A great deal of publicity has been given to the fact that more adults in western societies are remaining single than in the past, and that rates of cohabitation are continuing to rise. In fact, some writers have gone so far as to extrapolate from these recent trends, and to conclude that marriage is becoming an unpopular and outdated institution. Nevertheless, studies show that most young people still see marriage and children as an important part of their future, and still view marriage as playing a crucial role in meeting their needs for companionship and emotional security.

Consistent with this viewpoint, Waite and Gallagher (2000) present empirical support for the proposition that there are several major advantages to marriage. First, married men and women tend to enjoy better mental and physical health than the unmarried. Second, married men and women are likely to have more assets and income than the unmarried, with marriage even being described as a “wealth-enhancing institution” (Hao, 1996). Third, married people have more and better sex than the unmarried. Fourth, children of married parents also enjoy a number of advantages, including better physical and mental health, and higher levels of education and career success.

The study of marriage has advanced significantly over the last two decades, with new theories and methodologies coming to the fore. In this book, we have assembled some of the most innovative and creative work in this area, and the studies represent a broad sample of the latest research. The contributions shed new light on the characteristics of couples' day-to-day interactions, together with their attempts to negotiate major problems and transitions.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The studies of marriage presented in this book come from a range of theoretical perspectives. This theoretical underpinning is a major strength, allowing researchers and clinicians to develop and test specific predictions about the nature of interaction processes and their effects on marital outcomes.

Attachment Theory

Attachment theory provides a guiding framework for the research by Simpson and his colleagues, and is also discussed in a number of other chapters. This theory highlights the importance of the bond between marital partners and the implications of earlier relationship experiences for the success of their couple relationships. This focus on intimate relationships as attachment relationships comes from the work of Hazan and Shaver (1987), who explored the relevance of attachment history and attachment security to adult romantic love. According to this perspective, attachment behavior is a normal part of romantic involvements, and these relationships play a central role in meeting partners' needs for comfort and security.

When researchers merely count the overall levels of communication behaviors, they may not capture the intricacies of couple interaction (Hooley & Hahlweg, 1989; Sayers & Baucom, 1991; Weiss1989). To study the complexity of couple interaction, it is necessary to examine how an action by partner A affects partner B, how B consequently acts, and how partner B's actions then affect partner A, and so on (Margolin, 1988b). Subtle differences in the communication patterns of couples in violent compared with nonviolent relationships may only emerge when behaviors or emotions are analyzed in terms of their sequencing, rather than in terms of their overall levels or frequencies.

In this study, the communication patterns of couples in violent and nonviolent relationships are compared. However, rather than investigating the overall levels of anxiety/arousal experienced by couples, or the overall levels of behaviors and emotions displayed by couples, the temporal associations between these various aspects of couple communication are examined. The study is clearly multimethod, and involves the assessment of physiological measures, insider ratings of anxiety, and outsider ratings of communication behavior.

Power is a critical concept in marital relationships, relevant to issues such as decision making, task allocation, and conflict resolution. Although some marriages are relatively equal in terms of power (Schwartz 1995), other marriages can be ongoing struggles for power and dominance. Power can be expressed in a variety of ways and many arguments in marriage are really about who has the power to exert influence and make decisions. Power can also be expressed in more indirect ways such as refusing to discuss an issue or engaging in manipulative behavior. Withdrawing from conflict, in particular, may stem from a desire to exert control by maintaining the status quo.

Although the demand/withdraw pattern of conflict interaction has recently come to prominence in the work of Christensen and his colleagues, it actually has a long history. For example, Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967 discussed a pattern of marital interaction involving a conflict-avoidant person (usually the male), and his partner who is frustrated by the avoidance and demands that the problem be confronted. Consistent with this focus in the therapy literature, Eldridge and Christensen present evidence that the demand/withdraw pattern is associated with relationship dissatisfaction, although the direction of causality is still not fully understood.

As Christensen and Eldridge discuss, a number of explanations for the demand/withdraw pattern have been proposed. These explanations focus on gender differences in the experience and expression of emotion, individual differences in personality and in desires for intimacy, discrepancies in power and status favoring men, and the specific structure of the conflict topic (that is, which partner is seeking change).

The following is an extract of a conversation between an elderly man and his wife who was caring for him:

As this extract demonstrates, communication is an important, but sometimes difficult, part of care giving. Family care giving for older people has received much attention in the literature, especially from the perspective of the caregiver. Interestingly, only a limited number of studies have examined the interactional processes of care (for example, Phillips, Morrison, Steffl, Chae, Cromwell, & Russell, 1995). Studies that have examined these issues have shown that, in terms of well-being and quality of relationships, the outcomes of care giving may be just as “negative” for older care recipients as for their carers; further, communication is an important aspect of these relationships.

Although there has been a long history of researchers focusing on conflict in marital relationships, the area of study known as the “dark side of relationships” has been a more recent development. This area tends to focus on a number of relatively neglected behaviors and emotions, such as disappointment, rejection, neglect, betrayal, and infidelity. The dynamics associated with these kinds of relationship events are likely to be very complex; different kinds of responses from one partner may have very different effects on the emotions experienced by the other partner, and on the future of the relationship.

We all enter relationships with expectations about how partners should treat us, and about how we should benefit from being in the relationship. These expectations and standards guide our evaluations of our relationships. In all relationships, however, there are occasions when these standards are not met. How we respond to such occasions will inevitably have an impact on our satisfaction with our relationships.

Vangelisti and Alexander present an inductive analysis of responses to disappointment in marriage. This analysis highlights the wide variety of possible responses to unmet standards, including such diverse coping strategies as anger, self-disparagement, getting even, ignoring the event, trying to revitalize the relationship, believing the partner will change, and seeking intervention from a third party. The authors describe how these strategies differ in terms of five important dimensions: expression versus suppression of distress, focusing on the self versus the partner, recognition of the unmet standard versus rationalization, relationship versus network as the locus for action, and constructive versus destructive outcomes.

One feature of the study of marital relationships over the past 20 years has been a focus, not just on couple behaviors, but on the cognitive processes that may drive those behaviors. A wide range of cognitive processes have been studied including appraisals, attributions, beliefs, standards, expectations, rules, perceptions of intention, and subjective interpretations of ongoing interaction. (Some of these cognitive processes are discussed further in the section on coping with disappointment, criticism, and betrayal.) These cognitive processes can be even more powerful than observed behaviors in discriminating between satisfied and dissatisfied couples. The chapters in this section illustrate something of this diversity of cognitive processes and their impact on marital relationships.

Although attributions have been frequently studied by marital researchers, a novel aspect of Manusov's work is its exploration of couples' attributions for their partner's nonverbal behavior, and the effect of these attributions on their own nonverbal behavior. As she notes, one of the intriguing aspects of nonverbal communication is its ability to be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Spouses' interpretations of their partner's nonverbal communication are likely to be affected by many factors including their level of relationship satisfaction. An inno-vative feature of Manusov's work is the recruitment of one member of each couple to act as a confederate who is instructed to use particular kinds of nonverbal behavior in structured interactions with their spouse. This approach ensures that clear examples of positive and neg-ative behavior are displayed by couples, irrespective of marital satis-faction.

Recent decades have seen marked changes in attitudes toward gender roles and in women's involvement in the labor force. Given these changes, it might seem reasonable to assume that families establish much more equitable patterns of domestic work today than they did in the past. Evidence suggests, however, that this is not the case. With the transition to parenthood, in particular, couples often move toward a traditional division of labor, in which women do the bulk of the child care and other household tasks; further, partners do not necessarily see this situation as “unfair.” In fact, perceptions of unfairness are only weakly linked to patterns of task performance, and seem to be shaped by many aspects of individual and couple functioning.