Marital Failure Research Articles

Deliberate self-poisoning in childhood and early adolescence.

One hundred children under 16 yrs of age, who were admitted to hospital following an episode of deliberate self-poisoning, were compared with 50 psychiatric, non-suicidal controls, proportionally matched for age and sex. The self-poisoners showed more delinquency, school problems, previous self-poisoning, running away, and previous experience of "Care" than did the psychiatric controls. Their families showed more evidence of marital failure, previous psychiatric disorder, self-poisoning, and delinquency, than was present in control families. Their presentation was often acute, though usually within the setting of long-term, chronic difficulties, and emphasises the need for skilled and careful assessment.

Gender identity and gender transposition: longitudinal outcome study of 24 male hermaphrodites assigned as boys.

The longitudinal case histories of 24 male-assigned male hermaphrodites aged 18 or older were indexed and abstracted for the presence or absence of variables related to gender transposition, namely, bisexualism, homosexuality, or sex reassignment to live as a female. The sample was biased in favor of cases (N = 20) not showing signs of gender transposition. In these cases, there was no gender transposition even if the following variables were in evidence; neonatal ambivalence in announcing the sex; cosmetic inadequacy of masculine genital appearance; sitting posture for urination; and feminizing (N = 9) instead of virilizing (N = 11) puberty. Despite the small size of the minority subsample (N = 4), it showed a trend toward an association between gender transposition and sitting to urinate, and being stigmatized in childhood. This trend is consistent with the association between stigmatization and gender transposition found in a counterpart study of male hermaphrodites announced and reared as girls. Freedom from gender transposition did not prevent suicidal depression, drug or alcohol addiction, marital failure, or death from testicular cancer.

The Dynamics of Marital Interaction and Marital Conflict

The author provides information and sets up a theoretical framework for pursuing answers to the questions that most occupy the clinician concerned with marital relationships: On what psychological basis does mate selection occur? What determines the psychological nature of a marriage? What makes for marital harmony and what makes for marital conflict? What intrapsychic and interpersonal factors contribute to marital success or to marital failure, and to marital durability?

Sexuality and pregnancy: a review.

Marital success and failure may be related to sexual satisfaction, including orgasmic capability. Pregnancy represents a life crisis to the pregnant woman and her husband. Complex psychosocial and physiological demands may produce insecurities, anxieties, and somatic complaints. The expectant mother may seek to fulfill increasing nurturant needs through increased physical contact such as cuddling or being held. A pregnant woman's interest in sexual activity may be affected by her changing physical appearance and the hormonal milieu of pregnancy. Although there are marked individual variations and methodological biases and differences among empirical studies, pregnancy appears to be usually accompanied by a decrease in sexual desire, coital frequency, and orgasm. Sexual behavior in pregnancy has been traditionally restricted and is currently poorly defined. Sexual proscriptions may precipitate sexual frustration and marital estrangement. Abortion is only rarely caused by coitus. The relationship of coitus and orgasm to prematurity and distress of the fetus and newborn has not been clearly established. Coitus can indirectly result in maternal, fetal, and neonatal morbidity and mortality through the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Deaths from air embolism in pregnancy associated with cunnilingus and vaginal insufflation have been reported.

Longitudinal study of marital success and failure.

Longitudinal study of marital success and failure.

Marital Intimacy and the Deadly Love‐Anger Cycle

The view is advanced that the fundamental cause of marital failure in our time is the inability to resolve the anger which is inevitably generated in an intimate relationship. The nature of anger, its impact on a love relationship, and its constructive management in marriage are examined. The concept of training couples in “marital fighting” is rejected in favor of a three‐step procedure which the author has tested out in his own marriage, and taught to other couples, with very satisfactory results.

Education and preparation for marriage: New approaches

The crisis in marriage suggests a need to move from a remedial to a preventive approach in dealing with marital failure. The profound change marriage is undergoing indicates a transition from a hierarchical, institutional form to the companionship form described by Burgess thirty years ago. The new style is difficult and requires special preparation. A shift from the knowledge-oriented approaches to marriage preparation characteristic of previous efforts is desirable. Primary attention should be given to personal and interpersonal dynamics and the facilitation of behavior change. Five procedures are described to facilitate the realization of this goal.

Petting experience and marital success: A review and statement

The foregoing title conveys to both the layman and scientist several possible ideas as to the relationship between petting and marital success or failure. These are that premarital petting: (1) is somehow related to marital success or failure, (2) if absent, minimal or extensive in the life history of a person is predictive of marital success or failure, (3) in its relationship to marital happiness (or failure) has been researched to some extent.

Bipolar depression--a comparative study of patient characteristics.

The authors report their comparison of socioenvironmental, familial, and genetic characteristics in matched groups of bipolar (manic-depressive) and unipolar patients. While affective illness was present in a majority of the families of both groups, bipolar illness appeared only in the families of bipolar patients, suggesting a familial or genetic source for this disease. Parental deprivation and marital failure rates were significantly higher in the bipolar group.

The Family as a Three-Person Group

(for those rating their parents' marriage average to unhappy).7 The mean score then rises to 5.24 for the women with divorced parents and this does not differ significantly from the mean scores of those who rate their parents' marriage ''very happy or happy. The relatively high mean score of women whose parents are divorced reflects the fact that a considerable proportion of the women in this group have scores near the upper limit of the scale. Thirty-four per cent score 7, 8, or 9. This contrasts sharply with the 2.7 per cent of the men having divorced parents who secure such high scores. The finding of a sex difference in the pattern of association between parental happiness and favorableness of attitude to marriage must be regarded as tentative, because of the rather small number of men and women with divorced parents in the present study. Assuming, however, that the finding is sustained by subsequent research what explanation can be advanced for it? The problem essentially is why, unlike the men subjects, a substantial proportion of the women with divorced parents confidently anticipate marriage as a source of happiness and satisfaction. One solution to the problem can be derived from the assumption that women to a greater extent than men look upon marriage as the essential framework of their adult life. Insofar as this is true it might be argued that, when led to take a dim view of marriage because of the decisive failure of their parents' matrimonial venture, men have greater tolerance than women for their pessimistic outlook. Generally speaking, the pessimism of the men relates to what they consider only a part of their future life; that of the women relates to what they consider their entire existence. The latter consequently are more highly motivated to reject the conception of marriage given to them by the experience of their parents. Some may even be convinced that having learned much from the marital failure of their parents they can look forward with all the greater certainty to marital happiness for themselves. 7 CR of the difference between the means (a) for the categories average to unhappy and 4.31; (b) for the categories average to unhappy and very happy, 7.17; (c) for the categories average to unhappy and divorced, 2.64; (d) for the categories very happy and 1.79.

Marital Happiness of Parents and Their Children's Attitude to Marriage

PERSONS reared in present day urban America are exposed to a number of experiences which contribute to their conception of marriage, and influence their evaluation of marriage as a relatively desirable or undesirable status for themselves. Most of these experiences are vicarious: exposure to the representations of marriage in print, movies, the radio and television. Less vicarious is the learning of the risks of marital failure as epitomized by the divorce rate. But marriage is also very directly depicted and defined for the young by the marital relationship of their parents. It is in the home that they first and most continuously encounter marriage, not as a fiction or concept but as embodied in the behavior of their fathers and mothers with and toward one another. Apart from the picture of marriage which the child may build out of inferences from the parents' behavior one or both parents may wittingly attempt to indoctrinate the child with a conception of marriage as one of the great joys of adulthood or as a status to be warily approached if not altogether avoided. For the majority of the young, one of the probable major effects of their vicarious learning about marriage is that it is made to appear a highly attractive and desirable status. (And they lived happily ever after.) If this evaluation is not materially influenced by knowledge of the divorce rate it is still subject to some reality testing in that the child has intimate knowledge of the union of his parents, if of no other adults. To the extent that marriage as thus directly known is perceived as a highly satisfying experience the vicariously assimilated conception is reinforced or at least not contradicted. But insofar as the relationship of his parents is seen by the child as fraught with conflict and unhappiness his conception of marriage as a desirable goal may be challenged and his enthusiasm for marriage diminished.' Favorableness of attitude to marriage is a variable of theoretical interest for a number of reasons. It may be important in accounting for individual differences in age at marriage. It may be associated with individual differences and sex differences in patterns of courtship and mate selection. And it may be related to marital success. If, as hypothesized above, favorableness of attitude to marriage varies with parental happiness, the former may be one of the intervening variables in the oft-noted correla-tion between the marital happiness of parents and that of their offspring. The research reported below was concerned with testing the hypothesis of a positive association between the marital success of parents and the favorableness of their children's attitude to marriage. Since data were secured from men and women subjects it was also possible to test the widely-held assumption that in our society the unmarried female views marriage more favorably than does the male.