant losses compared with single women and East German men.