Partner Selection

Considerable research suggests that RS global factors help to shape decisions about selecting a romantic partner, with people deciding early in their courtship whether (non)religious compatibility matters. For example, a similar percentage of US women (ages 15–44) in 1995 reported having the same religious affiliation (e.g., “none,” Catholic, Protestant) as their partner regardless of whether the couple was dating, being sexually intimate, cohabiting, or married (Blackwell & Lichter, Reference Blackwell and Lichter2004). In addition, similarity between partners in (non)RS engagement emerged as one of the top three desired shared qualities, along with education and intelligence, for the romantic unions of Americans from mid-adolescence into young adulthood from 1994 to 2007 (i.e., Eastwick et al., Reference Eastwick, Harden, Shukusky, Morgan and Joel2017). The subjective belief that RS factors shape one’s life decisions has also been robustly tied to whether and whom to marry per a 2006 data set of US adults (Sigalow et al., Reference Sigalow, Shain and Bergey2012). Finally, cross-culturally, men and women rank similarity in religious affiliation as an important factor when selecting a marital partner (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Exline, Jones, Mahoney and Shafranske2013; Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Swank and Tarakeshwar2001). For instance, McClendon (Reference McClendon2016) tracked young US adults born between 1980 and 1984 across fifteen years and those in favorable markets for religious assortative mating (i.e., a relatively high number of potentially similar RS partners) were more likely to get married and marry a partner with a similar religious affiliation whereas those in less favorable markets delayed marriage rather than marry a partner with a different affiliation. Overall, our above review of rigorous social science studies indicate that people tend to gravitate toward romantic partners who share their (non)RS values and cultural identity.

Cohabitation

Although major world religions have for centuries sanctioned marriage as the only legitimate context for couples to cohabit and have sexual intercourse, unmarried cohabitation has surpassed marriage as the most common union experience in young adulthood in the United States, with 68 percent of unmarried women anticipating they will live with a romantic partner outside of marriage (Manning et al., Reference Manning, Smock and Fettro2019). Some RS factors seem to push back against such modern shifts. For instance, based on recent national surveys (2011–2015), viewing religion as important, but not religious attendance, lowered young women’s future expectations they would cohabit rather than marry (Manning et al., Reference Manning, Smock and Fettro2019). Yet, according to 2006–2010 surveys, only half (49 percent) of unmarried US White and Black women who report attending religious services several times per month or more “think that it’s better to get married than stay single” (Wilcox & Wolfinger, Reference Wilcox and Wolfinger2016). Furthermore, many unmarried men and women who attend religious services at least several times per month report having engaged in sex in the past year, with base rates of 47 percent–48 percent for White attendees and 65 percent–69 percent for non-White attendees as compared to 75 percent–76 percent and 81 percent–82 percent, respectively, of non-attenders (Wilcox & Wolfinger, Reference Wilcox and Wolfinger2016). In turn, higher sexual activity amongst highly religious young adults is tied to their higher endorsement of cohabitation (Willoughby & Carroll, Reference Willoughby and Carroll2010).

Marriage or Remarriage

Some RS factors appear to promote the formation of mixed-sex marital unions. Specifically, longitudinal analyses tracking adolescents into adulthood from 1994 to 2007 found that teens from conservative Protestant or Latter-day Saint families (particularly women), and anyone who viewed religion as highly important, more frequently entered marriage and at a relatively early age (Uecker, Reference Uecker2014). Similarly, based on pooled 2006–2010 surveys, American men and women affiliated with conservative Protestant traditions reported being more likely than their unaffiliated and Catholic peers to remarry following divorce; greater worship service attendance, but not religious importance, across religious denominations was correlated with an accelerated pace of remarriage (Xu & Bartkowski, Reference Xu and Bartkowski2017). Yet, in a 1996–2010 longitudinal study of middle-aged American female nurses, frequent service attendance predicted future remarriage only after being widowed, not after divorce or marital separation (Li et al., Reference Li, Kubzansky and VanderWeele2018). Finally, before the legalization of same-sex marriage, sexual minorities more engaged in RS practices also more often cemented their bond via legal contracts (e.g., wills, mortgages; Oswald et al., Reference Oswald, Goldberg, Kuvalanka and Clausell2008). However, studies have yet to be conducted on whether global RS factors increase the formation of same-sex legal or religious marriages.

Structuring Heterosexual Marriages

Empirical findings on how RS factors impact the formation of egalitarian versus traditional heterosexual marriages defy easy generalizations. For example, Muslims and conservative Christian Protestants living in the United States hold far more diverse and flexible attitudes about feminism, women’s participation in paid work, and familial hierarchy than implied by conservative religious teachings that encourage patriarchal relations between men and women (Edgell, Reference Edgell2005). Even more revealing are studies focused on behavioral indices of egalitarianism between couples, which find virtually no differences in how married heterosexuals who belong to socially liberal versus socially conservative religious groups manage decision making or divide general household labor (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010). However, RS factors are tied to how married Americans structure their roles as co-parents. Specifically, after the transition to parenthood, greater religious attendance, Biblical conservatism, and the sanctification of parent-infant relationships are associated with married heterosexual adopting a traditional division of child care where mothers take a primary position over fathers (DeMaris et al., Reference DeMaris, Mahoney and Pargament2011).

In summary, romantic partners pair up partly based on global RS factors, a winnowing process that could remain robust, especially if cultural polarization accelerates between those who do and do not identify with socially conservative religious traditions. RS factors may also continue to facilitate getting married or remarried, despite the fact half or more of unmarried American adults who often attend religious services also engage in cohabitation and sexual intercourse outside of marriage.

Marital Satisfaction and Commitment

Up through 2010, higher global RS involvement by married Americans fairly consistently correlated, albeit to a modest degree, with greater marital satisfaction and commitment (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010; Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Swank and Tarakeshwar2001). Recent studies have echoed (Fincham et al., Reference Fincham, Rogge, Beach, Vangelisti and Perlman2018) and extended these findings to married individuals outside of the United States (Cirhinlioğlu et al., Reference Cirhinlioğlu, Cirhinlioğlu and Tepe2018). Young American adults’ higher personal RS has also been correlated with their relational satisfaction and commitment within dating or cohabiting unions (Aragoni et al., Reference Aragoni, Stanley, Smith-Acuña and Rhoades2021; Langlais & Schwanz, Reference Langlais and Schwanz2017). Furthermore, although gender traditionalism is generally tied to lower relationship satisfaction, this link disappears for highly religiously engaged American women who may embrace traditional gender roles rather than egalitarianism between wives and husbands (Perry & Whitehead, Reference Perry and Whitehead2016). Notably, these generalizations are largely based on cross-sectional studies that have intentionally examined RS-romantic relationship linkages, with mixed or null findings often occurring in longitudinal studies (see, Cutrona et al., Reference Cutrona, Russell, Burzette, Wesner and Bryant2011; Day & Acock, Reference Day and Acock2013; Rose et al., Reference Rose, Anderson, Miller, Marks, Hatch and Card2018; Wolfinger et al., Reference Wolfinger, Wilcox and Hernandez2009).

An additional set of social science studies have treated religious attendance or importance as one of many demographic control variables in complex multi-variate studies that target other predictors; these studies rarely, if ever, spotlight RS findings. However, a 2020 large-scale project that used machine learning to identify the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across forty-three longitudinal couples studies (Joel et al., Reference Joel, Eastwick, Allison, Arriaga, Baker, Bar-Kalifa, Bergeron, Birnbaum, Brock, Brumbaugh and Carmichael2020) offers insights about RS involvement as one of many individual difference variables (e.g., personal satisfaction with life, depression) embedded within large data sets. Specifically, actors’ or partner’s overall religiosity emerged as the 12th out of 32 individual difference factors that predicted actor’s later relational satisfaction and commitment, being significant in 48 percent of the sixteen cases where assessed (Joel et al., Reference Joel, Eastwick, Allison, Arriaga, Baker, Bar-Kalifa, Bergeron, Birnbaum, Brock, Brumbaugh and Carmichael2020). Of course, whether one views this RS result as a “half-full” or “half-empty” outcome is debatable.

Another major takeaway from Joel et al.’s (Reference Joel, Eastwick, Allison, Arriaga, Baker, Bar-Kalifa, Bergeron, Birnbaum, Brock, Brumbaugh and Carmichael2020) study was that relationship specific variables (e.g., perceived partner commitment, intimacy) are far more important than individual difference factors in predicting future relationship quality. Consistent with this point, studies have begun to closely examine dyadic RS factors, such as (dis)similar RS activities between partners. As would be expected, dyadic RS factors tend to yield more consistent findings than one partner’s RS functioning. For example, partner’s (dis)similarity in religious affiliation, attendance, and salience were robustly correlated to greater relationship satisfaction for American adults in cohabiting or dating unions in 2006 (Henderson et al., Reference Henderson, Ellison and Glenn2018). Similarly, Gurrentz (Reference Gurrentz2017) followed newlyweds from 1998 to 2004 and found that couples, where wives were markedly higher than husbands on RS engagement, reported greater conflict and the lowest marital quality compared to couples where both spouses endorsed either high or no RS engagement. Joint activities between spouses, such as praying or reading scriptures together, were also tied to greater marital satisfaction and lower negative marital interactions for highly religiously homogenous Protestant Christian couples surveyed in 2012–2013 (Wilmoth & Riaz, Reference Wilmoth and Riaz2019). However, in a recent rigorous study using 2010–2011 national US data, shared religious activities in the home or similar religious (non)attendance were not consistently tied to marital commitment and negative or positive marital interactions (Dew et al., Reference Dew, Uecker and Willoughby2020); this result underscores the potential value of using more in-depth measures to identify robust dyadic RS factors that predict marital satisfaction and commitment amongst contemporary couples.

Intimate Partner Violence

A complex set of studies has attempted to address concerns that greater RS engagement may foster intimate partner physical aggression, especially toward women. On one hand, in research of RS subgroups where intimate partner violence has already occurred, female survivors often report that their male partners used socially conservative RS rhetoric to defend their aggression (Johnson, Reference Johnson2015; Nason, Reference Nason2018), a finding consistent with disclosures made by male perpetrators in a parish-based invention program (Davis & Jonson-Reid, Reference Davis and Jonson-Reid2020). On the other hand, in fifteen studies published up to 2010 and using primarily US data from the 1980 to early 2000s, general RS involvement was either unrelated or tied to lower (not higher) rates of physical aggression within married and unmarried couples (see Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010; Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Swank and Tarakeshwar2001; Todhunter & Deaton, Reference Todhunter and Deaton2010). In a 2018 large cross-cultural survey of Australia, Latin, and North American, and European countries, RS (dis)similarity within couples was also unrelated to intimate partner violence toward women (DeRose et al., Reference DeRose, Johnson, Wang and Salazar-Arango2021). However, in a recently published online convenience study of 260 American adult men, higher RS commitment was associated with more frequent minor and major acts of physical aggression toward their partners (Renzetti et al., Reference Renzetti, DeWall, Messer and Pond2017). In efforts to reconcile these mixed findings, some studies suggest that public RS activities done for extrinsic motives (e.g., gain prestige or avoid shame) versus intrinsic purposes (e.g., gain closeness to God) may differentially be tied to intimate partner violence (Pournaghash-Tehrani et al., Reference Pournaghash-Tehrani, Ehsan and Gholami2009) or moderate the link between economic disadvantage and violence (Pitt & DeMaris, Reference Pitt and DeMaris2019) by men and women. Overall, this literature underscores the need to disentangle specific RS factors that foster or inhibit partners’ physical aggression toward each other in general as well as within dysfunctional relationships.

Infidelity

Another complicated body of research pertains to sexual infidelity in marriage. More frequent religious attendance was correlated with lower rates of extramarital sex based on several studies using 1980–1990s US national surveys (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010). A longitudinal study of married American nurses from 1988 to 1992 also found that higher RS engagement predicted less infidelity (Tuttle & Davis, Reference Tuttle and Davis2015). In addition, married US Christians who were strongly attached to any denomination during 1991–2004 engaged in less infidelity than their less devout co-believers (Burdette et al., Reference Burdette, Ellison, Sherkat and Gore2007). But several qualifications pertain to these findings. For instance, higher religious attendance does not curb infidelity for maritally dissatisfied Americans who may feel more trapped by RS marital vows (Atkins et al., Reference Atkins, Baucom and Jacobson2001). In addition, the odds of marital infidelity increase for high worship attendees who do not feel close to God and for low worship attenders who do feel close to God (Atkins & Kessel, Reference Atkins and Kessel2008), implying that strong connections to God and a RS community must work in concert. Similarly, based on a 2006 US survey, only individuals who relied on their RS beliefs to decide whom to marry and viewed religion as highly important in their lives had a lower risk of infidelity; higher levels of only one of these factors or religious attendance alone did not reduce infidelity (Esselmont & Bierman, Reference Esselmont and Bierman2014). Overall, congruence across different facets of RS functioning may be key to sustain sexual fidelity within marriage.

Questions arise as to whether RS factors decrease infidelity for contemporary romantic unions because we located no published RS findings for married couples using data gathered after 2006, and we located contrary or null findings for young unmarried couples with more recent data. Unexpectedly, for example, the more dating college students in southeastern US reported that their RS identity was central to their lives, the more often they engaged in physical and emotional acts of intimacy with a person outside of their romantic relationship (Norona et al., Reference Norona, Pollock, Welsh and Bolden2016). Also, null findings emerged between global RS variables and infidelity in recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of dating or unmarried adults (Maddox Shaw et al., Reference Maddox Shaw, Rhoades, Allen, Stanley and Markman2013; Negash et al., Reference Negash, Veldorale-Brogan, Kimber and Fincham2019). Finally, based on a large 2018 cross-cultural data set of married and cohabiting couples (combined), dyads where the two partners had nominal or unequal levels of RS (less/mixed religious couples) had higher rates of infidelity than either highly RS couples or non-RS couples (shared secular couples; DeRose et al., Reference DeRose, Johnson, Wang and Salazar-Arango2021). Taken together, more up-to-date research is needed to identify specific RS factors that robustly discourage infidelity given inconclusive findings using global RS variables.

Divorce Rates

In numerous studies published prior to 2000 that involved people who are now elderly or deceased, lower divorce rates were linked to attending religious services and being religiously affiliated (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010; Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Swank and Tarakeshwar2001). Subsequent longitudinal studies using national American or British data collected from the 1980s to early 2000s replicated that higher religious attendance predicted lower future divorce for older adults and/or women (Brown et al., Reference Brown, Orbuch and Bauermeister2008; Village et al., Reference Village, Williams and Francis2010; Woods & Emery, Reference Woods and Emery2002), although null results emerged for a combined sample of men and women (Tuttle & Davis, Reference Tuttle and Davis2015). To illustrate, married American nurses in their fifties in 1996 who attended services more than once a week had a 50 percent lower risk of divorce by 2010 than non-attenders (Li et al., Reference Li, Kubzansky and VanderWeele2018). Also, in a study of middle-aged married or cohabiting African Americans with children, greater RS salience predicted less relationship dissolution for women, but not men, from 1997 to 2003 (Cutrona et al., Reference Cutrona, Russell, Burzette, Wesner and Bryant2011).

Once again, caveats are in order about global RS indices and divorce. Cutrona et al. (Reference Cutrona, Russell, Burzette, Wesner and Bryant2011) also found that African American women’s personal RS devotion increased marrying the biological co-parent of their child, which was then tied to lower marital stability. In addition, although several global RS variables each predicted lower divorce rates from 1971 to 2005 for middle-aged or older, mostly White Californians as they aged, none of the RS factors remained uniquely predictive after controlling for each other and demographics (McDaniel et al., Reference McDaniel, Boco and Zella2013); this result highlights the need to clarify what particular RS constructs may impact divorce. For instance, southern US communities with large concentrations of conservative Protestants produced higher divorce rates in 2000 than others, both because conservative Protestants themselves exhibited higher divorce risk and because individuals in communities dominated by conservative Protestants faced numerous higher divorce risk factors; notably, early cessation of education in favor of marriage and childbearing due was identified as the critical RS cultural mechanism (Glass & Levchak, Reference Glass and Levchak2014).

Beyond personal RS factors, such as individual religious attendance, two high quality longitudinal studies offer mixed evidence that dyadic (dis)similarity in RS engagement predicts divorce. Specifically, compared to the modest effect of each partner’s religious attendance on marital dissolution from 1987 to 1994, Vaaler et al. (Reference Vaaler, Ellison and Powers2009) found a markedly high future divorce rates for US couples with RS differences, such as when the husbands attended religious services more often than wives, and when wives were more conservative in their biblical beliefs or Christian affiliation than husbands. Furthermore, these patterns persisted after controlling for demographic covariates, marital duration, and marital quality. However, using 1998–2004 national data, newlywed couples where both spouses or only the wife exhibited RS engagement had lower rates of future divorce compared to couples where neither spouse identified as being RS (Gurrentz, Reference Gurrentz2017). Such findings imply that mixed faith couples who tend to experience greater marital distress also more often remain married whereas distressed secular couples may more often split up.

Sanctification of Romantic Relationships

Sanctification refers to the degree to which a relationship is perceived (a) as a manifestation of God or Higher Powers (i.e., theistic sanctification) and/or (b) as imbued with sacred qualities (i.e., nontheistic sanctification). In a meta-analysis of correlational findings through mid-2019, Mahoney et al. (Reference Mahoney, Wong, Pomerleau and Pargament2021) found that greater sanctification of various types of close relationships was consistently associated with more positive relational adjustment (i.e., average r = 0.24, CI = 0.20–0.29) and lower rates of relational problems (average r = −0.12, CI = −0.06 to −0.18). Below we highlight a few findings from around fifty-five qualitative and quantitative studies on sanctification and relational well-being in couples and family relationships that have been conducted as of 2022.

Married heterosexuals (Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2009) as well as individuals in same-sex unions (Phillips et al., Reference Phillips, Avant, Kalp, Cenkner, Lucci, Herndon and Maccarelli2017) and dating and cohabiting relationships (Henderson et al., Reference Henderson, Ellison and Glenn2018) often view their relationship as having sacred qualities and/or as being a manifestation of a deity’s presence. For all three types of romantic relationships, greater perceived sanctification of the couple relationship has been tied to greater relationship satisfaction and commitment (Henderson et al., Reference Henderson, Ellison and Glenn2018; Phillips et al., Reference Phillips, Avant, Kalp, Cenkner, Lucci, Herndon and Maccarelli2017), even after controlling for positive relationship behaviors (e.g., forgiveness and sacrifice; Sabey et al., Reference Sabey, Rauer and Jensen2014). Greater sanctification has also been found to be linked to less partner-focused revenge (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Hook, Van Tongeren and Worthington2012), to buffer against the adverse impact of life stress on relationship quality (Ellison et al., Reference Ellison, Henderson, Glenn and Harkrider2011), and to predict more supportive partner behaviors and in turn greater relationship happiness (Rusu et al., Reference Rusu, Hilpert, Beach, Turliuc and Bodenmann2015). Furthermore, cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence indicates that greater sanctification of marriage predicts better observed communication skills (by both spouses) and intimacy during conflictual marital interactions (Kusner et al., Reference Kusner, Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2014; Rauer & Volling, Reference Rauer and Volling2015) and emotionally vulnerable conversations (Padgett et al., Reference Padgett, Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2019).

At least four studies have extended findings on sanctification of marriage beyond predominantly Christian US couples. Consistent with experimental findings on unmarried college students (Fincham et al., Reference Fincham, Lambert and Beach2010), greater relational sanctification has been tied to lower infidelity thoughts and behaviors among married Iranians seeking counseling (Reich & Kalantar, Reference Reich and Kalantar2018). Also among married Iranians, greater sanctification of marriage uniquely predicted both greater marital satisfaction after controlling for religious/spiritual coping (Fallahchai et al., Reference Fallahchai, Fallahi, Moazenjami and Mahoney2021) and more frequent prayer for one’s partner (Reich & Kalantar, Reference Reich and Kalantar2018). Furthermore, among Christian Orthodox couples from Romania, higher marital sanctification has been associated with better marital satisfaction and with more supportive marital interactions (Rusu et al., Reference Rusu, Hilpert, Beach, Turliuc and Bodenmann2015).

The value of delving into specific RS processes like sanctification is vividly illustrated by studies focused on sexuality within intimate unions. For decades, higher global RS engagement has been linked to greater sex guilt and more inhibition of sexual activity outside of marriage (Hernandez et al., Reference Hernandez, Mahoney, Pargament, Tolman and Diamond2013), implying that generally being RS mainly functions to suppress sexual well-being. However, greater sanctification of sexuality predicts greater sexual satisfaction cross-sectionally among married and unmarried partners (Leonhardt et al., Reference Leonhardt, Busby, Hanna-Walker and Leavitt2021) and longitudinally among newlyweds (Hernandez-Kane & Mahoney, Reference Hernandez-Kane and Mahoney2018). Greater sanctification is also tied to lower sex guilt among mixed-sex, same-sex, and cohabiting partners (Leonhardt et al., Reference Leonhardt, Busby and Willoughby2019; Phillips et al., Reference Phillips, Avant, Kalp, Cenkner, Lucci, Herndon and Maccarelli2017) and to lower odds of physical and emotional cheating, even after controlling for plausible alternate explanations (general RS factors, problematic alcohol use, trait self-control; McAllister et al., Reference McAllister, Henderson, Maddock, Dowdle, Fincham and Braithwaite2020).

Spiritual Disclosure and Intimacy

Whereas sanctification captures an individual’s private perceptions of a given relationship, dyads can also have explicit dialogues about each party’s RS views. In an initial study on this topic, Brelsford and Mahoney (Reference Brelsford and Mahoney2008) assessed how much college students and parents openly discussed their RS views and struggles. Labeled spiritual disclosure, this process was associated with higher relationship satisfaction and lower verbal hostility, both in mother-child and father-child pairs. However, many people may avoid revealing information about their (non)RS thoughts or feelings to others, due to fear of being dismissed, ridiculed, or misunderstood (Brelsford & Mahoney, Reference Brelsford and Mahoney2008). Kusner et al. (Reference Kusner, Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2014) therefore created a measure to assess both dyadic spiritual disclosures and spiritual support (i.e., responding to a partner’s spiritual disclosures in an empathic, nonjudgmental way), labeling this combined process spiritual intimacy. Greater spiritual intimacy predicted both partners displaying less negativity and more positivity during observations of couples discussing major conflicts (Kusner et al., Reference Kusner, Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2014) as well as less self-reported conflict at home, less stalemating by both spouses, and more collaborative communication by husbands (Mahoney et al., Reference Mahoney, Wong, Pomerleau and Pargament2021); these associations persisted after accounting for couples’ stable characteristics (e.g., education level, personality traits, and family background). Moreover, in a longitudinal study, spiritual intimacy predicted observations of new parents being more emotionally supportive of one another during emotionally vulnerable conversations (Padgett et al., Reference Padgett, Mahoney, Pargament and DeMaris2019). Finally, spiritual intimacy between dating couples has been tied to greater relationship satisfaction and commitment, even after accounting for emotional intimacy (Flint, Reference Flint2021).

Petitionary Prayer for Partner

Individuals can privately turn to a perceived relationship with God to help sustain their adult union (Fincham & Beach, Reference Fincham and Beach2014). For example, several studies have found that, in generally well-functioning relationships, benevolent prayer for one’s partner reliably facilitates that relationship’s quality (Fincham et al., Reference Fincham, Lambert and Beach2010; Fincham & Beach, Reference Fincham, Beach, Pargament, Mahoney and Shafranske2013, Reference Fincham and Beach2014). Indeed, in longitudinal studies of US college students in a dating relationship, those who privately prayed for their romantic partner’s well-being have reported increased relationship satisfaction and decreased risk of infidelity over time (for review, see Fincham & Beach, Reference Fincham, Beach, Pargament, Mahoney and Shafranske2013). Similarly, among Iranians seeking marital counseling, partner-focused prayer was tied to lower infidelity, even after controlling for sanctification (Reich & Kalantar, Reference Reich and Kalantar2018). Experimental studies have also found that praying for someone with whom one has a romantic or close relationship increases the praying person’s levels of selfless concern, gratitude, and forgiveness of the person for whom they are praying (Fincham & Beach, Reference Fincham, Beach, Pargament, Mahoney and Shafranske2013). In addition, in a randomized experiment with a community sample of married African Americans, Beach et al. (Reference Beach, Hurt, Fincham, Kameron, Franklin, McNair and Stanley2011) randomly assigned couples to one of three conditions: (a) an evidence-supported marital education program, (b) the same program supplemented with a module focused on partner-focused prayer, and (c) self-help reading materials only. In the experimental condition, partner-focused prayer enhanced marital outcomes for wives (but not husbands) over time, beyond the beneficial effects of the other two conditions. However, for both spouses in the experimental condition, partner-focused prayer predicted each partner’s higher marital satisfaction, which also mediated (explained) the effect of partner-focused prayer on increased marital commitment (Fincham & Beach, Reference Fincham and Beach2014).

Positive RS Coping

Rooted in Pargament’s (Reference Pargament1997) seminal book, extensive research exists on the role of positive RS coping for individual well-being (Abu-Raiya & Pargament, Reference Abu-Raiya and Pargament2015). Measures of positive RS coping largely assess how much people cope with stressful life events by drawing on a benevolent and secure relationship with God (divine coping) and on support from coreligionists (fellow religious believers). Such resources tend to correlate with better psychological adjustment, especially stress-related growth (Abu-Raiya & Pargament, Reference Abu-Raiya and Pargament2015). Likewise, positive RS coping with personal and interpersonal stressors could potentially be tied to relational well-being (Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010, Reference Mahoney, Pargament, Exline, Jones, Mahoney and Shafranske2013). Two studies of married couples offer preliminary support of this possibility. Specifically, for married Iranians, higher positive RS coping predicted greater marital satisfaction after controlling for prayer for partner (Reich & Kalantar, Reference Reich and Kalantar2018) as well as the sanctification of marriage and global indices of RS (frequency of prayer, religious pilgrimages, fasting, reciting the Quran; Fallahchai et al., Reference Fallahchai, Fallahi, Moazenjami and Mahoney2021)

Summary on Helpful RS Factors and Romantic Unions

To recap, greater sanctification of romantic relationships and benevolent prayer for a partner have been robustly tied to better relational and sexual satisfaction. These findings have emerged for studies of non-distressed couples inside and outside of marriage. Initial studies also suggest spiritual disclosure, spiritual intimacy, and positive religious/spiritual coping may help sustain healthy romantic unions. Such RS processes are likely to be reciprocally linked to a secure attachment to God/higher powers as well as involvement with a religious group that affirms one’s romantic relationship of choice and promotes social values, norms, and role models that help reinforce positive couple dynamics.

Sacred Loss and Desecration

People may often interpret relational problems as a sacred loss (e.g., the loss of something once viewed as sacred or intended by God) or desecration (e.g., willful destruction or attack of a sacred aspect of life). For example, 74 percent divorced adults whose overall involvement in religious groups was on par with national norms viewed their divorce as a sacred loss and desecration some degree (Krumrei et al., Reference Krumrei, Mahoney and Pargament2011a). As expected, such appraisals longitudinally predicted higher personal psychological distress and dysfunctional conflict tactics between ex-spouses (Krumrei et al., Reference Krumrei, Mahoney and Pargament2011a). Likewise, the more college students viewed a prior romantic break up as a sacred loss/desecration and experienced spiritual struggles over the event, the more emotional distress they reported over time (Hawley et al., Reference Hawley, Mahoney, Pargament and Gordon2015). Such linkages were particularly robust if students had engaged in more premarital sexual activity with their ex-partner and more often attended services and saw religion as important. Finally, college students who recalled experiencing their parental divorce as a spiritual loss and desecration reported greater current personal and family-related distress (Warner et al., Reference Warner, Mahoney and Krumrei2009).

Spiritual One-Upmanship

On the flip side of spiritual intimacy, couples may engage in RS dialogues that would be expected to be destructive and distancing. For example, Mahoney et al. (Reference Mahoney, Wong, Pomerleau and Pargament2021) assessed ways spouses draw upon deities or RS (dis)beliefs to reinforce their own superiority when the pair had conflictual interactions (formerly mislabeled as only theistic triangulation). The more frequently both parties used such strategies, the more both engaged in stonewalling and husbands were verbally aggressive. This study begins to corroborate Gardner et al.’s (Reference Gardner, Butler and Seedall2008) insightful descriptions of various strategies clinically-distressed couples use to triangulate (non)RS beliefs or God into their conflicts. Another strategy worth investigation is people privately praying to God as an ineffectual way to try to change or tolerate a partner’s dysfunctional behavior instead of directly confronting problems. Such RS processes may be especially toxic for distressed couples even if relatively rare in the general public.

Negative RS Coping

As a counterpart to positive RS coping, negative RS coping refers to ways that coping with major life stressors can trigger distressing RS thoughts and feelings about supernatural figures (e.g., anger toward God, feeling punished by the devil), religious groups (e.g., conflicts with co-believers), or one’s self (e.g., feeling morally conflicted), processes that are also increasingly referred to as “spiritual struggles” (Exline et al., Reference Exline, Pargament, Grubbs and Yali2014). A meta-analysis of thirty-two longitudinal studies clearly demonstrates that spiritual struggles lead to declines in individuals’ psychological adjustment (Bockrath et al., Reference Bockrath, Pargament, Wong, Harriott, Pomerleau, Homolka, Chaudhary and Exline2021). Initial efforts have extended this research to married couples. For example, married Canadian women, but not men, who reported more spiritual struggles in general also reported lower marital satisfaction (Tremblay et al., Reference Tremblay, Sabourin, Lessard and Normandin2002). For both Iranian men and women, this RS factor was uniquely tied to lower marital satisfaction after controlling sanctification and positive religious coping (Fallahchai et al., Reference Fallahchai, Fallahi, Moazenjami and Mahoney2021). In two intriguing studies of Iranian women seeking counseling after infidelity by their husbands, higher spiritual struggles were robustly tied to stronger desires to divorce (Hassannezhad et al., Reference Hassannezhad, Zolfaghari and Manouchehri2022; Khazaei & Babaie, Reference Khazaei and Babaie2022). Studies of divorce also vividly illustrate the relevance of negative religious coping with specific relationship problems, not just generally. For example, around 80 percent of adults who had recently divorced experienced spiritual struggles about the divorce internally, with God, and other people over the dissolution (Krumrei et al., Reference Krumrei, Mahoney and Pargament2011a), and higher levels longitudinally predicted their greater depressive and anxiety symptoms. Honing in on demonization, 48 percent viewed their divorce in least one of the following three ways: believed their ex-spouse was operating under demonic influences (43 percent), viewed themselves as under the control of demonic forces (31 percent), and demonized the divorce itself (36 percent). Greater anger and post-traumatic anxiety symptoms, such as intrusive negative thoughts and avoidance, covaried with all three forms of demonization (Krumrei et al., Reference Krumrei, Mahoney and Pargament2011b).

Summary of Harmful RS Factors and Romantic Unions

In summary, studies have begun to identify desecration/sacred loss, spiritual one-upmanship, and negative RS coping as examples of specific RS processes that undermine the well-being of romantic unions and/or partners. Although such toxic RS processes are less commonplace than adaptive RS processes, it is important to recognize that these and likely other specific maladaptive RS factors deserve attention by researchers and clinicians when trying to fully understand romantic relationships.