Depression, Marital Distatisfaction, And Marital Dissatisfaction

Depression is the most common mental health disorder; it affects over 17 million American adults each year. Depression is a mood disorder characterized by at least four symptoms such as changes in sleep, appetite, weight, and psychomotor activity; decreased energy, feelings of worthlessness or guilt; difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decisions; or recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation, thoughts or attempts. “Women are approximately two times more likely than men to suffer from major depression” (Research Agenda for Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors in Women’s Health, 1996) and it has been called the most significant mental health risk for women. Women are more likely to suffer from depression during marriage

Relationship satisfaction is an important part of romantic relationships. A lack of satisfaction can lead to consequences in other areas of life and eventually, the destruction of the relationship. For example, job performance is heavily influenced by romantic relationship satisfaction. In a study by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), they argued that poor satisfaction leads to poor job performance and vice versa. They stated this was to because these two spheres are “interdependent.” Satisfaction can also influence quality of health. Conflict in a marital relationship is associated with higher heart rates and blood pressure (Broadwell & Light, 1999; Ewart, Taylor, Kaemer & Agras, 1991; Flor, Breitenstein, Birbaumer & Furst 1995; Frankish & Linden, 1996; Kiecolt-Glaser, 1993; Mayne, O’Leary, McCrady, Contrada & Labouvie, 1997; Morell & Apple, 1990; Shwartz, Slater & Birchler, 1994; Thomsen & Gilbert, 1998). It is also strongly associated with depression and depressed syndromes (Beach, Fincham & Katz, 1998; Fincham & Beach, 1999). This relationship between marital conflict and depression seems to be bidirectional meaning depression is not only a result of conflict but also is caused by the conflict (Beach, et. al., 1998; Fincham & Beach, 1999). Because a lack of relationship satisfaction can negatively affect so many important areas of life, it is important to understand what influences the level of satisfaction held in romantic relationships.

Polygamous families are characterized by stress, quarrels and neglect. Women and children in polygamist families are ignored in situations where their fathers have more than two wives and excesses of 10 children. This creates tensions in the family resulting in emotional turmoil, negative self-schema which ultimately plunges them into depression. Depression makes these individuals experience deteriorating quality of life and as such, DAS is used to help identify and correct their dysfunctional attitudes, thus reducing depression.

Depression is a major public health problem that is twice as common in women as men during the childbearing years. Postpartum depression is defined as an episode of non-psychotic depression according to standardized diagnostic criteria with onset within 1 year of childbirth (Stewart D., et. al, 2003, p. 4). For women aged 15 to 44 years around the world, Postpartum Depression is second to HIV/AIDS, in terms of total disability (World Health Organization, 2001). Depression has a profound impact on parameters of interpersonal behavior. Post-Partum depression

Marriage requires effort and work. Many newlyweds come into a marriage thinking it is easy but do not consider the consequences of marriage that heavily rely on balances and partnership. Marriage is all about compromise. It is important to engage in a premarital program to allow both partners to learn what to expect within a marriage, how to face certain roadblocks, and to better communication when conflict is aroused so that divorce does not become an option. Gottman’s research (2009) has made a significant contribution to the study of relationship and marriage tying unity, harmony, and communication together to make relationship and marriage work. When a couple who does not have consummate love (intimacy, passion, and commitment), they often portray the six indicators of divorce: harsh startup, the Four Horsemen, flooding, body language, failed repair attempts and reflecting on bad memories (Gottman, 2009). Divorce often occurs within the first two years of marriages and almost half of divorces end within the first seven years (Bhutto-Ramirez, 2015).

The study hypothesize that CSA survivors would have difficulty forming secure, intimate, nonabusive relationships and that CSA survivors are at risk for depression in low quality intimate relationships. Despite the overall quality of their intimate relationships, those that were severely abused reported feeling more anxious about their attachment to their partners (Aube, Judd & Whiffen, 1999). The partner that had a history of sexual abuse reported feeling unloved and abandoned by their partner but at the same time they felt like they could depend on them when they needed them. In adult attachment theory, this states that the survivor is experiencing an anxious attachment style. A limitation of this study was that they sampled women that were

A group of 300 people were surveyed. Their marital status was recorded along with answers to several questions. One question asked was whether “Friends and social life” or “Job or primary activity” contributes most to their general well-being. The results from this question appear in the table below.

Along with age, gender, and culture, deterioration in interpersonal relationships and personality type could contribute to depression. The association between attachment insecurity and depression is higher when there is a history of physical (Goldberg, 1994; Kaufman, 1991), psychological (Ferguson & Dacey, 1997; Kaufman, 1991), or sexual abuse (Goldberg, 1994; Kinard, 1995) during childhood (Whiffen et al., 1999). One hypothesis is that early life stress (e.g. abuse, neglect), dysfunctional parenting style, and personality dimension (e.g. neuroticism, extroversion) lead to a neurobiologically different subtype of depression (Alsarraf & Nilsson, 2009; Luyten & Blatt, 2006). Moreover, maltreatment envisions depressive symptoms only through internal working models and self-esteem (Suzuki & Tomoda, 2015).

Humanity’s potential to develop interpersonal relationships is fundamental to their growth and can be detrimental to society if not maintained. Focusing on a relationship between two spouses; it is traditionally presumed to be mutually beneficial. It is this mutual benefit where a healthy relationship can contribute to an individual’s attainment of goals, moral construction, and perception of society.

Amato, Paul R. "The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children." Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1269-87.

To measure their satisfaction, the RDAS evaluates and differentiates the couple’s dyadic adjustment in both distressed and nondistressed relationships (Gangamma et al., 2012). Lower scores on this scale indicate greater relationship distress while higher scores indicate greater relationship satisfaction (Gangamma et al., 2012). Thus, both of these measures may aid the therapist in determining each partner’s perception of unfairness and satisfaction within their relationship (Gangamma et al., 2012). These measures also provide the therapist with a greater understanding of where each partner stands in regards to their relationship. Moreover, this greater understanding of the relationship can help the therapist determine a good starting point for contextual couple’s

Satisfaction with life is oftentimes highly correlated with happiness, but it is not by inherently the same as happiness. One may be satisfied with one’s life outcomes or satisfied with external factors, without being very happy. Once discovering a satisfaction with life rating, one may be able to determine if satisfaction with life is something one can control, and if it is, one may be able to maximize one’s life satisfaction. For instance, if one is typically not searching for a mate, and he or she scores low on this scale, one may be more willing in the future to seek a partner if he or she knows that statistically speaking, people with partners are more satisfied with his or her life.

     Marital satisfaction and the contributing factords are of extreme importance at this juncture in our society, though it has become obvious that there is a degeneration of communication and a lack of satisfaction in today’s married couples. This disatisfaction results in the divorce rate being sohigh that it begs the question: how does this marital satisfaction originate?

From past to present people all over the world have determined to live together, or “get married”. Marriage can be a beautiful thing, but some couples are unable to maintain their relationship, because they choose divorce as a solution to cope with the problems between husband and wife. Furthermore divorce is definitely on a rise. The effects of divorce can be detrimental to a family, but the causes of divorce can be just as bad. In this essay we will cover one of the main causes of divorce and one of the main effects.

Conflicts which lead to unresolved issues can influence the quality of the marriage. Although several research was made on marital relationships, the factors which influence the arising of continuous conflicts are still not clear. Unresolved issues are problems which are continuously brought up in a marriage. However, marital conflicts are not the only source of unresolved issues in a relationship. Unresolved conflicts within the marriage can affect the longevity and quality of the marriage, but personal background and individual trauma contribute to marital problems more often than conflicts within the marriage. In fact, marital conflicts are usually started because of personal unresolved issues. If a person develops a behavioral property