Approximately half of nonmarital births are to mothers in cohabiting relationships, and an additional 30% are to mothers in visiting relationships. I use data (N = 1,945) from the Fragile Families Study to investigate whether the determinants of marriage in the year following a child’s birth are similar for cohabiting and visiting parents. The results […]

This section presents several abstracts of studies about elderly couples. Couples that stay together for 20 years or more have been little studied. Fortunately, mature marriages are beginning to be given increased research attention. Marriage after the empty nest stage of the family life cycle can pose special challenges to mature couples. The articles in […]

Using data from the 1995 General Social Survey (N = 2,639), this study examines two competing repartnering choices made by Canadians after first union disruption: marriage or cohabitation. About 42% of women and 54% of men form a second union 5 years after union disruption, with cohabitation being the most prevalent choice. The timing of […]

This study tested whether a short term, therapeutic intervention could be used to strengthen rural, southern marriages. In a group private practice in South Georgia, twenty-two couples were taught Relationship Enhancement skills in a group format. They were an all clinical sample of distressed couples and were led by experienced male/female co-therapy teams. Statistical analyses […]

In this study we investigate the longitudinal relation between maintenance behaviors and marital satisfaction. Forty married couples completed measures of maintenance behaviors and marital satisfaction at time 1. The couples again completed the measure and marital satisfaction 1 year later. Analyses revealed that the use of maintenance behaviors at Time 1 was related to perceptions […]

Ideas about the nature of marital conflict and approaches to its treatment are conceived within existing clinical theories. As a result, marital conflict is defined in accord with the epistemological assumptions of the clinical framework rather than more far reaching assumptions about the nature of power and conflict. Without a formulation of marital conflict that […]

The purpose of this study is to assess differences between husbands and wives (N = 526 couples at the first assessment) on (a) growth curves over the first 4 years of marriage for psychological distress, marriage-specific appraisals, spousal interactions, social support, and marital satisfaction; (b) the strength of intraspouse links and cross-spouse links involving the […]

From a stress and coping perspective, this qualitative study examined the impact of Hong Kong’s sociocultural context on divorce experience of 35 women. Under the bind of traditional Chinese values and Western ideals, divorce was experienced as a threat to normal life and an oppression leading to economic hardship and a loss of self-identity. However, […]

Studies have suggested that parental divorce has a negative impact on their children’s views of marriage and family life. However, much research has focused upon younger children, and few studies have compared young people from divorced and intact families. This paper reports an in-depth analysis of the views of young people with divorced and still-married […]

This paper uses detailed case analysis to illustrate the intergenerational concepts of loyalty, legacy, and relational stagnation described by Boszormenyi-Nagy in his Contextual Therapy approach. Special emphasis is given to how the therapist assesses the ethical dimension of a couple’s interactions and links this to reported symptoms and relationship difficulties among all family members. (Author […]