ABSTRACT
The ease or difficulty with which husbands and wives communicate may have a major impact on the satisfaction they experience in their marriage. This notion is supported by research investigating marital communication from numerous perspectives. For example, both therapists and couples rate communication as the most frequent and most damaging problem in distressed marriages (Geiss & O'Leary, 1979). Similarly, of the 11 scales on Snyder’s (1979) Marital Satisfaction Inventory, the two communication scales (problem solving and affective communication) show the highest correlations with global marital distress and whether or not couples seek marital therapy. When couples completed daily behavior checklists, Jacobson, Waldron, and Moore (1980) found that the amount of displeasing communication noted was the single best predictor of daily fluctuations of marital satisfaction and distress. Markman (1981) found that when communication was assessed early in a relationship during a period of relative satisfaction, degree of positive or negative impact of a spouse’s communication predicted marital dissatisfaction 5 years later. Thus, whether communication is assessed; (1) by the couple or the therapist, (2) through a single, global measure or a more detailed daily assessment, (3) through self-report or spouse observations, or (4) prior to or during relationship distress, communication appears to be related to level of marital satisfaction. The issue at hand, then, is not to decide whether to assess communication among couples; instead the task is to decide which specific communication skills to assess and what strategies to employ.
