Chapter 9, Marriage, A Private and Public Relationship

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Chapter 9, Marriage, A Private and Public
Relationship

• Marriage and Kinship
• Five Marriage Relationships
• The Marriage Premise
• Same-Sex Couples and Legal Marriage
• Marital Satisfaction and Choices
• Static Versus Flexible Marriages
• Contracting for Flexibility- A Contradiction?

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Types of Couple Relationships

• Balanced - partners have a balanced focus on
  themselves, each other, and outside interests.
• Couple-centered - couple is more romantically
  fused, focused mainly on their relationship.
• Family-centered - shared interest is a family
  interest such as parenting or extended family.

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Types of Couple Relationships

• Loose connection - partners focus mainly on their
  separate hobbies, careers or friends.
• Dependency distancing couples - one partner
  focuses on the marriage the other puts more
  energy outside the relationship.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• Five representative relationships based on
  extensive interviews and research.
• The relationships differ according to how the
  spouses feel about marriage.
• Research has found these types among cohabitants
  as well as married partners.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• 1. Conflict-Habituated
• Considerable tension and unresolved conflict.
• Spouses often nag and quarrel.
• For some, this kind of marriage fulfills a need
  for conflict.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• 2. Devitalized
• Relationship has lost intimacy and meaning.
• Partners spend little time together, enjoy sex
  less and dont share interests.
• More of these relationships end in divorce than
  they did in the past.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• 3. Passive-Congenial
• Emphasize professional responsibilities,
  children, property and reputation.
• Partners focus on the sensibleness of their
  decision to marry.
• Less likely to end in divorce because there are
  no unrealistic expectations.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• 4. Vital
• Partners enjoy being together.
• Conflict centers on real issues and disagreements
  are settled quickly.
• Sex is important and pleasurable.
• A minority of marriages.

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Five Marriage Relationships

• 5. Total
• Spouses share home life, work, friends and
  leisure activities.
• Vulnerable to rapid disintegration if marital
  quality changes.
• Mutual dependency makes it difficult to adjust in
  case of death or divorce.

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Important Marriage Facts

• Marriage is different from other sexual
  relationships in many ways.
• Partners expect marriage to offer intimacy
  companionship and emotional support.
• Marriage involves more responsibility than other
  sexual relationships.

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The Marriage Premise

• Expectation of Permanence - Wanting to stay
  married and feeling morally obligated to stay
  married.
• Expectation of Primariness- Includes expectation
  of sexual exclusivity.

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Extramarital Sex

• 1/4 of all husbands and 15 of wives report
  having had at least one affair.
• 37 of men in their 50s report having had at
  least one affair.
• Women are more likely to have an affair if their
  marriage is emotionally distant.
• Men have affairs for sexual variety.

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Factors in Extramarital Affairs

1. Opportunity
2. Willingness to take advantage of the opportunity.
3. Expectations for satisfaction.
4. Likelihood of the affair being discovered.

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Recovering from An Affair

• Offending spouse apologizes sincerely without
  defending the behavior.
• Offending spouse needs to allow and hear the
  anger and rage of the offended partner.
• Offending spouse needs to allow trust to rebuild
  gradually (possibly 2 years or longer).

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Recovering from An Affair

• Offending spouse needs to do things to regain
  trust.
• Offended spouse needs to decide whether to stay
  committed to the marriage and if so to let go of
  resentments.
• Couple must consider marriage counseling.