Consistent with the bidirectional perspective on parent-child relations, the current study examined children’s perceptions of agency in the context of marital conflict. A storytelling task was completed by 115 five-year-old children, tapping perceived agency. These children and their mothers and fathers completed measures of marital conflict at two time points. Consistent with clinical theory a...

background: marital satisfaction is the most important and fundamental factor in stability and continuity of couples′ life. it exists when the situation in marital relationships is in agreement with its expectation. while couples can increase their satisfaction level in marital life, the family remains safe. therefore the effect of sexual education on the growth of marital satisfaction and its ...

Prevalence rates for infidelity in American marriages range from 20% to 40%. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the effectiveness of couple therapy when there has been an infidelity. In the present study the posttherapy outcomes of 19 infidelity couples were examined for up to 5 years following participation in a larger (N 134) randomized clinical trial of couple therapy. All coupl...

I use data from the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the durationdependence of relationship quality for cohabitors and marrieds and to evaluate whether the presence of children or prior union experience account for or moderate the effect of duration. The present study demonstrates that despite their short length, the quality of cohabiting unions varies with time. Cohabitors...

Marital quality is a major contributor to happiness and health. Unfortunately, marital quality normatively declines over time. We tested whether a novel 21-min intervention designed to foster the reappraisal of marital conflicts could preserve marital quality in a sample of 120 couples enrolled in an intensive 2-year study. Half of the couples were randomly assigned to receive the reappraisal i...

A robust literature indicates that neuroticism has numerous negative implications for romantic relationships. But are there factors that can protect intimates from such implications? Given that negative affect accounts for part of the association between neuroticism and relationship distress, and given that the positive affect associated with sex may negate that negative affect, the authors pre...

This longitudinal study identified factors of couples' marital friendship in the beginning months of marriage that predicted stability versus decline in marital satisfaction over the transition to parenthood. Newlywed couples (N = 130) were followed longitudinally for 6 years. Forty-three couples because parents, and 39 childless couples served as a control group. Couples were interviewed about...