ABSTRACT
The importance of marital and couple relationships in America cannot be overstated. Almost every person develops intimate couple relationships at some point across the lifespan. Moreover, even with the rising divorce rates in America, nearly half of all marriages are life-long. American society and media commonly portray couple relationships as the wellspring for lifetime companionship, romance, support, sexual fulfillment, and individual well-being (Halford, Kelly, & Markman, 1997). For the heterosexual couples that are the focus of this chapter, media portrayals mirror empirical findings; on most happiness and mental health indices, people in happy marriages generally fare better than other members of society, both inside and outside of the United States. (Stack & Eshleman, 1998; Williams, Takeuchi, & Adair, 1992). For example, young married adults have higher rates of well-being than those who do not marry, even when accounting for premarital rates of mental health (Horwitz, White, & Howell-White, 1996). Happy couple relationships are also associated with positive familial adjustment. For example, children in two-parent families exhibit fewer rates of disorder as compared to those in divorced and step-parent families (Dawson, 1991), and marital satisfaction can buffer the effects of having severely mentally retarded children (Floyd & Zmich, 1991).
