Ever-Single Heterosexual Couples in Nonmarital Cohabitation: Spirituality, Connectedness, and Adjustment

Abstract

This article reports a study on the effectiveness of WhatsApp-based spiritual posts in promoting connectedness and adjustment among ever-single heterosexual couples in nonmarital cohabitation in four global cities. In comparison with trivia posts, the spiritual posts had greater impact and were more effective for Christian couples, middle class, highly qualified, and professionals-salaried cohabitants. This was in comparison with Hindu–Buddhist–Sikh dyads, upper class, with college degree, and entrepreneurs. However, cohabitation duration, initial cohabitation experience with other partners, having children/cohabitation dependents, and near future marriage plans were not significant predictors. Gender also did not significantly moderate spiritual intervention responses as proposed in the previous research. Couple intervention outcomes were mutually interdependent and intervention compliance in terms of number of posts read and do-it-yourself exercises posted were robust predictors of intervention success. With some subgroup-specific refinements, WhatsApp-based spiritual posts would be an effective spiritually sensitive social work intervention for improving relationship quality of nonmarital cohabitants.