Enduring Couples in Varying Sociocultural Contexts

Recent decades have witnessed vigorous scholarly debate over the meaning and value of marriage in this society overall and how they might differ among the many groups and cultures that comprise the richly textured fabric of present-day America. Much of this debate has centered on the very significant changes in family behavior that occurred after the 1950s, with particular emphasis on the rapid rise in marital dissolution that characterized the 1960s and 1970s (Cherlin, 1992) and the increasing separation of childbearing and childrearing from marital unions (Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). Although the divorce rate has stabilized, divorce has been accompanied by dramatic attitudinal shifts, including the weakening of social pressure to marry or stay married, even when children are involved, and a greatly increased acceptance of divorce (Inglehart, 1997; Thornton & Young-deMarco, 2001). Clearly, the "upside" of these trends is that individuals no longer feel compelled to stay in relationships that are neither satisfying nor healthy. Eleanor Holmes Norton (a social scientist long before she became the District of Columbia's delegate to Congress) made an especially astute observation when these societal changes first became evident almost 40 years ago: "With children no longer the universally accepted reason for marriage, marriages are going to have to exist on their own merits. Marriages are going to have to exist because they possess inherent qualities which make them worthy of existing, a plane to which the institution has never before been elevated" (Norton, 1970, p. 404). Cherlin (2004) argued further that during this same period, there has been a weakening of the social norms that define partners' behavior in marriage (the "deinstitionalization" of marriage), which has led to greater variation in the structure of unions, including increased cohabitation and samesex marriage. Likely in response to these trends, we sense in recent times an inordinate emphasis on the perceived decline in marriage and committed unions more generally. Misleading statistics that inflated the true prevalence of divorce served to promote this fixation (Crosby, 1980; Hurley, 2005), possibly evoking an attitude of pessimism about relationship potential that may have contributed to the illusion that a long-lasting marriage is very rarely attained. Depending upon how the data are interpreted, the cup is either half full or half empty. For example, data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth showed that about one third of U.S. marriages ended in divorce within the first 10 years (Bramlett & Mosher, 2001)-which means that two thirds of marriages survived at least that long. The divorce percentage increased to 43% at 15 years, but well overhalf made it to that point. Indeed, most Americans (even the divorced) view long-term marriage as their ultimate goal; and, despite the odds, in 1998, 63% of young women and 57% of young men participating in the nationally representative sample for the Monitoring the Future Study believed that they were "very likely" to stay married to the same person for life (Thornton & YoungdeMarco, 2001). Hackstaffs (1999) interviews with distinct generations of diverse couples over several decades led her to conclude that individuals are hopeful that their marriages will last, though they increasingly view marital survival as "contingent rather than forever" (p. 3). Taken together, these observations and findings suggest that today, couples have been entering committed relationships with what might be termed "cautious optimism"-with less guidance about appropriate behavior within their unions, at greater risk for dissolution (given the statistics), and with more support for ending the relationship if necessary. We expect to learn much from the couples and individuals who manage to stay together in this new context. Interpersonal relationship research has increasingly focused on the identification of aspects of couple dynamics that increase or decrease a union's chance for continuation (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). …