Love's Labors Lost

A theory of marital dissolution was developed utilizing the inductive method of grounded theory construction. Approximately 1,300 propositions from the research literature were organized into 20 dynamic and structural categories, yielding a theory that predicts marital dissolution as a combination of cultural, societal, dyadic, and individual level factors. Actually, the theory, divided into eight subsections, predicts marital dissolution under three configural combinations, two cases of idiosyncratic outcome-dissolution or nondissolution-and marital nondissolution under the three final combinations. The theory is compared with two other contemporary efforts to explain marital dissolution.     

A Theory of Marital Sexual Life

Why does the frequency of marital sex decrease with marital duration? Does the probability of involvement in extramarital sex increase or decrease with marital duration, and why? I develop a theory to answer these questions. I apply the law of diminishing marginal utility and human capital theory to explain the basic observed decline in the frequency of marital sex with marital duration. Based on the above explanation, I develop a discussion on the relationship between marital duration and extramarital sex, and I derive two hypotheses, which are supported by statistical analyses of the National Health and Social Life Survey data.     

From Bad to Worse? Pornography Consumption,Spousal Religiosity,Gender, and Marital Quality

Pornography consumption is consistently associated with lower marital quality. Scholars have theorized that embeddedness within a religious community may exacerbate the negative association between pornography use and marital quality because of greater social or psychic costs to porn viewing. As a test and extension of this theory, I examine how being married to a religiously devout spouse potentially moderates the link between respondents' reported pornography consumption and their marital satisfaction. Data are taken from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study. In the main effects, porn consumption is negatively related to marital satisfaction, while spousal religiosity is positively related to marital satisfaction. Interaction effects reveal, however, that spousal religiosity intensifies the negative effect of porn viewing on marital satisfaction. These effects are robust whether marital satisfaction is operationalized as a scale or with individual measures and whether spousal religiosity is measured with respondents' evaluations their spouses' religiosity or spouses' self‐reported religiosity measures. The effects are also similar for both husbands and wives. I argue that for married Americans, having a religiously committed spouse increases the social and psychic costs of porn consumption such that marital satisfaction decreases more drastically as a result.     

Mindful relating: exploring mindfulness and emotion repertoires in intimate relationships

This study tested the theory that mindfulness contributes to greater intimate relationship satisfaction by fostering more relationally skillful emotion repertoires. A sample of married couples was administered measures of mindful awareness, emotion skills, and marital quality. We hypothesized that mindfulness would be associated with both marital quality and partners' emotion skills and that the association between mindfulness and marital quality would be mediated by emotion repertoire skill. Findings suggested that emotion skills and mindfulness are both related to marital adjustment, and that skilled emotion repertoires, specifically those associated with identifying and communicating emotions, as well as the regulation of anger expression, fully mediate the association between mindfulness and marital quality. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

“It's About Us”: Marital Adjustment and Marital Adaptation in Couples Who Adopt Children From the Child Welfare System

This article examines, using grounded theory methodology, the marital relationships of couples who adopted children from the child welfare system. Twenty-two spouses in four focus groups reported initial marital adjustment that featured husbands' support of their wives' initiation of adoption and management of child needs. About one half of these couples also developed time together and mutual influence to achieve a state of marital adaptation characterized by deeper intimate connection. Professionals are encouraged to understand the potential course of development of these marital relationships and to integrate attention to marital development into service throughout the entire adoption process.     

Has the future of marriage arrived? A contemporary examination of gender, marriage, and psychological well-being

A long tradition of research and theory on gender, marriage, and mental health suggests that marital status is more important to men's psychological well-being than women's while marital quality is more important to women's well-being than men's. These beliefs rest largely on a theoretical and empirical foundation established in the 1970s, but, despite changes in gender and family roles, they have rarely been questioned. The present analysis of three waves of a nationally representative survey indicates that, with few exceptions, the effects of marital status, marital transitions, and marital quality on psychological well-being are similar for men and women. Further, for men and women, occupying an unsatisfying marriage undermines psychological well-being to a similar extent--and, in some cases, to a greater extent--than exiting marriage or being continually unmarried.     

Marital Enqing and Depression in Taiwanese Couples: The Mediating Role of Active and Passive Sacrifice

Using social exchange and identity theory, the authors examined the association between marital enqing and depression in 372 Taiwanese couples, and the mediating effects of active and passive sacrifice on that association. Marital enqing is a unique form of affection toward the partner in Taiwanese couples. Data was analyzed by using the actor-partner interdependence model to test for actor and partner effects among study variables. Results indicated that husbands, who reported more marital enqing, tended to have lower levels of depression. Partner effects revealed that couples’ marital enqing decreased their spouse’s depressive symptoms. Husbands’ sacrifice behaviors mediated the association between his marital enqing and depression. However, Taiwanese wives’ sacrifice behavior did not mediate the association between her marital enqing and depression. Chinese cultural principles indeed impacted how couples in Taiwan conceptualized marital affection differently from couples in western cultures, and it provided insights into its relationships with couples’ sacrifices and relational and individual wellbeing.     

Deviant Cases in Tests of the Status Integration Theory

Within each of seven age groups of black females, black males, white females, and white males, the correlations among marital statuses between 1990 integration measures and 1989 to 1991 suicide rates are predominantly negative and substantial. That finding is consistent with previous reports, but those reports did not examine deviant cases, meaning populations that appear to be extreme exceptions to the status integration theory. Such populations—particular age groups or particular marital statuses—are identified here, and they are especially likely when a marital status has few occupants. The interpretation: a small population size tends to result in unstable suicide rates, and that instability tends to reduce the correlation of the rates with status integration. There is no conventional methodology for analyzing deviant cases, and this paper does not offer one. Nonetheless, the findings are relevant for any theory pertaining to variation in rates.     

Marital transitions, marital beliefs, and mental health.

In this paper, we examine whether people's beliefs about the permanence, desirability, and importance of marriage moderate the impact of marital transitions--including marital losses and gains--on depression, a disorder associated with both marital status and role transitions. Using two waves of panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 10,005), we find that a marital loss results in increased symptoms, whereas a marital gain results in decreased symptoms. We also find, however, that the negative effects of a marital loss are greater for people who believe in the permanence of marriage than they are for those who do not. Conversely, the positive effects of a marital gain are greater for people who believe in the desirability and importance of marriage than they are for those who do not. Our results highlight the potential utility of more systematically incorporating people's beliefs--and sociocultural factors more generally--into theory and research on the impact of stressors on mental health.     

AFFECT IN MARITAL THERAPY

Affect has been conceptualized in various ways. These conceptualizations have influenced the manner in which emotion is dealt with in marital therapy. Using a network theory of emotion, the role of the evocation of emotion in emotionally focused marital therapy to create intimacy and facilitate conflict resolution is discussed. Accessing underlying primary emotional responses in partners makes available adaptive action tendencies which promote problem solving and helps change self- and relationship definitions. The role of emotion in creating change in cognitions, motivation and communication patterns in marital therapy is discussed.     

Covenant Attachment: A Constructivist Grounded Theory of Christian Couples and God

The purpose of this constructivist grounded theory study was to develop a deeper understanding of the relational system of married couples and God. We interviewed nine marital couples from Christian denominations that reported having a strong relationship with each other and with God together. We used constructivist grounded theory techniques presented by Charmaz (2006) and analyzed emergent categories of behaviors, emotions, and cognitions to construct a theory and model of Christian marital couples and their shared relationship with God. We then compared and contrasted the results and theory to existing literature on attachment theory and theorized a shared attachment to God. We applied the theological concept of kinship covenant to the results in order to organize and situate the theory into a Christian framework. Finally, we discuss clinical, pastoral, and future research implications.     

TRANSITION TO DIVORCE:

This study integrates social exchange theory and the literature on stressful life events into a life-course approach to women's marital duration. We hypothesize that circumstances facilitating a successful transition into marriage have a cumulative effect, enhancing the likelihood of increased marital duration. By contrast, factors easing the transition to divorce have a negative impact on marital duration. We draw on a sample of 313 wives and mothers in an upstate New York community interviewed in 1956 and reinterviewed thirty years later. We find that structural factors (marital duration and previous marriage) and factors that increase women's options outside of marriage, such as self-esteem and returning to school, are more important than attitudinal factors in hastening the transition to divorce. Factors that ease the transition to marriage (similarity in religious beliefs and educational level) may not necessarily affects its duration.     

Measuring Marital Satisfaction: A Comparison of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Satisfaction with Married Life Scale

Marital satisfaction has been psychometrically measured using many different instruments not soundly based on theory. The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS), consisting of 14 items, is commonly accepted by researchers and practitioners to measure marital satisfaction but was not specifically designed to measure marital satisfaction. The Satisfaction with Married Life Scale (SWML), consisting of five items, is a short scale specifically targeted toward measuring marital satisfaction. An online sample collected from 1,187 couples throughout the United States was used to compare these instruments' correlation (r = .782), factor structures, reliability (SWML, α = .958; RDAS, α = .943), theoretical foundation, and validity. These instruments are on parity with each other when measuring marital satisfaction; however, each instrument yields implications for practitioners and researchers desiring to measure marital satisfaction.     

An Insight Approach to Marital Therapy

The trend in marital therapy has traditionally been away from insight approaches and toward action-oriented methods, such as manipulating the couple system or teaching partners to negotiate. This paper presents a form of insight therapy based upon systems theory and suggests that this orientation has much to offer. The first part describes general categories of relationship problems with which a couples therapist must deal. The second part takes each of these problem types and suggests how a therapist with the present systems-interpretive approach might proceed. The goal is a shared understanding by partners of their marital system.     

Behavioral and Physiological Components of Communication Training: Does the Topic Affect Outcome?

This study experimentally examined the Speaker‐Listener technique when couples (N= 30) were instructed to either discuss an issue within or outside their marriage, on marital satisfaction, and communication behaviors. This study examined the J. M. Gottman, J. Coan, S. Carrere, and C. Swanson (1998) hypothesis that the Speaker‐Listener technique may lead to improved marital satisfaction when the couple is discussing a third party issue, but discussing an issue about each other may weaken the marital relationship. Behavioral and physiological data during marital interactions were sequentially analyzed. Results suggested that the Speaker‐Listener technique reduced negativity but did not increase positivity in marital interactions. There were significant differences in positive reciprocity across the 2 experimental groups, but no differences in negativity. Additionally, adherence to the Speaker‐Listener technique was poor, which has implications for both research and theory. Possible interpretations and areas for further investigation are suggested.     

Interacting individual belief systems in marital relationships

Drawing on Maturana's concept of structure determinism and Bowlby's attachment theory, a model of marital interactions is described based on the nature of the "fit" between each individual's belief systems, particularly those related to the fears inherent in intimacy. It is proposed that these marital interactions can be either belief-con firming, leading to alienation, conflict and unhappiness, or belief-disconfirming, leading to intimacy, successful conflict resolution and happiness. Suggestions are made as to how therapists can intervene in troubled relationships to facilitate negative belief-disconfirming interactions, interrupt negative belief-confirming interactions and prevent the development of negative belief-generating interactions.     

A RESPONSE TO HEIM AND SNYDER

This article comments on a recent study by Heim and Snyder (1991) which explores the interaction between marital distress and spouses' attributions in predicting depression. We suggest taht the attributional theory model may set up a reductionistic research stance that potentially separates what depressed people think from their circumstances and history, thus implying a linear relationship between thinking, depression, and, in this case, marital distress. We also question whether the authors' focus on women's attributional processes, combined with their reliance on a potentially unidimensional model of depression, might inadvertently support preexisting power imbalances in the marital relationship. Finally, we address research design issues regarding measurement, sampling, and statistical concerns.     

Alcohol Problems,Marriage, and Treatment: Developing a Theoretical Timeline

SUMMARY

While research findings over the past twenty years have consistently supported the efficacy of couples work with people experiencing alcohol related problems, in the field of practice in Ireland there is little evidence of the development of interventions based on a couples/marital perspective. This paper examines the place of marital work in the alcohol field through a review of the literature from 1950s to the present in order to discover the limitations in theory and research that might explain the reluctance of practitioners to adopt this method of intervention.     

Marital Well‐being and Religiousness as Mediated by Relational Virtue and Equality

This study investigated religiousness and couple well‐being as mediated by relational virtue and equality. Relational spiritual framework theory posits that religiousness is associated with couple well‐being through relational virtues (e.g., forgiveness, commitment, and sacrifice). Theories of relational inequality postulate that religion decreases couple well‐being and indirectly lessens couple well‐being. Data from a 3‐year longitudinal community sample of 354 married couples were used. The authors found that religiousness's relationship to couple well‐being was fully mediated by relational virtue but was not connected to relational inequality. They also found that relational inequality was associated with women's conflict, men's conflict, and marital instability. They did not find that higher religiousness benefits marital outcomes directly. Although these findings do not support the idea that religious activities are directly associated with stronger relationships, the data did show that religiousness can contribute to expressed relational virtue, and relational virtue in turn is associated with marital well‐being.     

CREATING HEALING RELATIONSHIPS FOR COUPLES DEALING WITH TRAUMA: THE USE OF EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED MARITAL THERAPY

Emotionally focused marital therapy (EFT), a marital therapy that particularly focuses on the creation of secure attachment, has proven in empirical studies to be effective for distressed couples. This paper discusses the application of EFT in couples where one or both of the partners have experienced significant trauma. EFT, in this context of trauma, incorporates the nine steps of conventional EFT and also encompasses the three stages of the "constructivist" self development theory of trauma treatment. This paper illustrates how the integration of EFT and trauma treatement can prove effective in treating not only relationsip distress but also the individual symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).