A Typological Approach to Enduring Relationships: Children as Audience to the Parental Relationship

Abstract

Married couples, using the Relational Dimensions Instrument, can reliably and unambiguously classify their relationships into one of three basic types: Traditional, Independent or Separate. These types differ in their levels of interdependence, the ideological bases for their relationships as well as their typical communication patterns. The purpose of this investigation was to see if the perceptions of college-age young adults concerning the marriages of their parents also fell into one of the three categories. The results indicated that these respondents did perceive the same three basic relational types. The majority perceived their parents as having an Independent relationship. Additionally, they perceived the Independent relationship as the best they could hope to achieve for themselves. When asked to rate the desirability of the relational types, the respondents indicated that the Traditional relationship was the most preferable and the Separate relationship, the least preferabie of the types.