Newlywed to Established Marriage: A Longitudinal Study of Early Risk and Protective Factors that Influence Marital Satisfaction

This current study took questionnaire information from couples as newlyweds through five years of marriage in an attempt to discover the most significant predictors of marital satisfaction. This study also used additional information from these couples to help understand how problem issues change from newlywed to established marriage (five or more years of marriage). This study found that experiencing a difficult transition to marriage as newlyweds was the only significant predictor of marriage satisfaction five years later. Meaning, couples who experienced a difficult transition to marriage as newlyweds tended to report lower levels of marital satisfaction five years later in marriage than those who reported a smooth transition to marriage, leading this study to conclude that researchers, educators, and clinicians should focus the majority of their attention on creating programs, educational courses, and therapeutic techniques that aid newlyweds in having a smooth transition to marriage. This study also concluded that prevention could perhaps start prior to the wedding day. The second part of this study was to find out how problem issues change from newlywed to established marriage. This study found that couples tend to report problem issues as more severe over time, meaning problem issues as newlyweds tend to worsen rather than become resolved. Because of this finding, this study recommends that those working with newlyweds should focus attention on problem-solving strategies in an attempt to extinguish the problem before it becomes a full-blown fire later on. Overall, the findings from this study should advance and update previous marriage studies. However, conclusions mentioned should be restricted and looked at carefully as the sample was limited to only one western state and consisting mostly of highly satisfied marriages