The heavy emphasis on dyadic process that typified marital research in the past is giving way to studies that examine marital interaction in relation to characteristics of individual spouses. Promising findings are emerging, for example, in studies linking marital processes to attachment (for example, Carnelley, Pietromonaco, & Jaffe, 1996 Collins & Feeney, 2000), personality (for example, Karney & Bradbury, 1997), and divorce in spouses' families of origin (for example, Amato, 1996). However, the interaction between the various intrapersonal and interpersonal factors relevant to marriage is complex, and the specific pathways leading to marital dysfunction remain unclear. In this chapter, we discuss the ways in which an applied emphasis may help to sharpen this focus, and we examine the implications of premarital interventions for basic research.

The last 30 years have witnessed an explosion of research on marriage and marital dysfunction. Building on seminal cross-sectional studies contrasting happy couples with distressed couples (for reviews see Bradbury & Fincham, 1987, 1989), one central question has begun to guide the course of marital research: How do marriages change? In contrast to the earlier cross-sectional literature, a large proportion of current marital research seeks to explain how couples can begin their marriages with high levels of satisfaction and then, with surprising regularity, grow to become unhappy in a relatively short period of time. Examining the factors associated with shifts in marital satisfaction is a pragmatic and direct approach to address the problem of marital discord and divorce, and this line of research holds great promise. However, in this chapter we adopt the view that looking at deterioration of marital satisfaction over time is only one facet of understanding change. We believe that relationships can undergo shifts in their basic nature without necessarily demonstrating corresponding changes in satisfaction and that relationships can even experience improvements in satisfaction over time. Focusing too exclusively on deterioration of satisfaction over time precludes the study of these processes. In an effort to expand the focus in this domain, we review previous research within a framework that views change in relationships as a multifaceted process. This will allow us to clarify the strengths and limitations of previous work and to highlight a number of new directions for research.

The longitudinal literature on marriage, which consists of 115 studies, some 68 independent samples, and more than 45,000 marriages (Karney & Bradbury, 1995a), provides many important clues about how marriages succeed and fail, but it also contains many valuable lessons about how research in this domain can be improved. For example, whereas replicable associations between various marital processes and marital outcomes are beginning to emerge, conceptual frameworks for evaluating and integrating these findings remain to be developed. Whereas extensive progress has been made in assessing key independent variables, a number of methodological factors – such as specifying the samples and the dependent variables that are maximally informative for clarifying how marriages change – await further refinement. And whereas this literature already holds considerable promise for understanding and preventing marital dysfunction, its limitations have undermined its impact, and much of its promise therefore remains unfulfilled. Thus, despite its size and scope, this body of research has been overlooked (e.g., Hinde, 1995, p. 3, notes that longitudinal studies are “sadly neglected except in cases of parent–child relationships and studies of the effects of therapy or social support”) and underestimated (e.g., Gottman & Levenson, 1992, p. 221, note that “we know of only four prospective longitudinal studies that have attempted to predict future separation and divorce”).

Sociodemographic facts such as the ones just cited have become well known to the public and are cited frequently by social scientists as justification for studying marriage. Since the 1970s scholars from a number of disciplines, building on the pioneering work of sociologists, have focused their attention on the diverse and complex phenomena associated with marriage – most commonly on the question of what makes marriages satisfying and stable – and their efforts have precipitated many important conceptual, methodological, and empirical advances. This work has gone through three fundamental transitions, and each has served to shape how marriage is conceived and examined.

The First and Second Transitions: Studying Interpersonal and Intrapersońal Facets of Marriage

In the first transition, which began more than two decades ago, many family scientists rejected the prevailing views that (a) marriage could be understood by studying individual spouses rather than their relationship; and (b) spouses' self-reports, when collected in the absence of other forms of data, were particularly informative.

In the back of every marital therapist's mind there is – or should be! – a gnawing doubt about values. As a professional, how does one know that a given marriage is “missing” something important? Clearly, therapists need to be informed about theories of adult intimacy. Familiarity with the myriad of piecemeal, cross-sectional studies showing this or that something about “basic” processes is also a good idea, albeit practically rather difficult. Over the years in my clinical work I have taken it as axiomatic that successful couples must achieve something unique to themselves and that they must be active! As a marital therapy supervisor, I confess to getting bored when a couple is boring, and I get even more bored when marital therapists allow their sessions to become boring. Isn't that just my own limited attention span masquerading as a “defining property” of all good marriages?

It was with unbridled glee that I read about “zest” – one of the variables Joseph Veroff, Elizabeth Douvan, Terri Orbuch, and Linda Acitelli included in their study of marital happiness in stable marriages in Chapter 5. I now feel less self-conscious insisting that spouses in good marriages should be active. “Zest!” That's my kind of construct.