Marital Tensions Research Articles

Psychosocial Impacts of Infertility among Omani Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: A Qualitative Study.

To understand the psychosocial experience of infertility among women with polycystic ovarian syndrome in Oman. In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Omani women diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and infertility across two fertility clinics, in Muscat-Oman. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed analysed verbatim and qualitatively using the framework approach. Four main themes emerged from participants' interviews related to the cultural aspects around infertility, the impact of infertility on participants' emotions, the effects of infertility on couples' relationship and self-management strategies for dealing with infertility. Culturally, women are expected to conceive soon after marriage, and most participants were blamed for the delay rather than their husbands. Participants experienced psychosocial pressure to bear children, mainly from in laws, where some admitted that their husbands' family suggested they remarried for having children. The majority of women mentioned being emotionally supported by their partners; however marital tensions in the form of negative emotions and threats of divorce were apparent in couples that had been experiencing infertility for longer time. Women were emotionally feeling lonely, jealous and inferior to other women with children and concerned that they would not have children to look after them in older age. Although women who had experienced infertility for a greater duration seemed to become more resilient and cope better, other participants described how they were using different strategies to cope with infertility including taking up new activities; whereas others admitted moving out from their in laws' house or avoiding social gatherings where the topic of children was likely to come up. Omani women with PCOS and infertility experience significant psychosocial challenges given the high value placed on fertility within the culture as a result they seem to adapt a variety of coping strategies. Health care providers may consider offering emotional support during consultations.

One by One, the Stars

One by One, the Stars

Parents in couple therapy: An intervention targeting marital and coparenting relationships.

This article describes the treatment framework and core therapeutic principles of the integrative brief systemic intervention (IBSI), a manualized six‐session intervention intended for parents seeking couple therapy. IBSI aims to work on the couple's presenting problem, considering its specific impact in the marital and coparenting domains. The basic premise of IBSI is to consider that, when working with couples who have children, therapeutic work on their coparenting alliance may be used as a lever, as both parents may be particularly motivated to improve their relationship for their children's benefit. Increasing the coparenting alliance may then facilitate work on deeper conflicts within the marital relationship. The core therapeutic principles of IBSI are: (1) joining with the couple as romantic partners and a coparenting team from the start of the therapeutic process; (2) supporting the parents in increasing their awareness regarding their children's behavior and emotional experiences when facing their parents’ conflicts; and (3) working on the spill‐ and cross‐over effects between marital and coparenting relationships (i.e., exploring how conflict or positivity spills over from one relationship to the other or crosses over from one partner to the other). Therapeutic work following these main therapeutic principles is expected to improve the quality of both relationships. A clinical case is provided to illustrate the core therapeutic principles of IBSI.

Workers' Stress During the First Lockdown: Consequences on Job Performance Analyzed With a Mediation Model.

Objective:This study sheds light on the pathways leading to an increase in workers stress levels and the resulting effects on job performance during a pandemic.Methods:Path analyses were conducted on a sample of 459 Canadian workers using MPlus software. These analyses allowed us to determine whether the association between potential stressors during lockdown and job performance was mediated by workers’ stress.Results:The results revealed four significant indirect associations. Work–life balance dissatisfaction, gender (women), and marital tensions were indirectly associated with lower job performance because of their positive associations with stress. Teleworking was associated with higher job performance because of its negative association with stress.Conclusions:The results suggest that specific stressors are worth targeting with interventions to ensure job performance.

From Professionals to Professional Mothers: How College-educated Married Mothers Experience Unemployment in the US

Unemployment influences life experiences and outcomes, but how it does so may be shaped by gender and parenthood. Because research on unemployment focuses on men’s experiences of unemployment, it presents as universal a process that may be gendered. This article asks: how do college-educated, heterosexual, married mothers experience involuntary unemployment? Drawing on in-depth interviews with unemployed mothers in the US, their husbands, and follow-up interviews, this article finds that the experience of job loss is tempered for mothers as they derive a culturally valued identity from motherhood which also anchors their lives. Husbands’ support emphasises that employment is one of several options mothers can pursue. Couples pivot attention to husbands’ careers as they worry about finances, often resulting in marital tensions. Using mothers’ unemployment as a case, this study demonstrates that unemployment has more divergent implications depending on gender and parenthood than prior theories suggest.

Women’s economic empowerment and health related decision-making in rural Sierra Leone

Maternal mortality rates during childbirth in Sierra Leone are amongst the highest globally, with 1360 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Furthermore, the country’s neonatal mortality rate is estimated at 39 deaths per 1000 live births. There is growing recognition of the health consequences of gender inequality, but challenges in addressing it. Gendered power dynamics within households affect health outcomes, with men often controlling decisions about their family’s health, including their family’s use of health services. The Government’s Free Health Care Initiative, which abolished user fees for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five is promising, however this reform alone is insufficient to meet health goals. Using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with men and women, this study explores women’s economic empowerment and health decision-making in rural Sierra Leone. Findings show the concept of power related to women’s income generation, financial independence and being listened to in social relationships. Whilst women’s economic empowerment was reported to ease marital tensions, men remained household authority figures, including regarding health decision-making. Economic interventions play an important role in supporting women’s economic empowerment and in influencing gender norms, but men’s roles and women’s social empowerment, alongside economic empowerment, needs consideration.

Extramarital relationships in the Vietnamese migrant community in Laos: reasserting patriarchal ideologies and double standards

Undocumented migration from Central Vietnam to Laos stretches Vietnamese families and generates marital tensions and social anxieties around the extramarital relationships that migrant husbands establish with vợ hầu (second wives), an emic term that encompasses mistresses and more stable partners. This paper sheds light on these processes via an ethnographic study on how migration from Central Vietnam to Savannakhet – a town located in Central Laos bordering Thailand – shapes family formation, marital relationships and double standards in gender and sexuality. It argues that husbands and first and second wives manage these issues by preserving family integrity, negotiating extramarital relationships and retreating from marriage. These strategies are shaped by and constitutive of normative double standards that families refer to, reinforce and in some cases transcend to make sense of the marital challenges and disruptions caused by dislocation, translocality and the intrusion of second wives in their marriages. Overall, the study emphasises that families remain committed to a domestic division of labour and to the institutions of marriage and family, albeit with some adjustments. This argument resonates with broader discussions about migration, gender and sexuality in Vietnam.

Infertility, Psychological Distress, and Coping Strategies among Women in Mali, West Africa: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Relatively little is known about infertility and its consequences in Mali, West Africa where the context and culture are different from those of previously studied settings. This study therefore aimed to specifically examine infertility induced psychological distress and coping strategies among women in Mali. A convergent mixed-methods design-correlational cross-sectional and qualitative descriptive-guided the study. Fifty-eight infertile Malian women participated: 52 completed the Psychological Evaluation Test specific for infertility and a question on general health status, and 26 were interviewed in-depth. Over 20% scored above the cut-off point for psychological distress, and 48% described their general health as poor. There was no significant difference between women with primary vs. secondary infertility. The study found that infertile women lived with marital tensions, criticism from relatives, and stigmatization from the community. They experienced sadness, loneliness, and social deprivation. Coping strategies included traditional and biomedical treatments, religious faith and practices, and self-isolation. Health care professionals should provide holistic care for infertile women to meet their physical, spiritual, psychological, and social needs.

The Emotional Toll of Long-Term Unemployment: Examining the Interaction Effects of Gender and Marital Status

Prior research shows that long-term unemployment (LTU) generates a negative emotional toll but leaves unexplored how such toll varies by gender and marital status. Using a mixed-methods approach we examine how the negative emotional toll of LTU is shaped by the interaction of gender and marital status. Our qualitative findings suggest that more unemployed married men than women experience marital tensions that exacerbate the emotional toll of unemployment. Our analysis of survey data show that while marriages improve the well-being of both unemployed men and women, for married men but not women such benefits disappear once we control for household income. These findings contribute to the existing literature by deepening our understanding of how gender and marital status mediate the emotional toll of LTU.

Work–life balance: how can we help women IT professionals in Morocco?

Purpose The present study aims to understand how Moroccan women working in information technology (IT) perceive the roles they fulfill in both their private and professional lives and assess their Work–life balance (WLB). Design/methodology/approach Existing research about WLB in Morocco focuses mainly on the public sector. As the present study is the first of its kind to deal with the private sector and more specifically IT, it is exploratory in nature while adopting a qualitative methodology. Twenty Moroccan women working in IT companies in the city of Casablanca were interviewed. Collected data were analyzed using a content analysis approach. Findings It emerged from the data analysis that adhering to the cultural assumption of being the pillar of the household and to the culture of respondents’ organizations seems to be a key factor in employee WLB. Three main recommendations stemmed from the current research, namely, increased maternity leave duration, workplace nurseries and telework, may help IT female employees improve their WLB and well-being. Research limitations/implications First, the study participants were selected by one individual, which may create a “sampling bias”, where one specific profile of IT specialist could be selected. Second, only IT workers took part in the study and no IT employers were interviewed, which may yield having only “one side of the story”. Practical implications The results that emerged from the current study, particularly the three main recommendations made by the 20 interviewees (increase of maternity leave duration, workplace nurseries and telework) may be used by different IT companies in the hopes of improving female employees’ WLB and well-being. Overall, employers ought to put in place measures and accommodate employees to help them reconcile their work and personal life commitments. Social implications It has been documented that lack of WLB can result in increased stress, deleterious effects on psychological and physical well-being and increased family and marital tensions (Burchell et al., 2001; Lewis and Cooper, 1999; Scase and Scales, 1998). Therefore, various stakeholders, in addition to employers, such as the government and IT employees’ families should work collaboratively to implement meaningful WLB arrangements and, in turn, prevent the negative effects of work–life imbalance through, among others, government policy interventions. Originality/value The present study is the first of its kind that looked into the perception of WLB among Moroccan women operating in the IT industry. It offers valuable insights about how to assist female Moroccan IT workers to reconcile their work and personal life commitments.

WHAT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MARITAL CONFLICT AND PARENTING QUALITY? EVIDENCE FROM PARENT’S GENDER IN SPILLOVER EFFECTS

The spillover hypothesis posits that negative emotions and behavioral patterns in marital conflicts influence parenting quality and children’s adjustment, through increasing of harsh and incoherent discipline and diminished involvement and affection. Moreover conflicts focused on childrearing issues are particularly distressing for children with often show emotional and behavioral problems. The aim of the study was to explore gender differences in the links between marital conflicts (destructive and constructive tactics, childrearing disagreement) and parent-child relationships, in order to verify if there are different pathways for fathers and mothers in spillover effects. Method. 110 parents (children aged 6-12 years) completed the Styles of Conflict Scale (marital conflict style), the Parent Problem Checklist (disagreements about childrearing), the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (parenting practices), and the Parenting Stress Index. Results. The links between conflict tactics and parenting practices change in function of parent’s gender. Mothers refer more frequent childrearing disagreements and increasing in punishment; furthermore - in line with the spillover hypothesis - attack and violence tactics are associated negatively with positive parenting (involvement and warmth). For fathers compromise, avoidance and attack correlate positively with effective parenting (more involvement, affection and consistency disciplinary). Conclusions. A spillover effect, that is, an extension of marital tensions in the relationship with their children with reduced quality of parenting, seems to manifest only for women. These findings, if confirmed by other studies, would be relevant from an clinical point of view to understand how paternal and maternal parenting mediate the effects of the marital disharmony on children’s adjustment.

Effect of combined psycho-physiological stretching and breathing therapy on sexual satisfaction

BackgroundDuring the last few decades, marital tensions and stresses have influenced various dimensions of life. The objective of the current study was to examine the effects of combined psycho-physiological therapy (stretching therapy combined with breathing exercise) on sexual satisfaction among heterosexual men.MethodsFor this research, we used “convenience sampling” to select 80 males, who were then split equally into two groups, the intervention group and the control group, both groups containing men who had voiced a desire to be in the experimental group. For collection of data, we used an identical quasi-experimental design called the “nonequivalent control group.” Therapy sessions, each lasting 90 to 120 min, were carried out on the same 3 days of the week (Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) for a total of 20 sessions. The volunteers were selected from heterosexual men with stable relationships, who had been married a minimum of 6 months and were ages 20 to 55 years of age. Pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests were conducted in a clinic at the Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM [1] ). For assessment, we used the sexual satisfaction subscale of the ENRICH [2] questionnaire.ResultsThe intervention group had better post-test scores than the control group. Also, follow-up test scores for the intervention group were marginally better than those for the control group, but the difference did not reach statistical significance.ConclusionsCombined psycho-physiological therapy including stretching and breathing exercise leads to improved sexual satisfaction.

Cutthroat Compositions

Cutthroat Compositions Lavinia Ludlow (bio) Knuckleheads. Jeff Kass. Dzanc Books. http://www.dzancbooks.org. 250 pages; paper, $16.95, eBook, $7.99. Jeff Kass has packed a ton of literary meat and wit into his articulate collection of short stories, Knuckleheads. It's filled with charming tales which ping-pong between adolescence and adulthood: shattered dreams, immature dick-swinging contests, unbridled testosterone, flash to stolen Pop-Tarts, middle-aged dick-swinging contests, and the ever universal sexual frustration. Kass opens with a story titled "Don't Mess," which provides a glimpse into the life of a teen wrestler, a seed, and the grittiness of cutthroat competition dusted with a Little Girls in Pretty Boxes (1997) essence. There were rivalries, peer pressure, duress to perform, to slim down, all in the name of the sport. Tough enough, too, to be named top seed at 138 lbs. in the Peru Tournament in Plattsburgh, a cold farmtown with a locker room so cold we could see our breath when we stripped to our boxers and weighed in on an enormous cattle scale. We were a handful of miles from the Canadian border and we were freezing. We wanted to hurt people and get back on the bus and get the fuck home. In a separate story called "Scramble," Kass toasted to being young and impressionable in a near Hairstyles of the Damned-like manner: I looked like a potato an angry infant had jabbed toothpicks into for arms and legs.... Horrible qualities for anybody, but excruciating for a kid so consistently horny, he walked around with a boner three or four times each hour. I had nowhere to put that boner, no idea at all what to do with it, and its nagging presence distracted and embarrassed me. Sometimes, I forget how hard it is to be a kid. Hands-down my favorite piece was "Parent-Teacher Conference," a story which depicted forgotten conflict merging with new conflict, or vice versa. It's a tale about a childhood nemesis who once bashed in the narrator's head with a baseball, flash to adulthood where the misbehaviors of this nemesis' offspring thrusts the two of them into a passive-aggressive reunion: The problem's that he sports the same smirk you did on the pitcher's mound. The problem's that on hot afternoons when I'm walking across baseball fields, the left side of my head still throbs. The problem is I lost my lucky bat, turned to wrestling, and years later wanted your son to try and punch me so I could kill him. Initially, I was under the impression that this guy, in the position of power as the teacher, was nothing more than an arrogant SOB, but the progressive passages dripped with earnest depictions of warranted resentment: "A batter knows the ball is headed to his face when it never shrinks, when it appears to keep growing until a massive blur slams his skull. That's what I remember most, the spherical avalanche overwhelming my entire sense of sight just before the smack." It was then that I realized maybe being an SOB is a part of being human, and I didn't see this protagonist as an asshole anymore; if anything, he was hopelessly seeking redemption for his failures in the dead end motivations of an obnoxious adolescent. Overall, I sensed a bit of everything in Kass's writing. At times, there were Haruki Murakami dream-like phrases—"Girls who floated through the stench and chill of the gym like an alien fog, mystics in saddle-shoes"—which, fueled by teenage volatility, would instantaneously morph into pubescent 'roid-like rage: When that whistle blew, I flew at the fourth seed like a rabid raccoon. Sucked his leg to my chest as if I were prepared to eat it for dinner, tripped his other leg and plummeted him onto his back. Maybe I bashed my face into his knee. I don't know what I felt. My mouth stung and there was ripped skin and blood and I swallowed some but I kept surging. And there were honest depictions of modern marital tensions outlined in "Drowning Superman": Waiting too long...

The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress presents an epiphanous shift in a couple's understanding of exogamy and commitment when confronted with extended family's clannish expectations. Submitting to and then challenging and destroying this power's hold is symbolized in the wedding dress. As an autoethnography, this story resonates with Sophocles's Antigone, in which choices must be made that challenge the law of the father (King Kreon, Jane-family) and demand the law of nature (marriage rights) to prevail. In Antigone, Kreon's son Heron is engaged to Antigone, who challenges the king's unnatural edict to leave a warrior's body unburied. In the end, Heron chooses Antigone over his father and dies with his fiancé in a tomb—thus shattering the laws of humans while upholding the laws of nature. A story of survival, a fight for autonomy, The Wedding Dress captures marital tensions that arise from forced choices and the triumph of facing them truthfully together.

Ô María by Anouar Benmalek

I, political astuteness, wisdom, and 1 human compassion behind her. In , Die Braut aus Byzanz, Gabrielle Ali 1 oth has painted an intriguing pic i ture of her subject and has brought ' the tenthcentury alive, i Irmgard Hunt I Colorado StateUniversity 1 Greet Andringa. Libben reach. Ljou i wert, Netherlands. Friese Pers. 2008. [ 256 pages. 17.50. isbn 978-90-330 ! 0669-2 i In 2003 Greet Andringa made her , debut as a Frisian writer with her 1 volume of short stories, De diggels 1 fan Che, to critical acclaim. Libben 1 reach (Life's cobwebs) marks her 1 debut as a novelist. [ The author's firstnovel is an 1 ambitious one. In it, Andringa has , the main character, Geeske, search 1 ing through three generations of , theWiggersma family in a quest 1 for greater self-understanding. It is 1 prompted by her own shocking act I of apparent violence to her little 1 daughter: in an impulsive reaction , to her child's egregious misbehav 1 ior,she gives the child a push down , the stairs that lands the child, coma 1 tose, in the IC unit of thehospital. 1 With time, the little girl recovers, 1 but mother Geeske's recovery from 1 an attack of self-loathing becomes I a long-termprocess. Devastated by 1 what she has done, she stops by the , mirror: "I don't have a moth-eaten 1 bare skull, no flickeringgreen light , in the eyes. . . .This monster looks 1 completely normal and is precisely 1 therefore so repulsive. . . . Nothing ' changes and everything changes: it 1 becomes a formless gray swamp in , which you lose your way. I don't 1 know her anymore who stares at me , in the mirror." The quest to recover the self she is losing takes Geeske from the sticky cobwebs of her own life into those wound around the lives of grandparents, parents, and cousins: lives tainted and broken with extreme political leanings and prejudices, sexual assault, promis cuity, marital tensions, depression, nervous breakdowns, conflicts, and the postmodern malaise of Geeske's own psychic anxiety. Geeske finds not somuch a healing of her own broken self as a revelation that the suffocating cobweb of living has entrapped them all. Needing escape, in the end she discovers that there isno good escape. Within the constraints of the human condi tion, however, there is still love, whose strands are thicker than the cobwebs, as well as acceptance, and with acceptance a maturity and peace thathad eluded her. Andringa decided to cast this search in the formof fragments,the fragmentsofGeeske's own lifeand the lives around her, a collage of fragments that cumulatively yield a truthabout living.Thus the literary form simulates the human search for insight.But here itcomes at the expense of some aesthetic delight. Though the writer's artfuluse of lan guage is impressive, the constantly shiftingpoints of view, characters, times, and locales impose consider able strain on the reader's focus and understanding. Pity especially the reader who doesn't discover until theend thatthere isa helpful family chart in theback of thebook. Then, too, the reader experiences the story more as a kind of psychological dis section rather than a humanizing process of revelation and under standing, though the latter seems clearly to have been the author's intention. Still, thoughwe may turnaway with the book's cobwebs clogging our own brain, we may also find ourselves shifting our attention to our own family's web of relation ships, tensions, and enigmas. That's not a bad accomplishment. Henry J. Baron Calvin College Anouar Benmalek. ? Maria. Paris. Librairie Generale Francaise / Fayard. 2008 (?2006). 477 pages. 6.95. isbn 978-2-253-12269-2 In the late 1980s Anouar Ben malek?mathematician, poet, and gadfly journalist?led an unprec edented campaign to abolish torture inhis native Algeria. In French exile since 1992,he has explored forgotten crimes against humanity in a series of provocative, poetic, and gory nov els: Algeria's 1990s dirtywar in the award-winning The Lovers of Algeria, genocide in nineteenth-century Tas mania in Child of an Ancient People, and thebitter end ofMuslim Spain in? Maria. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492...

Counseling Contraception for Malian Migrants in Paris: Global, State, and Personal Politics

Malian migrants in Paris ?gure prominently in French public discourse surrounding immigration, the role of the state in regulating population, and the perceived burden of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa on public health and social welfare systems. Political and biomedical critiques of Malian and other African women have linked high fertility to housing shortages, polygamy, and high unemployment. This research explores how French government policies, transnational migration, and the public health system shape reproductive strategies and relations in the Malian migrant population. State pronatalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, diverse Islamic interpretations of contraception, and marital tensions over childbearing have produced both coercive and empowering strategies among midwives, hospital interpreters, social workers, and migrants. Interviews with Malians in clinical community settings as well as observations in two public hospitals in Paris suggest that women assert agency in the face of formidable constraints by choosing to use contraception. However, evidence of potentially coercive birth control interventions raises challenging questions about how (and whether) midwives and other staff disseminate information on contraception to this population.

Changes in Korean Immigrants' Gender Role and Social Status, and Their Marital Conflicts

Based on survey and ethnographic research conducted in New York, this paper shows how the discrepancy between Korean immigrant women's increased economic role and persistence of their husbands' traditional patriarchal ideology causes marital conflicts and tensions. While only a small proportion of married women participate in the labor force in South Korea, the vast majority of Korean immigrant wives work outside the home, most working long hours. Parallel to the increase in Korean women's economic role, their husbands' provider role and social status have significantly weakened with immigration. Despite Korean women's increase in their economic role, most Korean husbands have not modified a rigid form of patriarchal ideology brought from Korea because they are socially segregated from the mainstream society. A big clash between Korean women's active economic role and their husbands' traditional patriarchal attitudes causes serious marital conflicts in many Korean immigrant families. In addition, Korean partners' (particularly husbands') frustrations over their downward social mobility, the long hours spent together in the family store, and their midlife crisis are additional causes of marital conflicts. Other contemporary immigrant groups, mostly from non-European, Third World countries, seem to encounter lower, but similar marital conflicts caused by sudden changes in women's gender role.

Marital power and quality of marriage

The paper presents data gathered through a study of 1058 spouses and explores the relationship between marital power (the ability to control without resistance) and quality of marriage. Marital power is measured by means of the indicators ‘control’ (who is the boss?), decision-making (who makes the most important decisions?), conflict resolution (who has the final say when disagreements arise?), and relative resources (who contributes more to marriage?). Quality of marriage was measured in terms of marital tensions and marital happiness. The findings show that (a) marital power is not associated with quality of marriage; (b) the vast majority of spouses perceive the power structure of their marriage as close to their ideal; (c) democratic and non-democratic spouses report in equal proportions that the power of their marriage is close to (or distant from) their ideal; and (d) perceived closeness of real to ideal power is positively associated with quality of marriage. Implications for social policy are discussed.

Book Review. Marital Tensions: Clinical studies towards a psychological theory of interaction

Book Review. Marital Tensions: Clinical studies towards a psychological theory of interaction

The continuance and spillover of everyday tensions in distressed and nondistressed families.

This study compared 38 distressed and 35 nondistressed families on 2 interaction processes: the continuance of tensions involving the same family members and the spillover of tensions from one family subsystem to another. One parent reported perceptions of family tensions and satisfaction ratings each day for 2 weeks. Sequential analyses revealed that distressed, compared with nondistressed, families experienced (a) greater continuance of tensions, particularly tensions that occurred the following day during the same time period, and (b) more spillover, particularly between marital and child-related tensions. Correlations with daily satisfaction ratings indicated that marital dissatisfaction in distressed families is highly related to the occurrence of marital tensions. These data support the importance of examining daily events and multiple family subsystems in order to understand family distress.