BACKGROUND Systematic studies on the association between men's sexual dysfunction (low sexual desire, ejaculation disorders, erectile dysfunctions, genital ulcers, testicular disorders, prostate cancer or sexually transmitted infections) and marital conflict are emerging. However, the coping strategies adopted by wives in such circumstances are not commonly reported in the literature. Male sexu...

Previous studies of couples have shown theoretically predicted links between 1) support seeking/attachment and marital functioning, and 2) caregiving and marital functioning (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). The present study further develops this area of research by investigating the link between conflict management and support seeking in couples, and the relationship between conflict management an...

Marriage is the central relationship for most adults and has beneficial effects for health. At the same time, troubled marriages have negative health consequences. This review outlines the physiological pathways through which marital relationships influence health based on a stress/social support model. In addition, we review recent findings suggesting that unhappy marriages are associated with...

Although couples' management of differences and problems is widely assumed to be central to the course and outcome of their relationships, some theoretical perspectives hold that marital conflicts increase over the newlywed years, whereas others maintain that couples' problems remain stable. We tested these opposing views by examining changes in marital problems and marital satisfaction over th...

Two longitudinal studies of marital interaction were conducted using observational coding of couples attempting to resolve a high-conflict issue. We found that a different pattern of results predicts con-current marital satisfaction than predicts change in marital satisfaction over 3 years. Results suggest that some marital interaction patterns, such as disagreement and anger exchanges, which h...

Marital quality is a major contributor to happiness and health. Unfortunately, marital quality normatively declines over time. We tested whether a novel 21-minute intervention designed to foster the reappraisal of marital conflicts could preserve marital quality in a sample of 120 couples enrolled in an intensive 2-year study. Half of the couples were randomly assigned to receive the reappraisa...

Do optimistic expectations facilitate or hinder adaptive responses to relationship challenges? Traditionally, optimism has been characterized as a resource that encourages positive coping efforts within relationships. Yet, some work suggests optimism can be a liability, as expecting the best may prevent individuals from taking proactive steps when confronted with difficulties. To reconcile thes...

Emotion regulation is generally thought to be a critical ingredient for successful interpersonal relationships. Ironically, few studies have investigated the link between how well spouses regulate emotion and how satisfied they are with their marriages. We utilized data from a 13-year, 3-wave longitudinal study of middle-aged (40-50 years old) and older (60-70 years old) long-term married coupl...