What’s a “Healthy Marriage”?

As you already know the Diocese of Juneau received a grant from the State of Alaska this year as part of the “Healthy Marriage Initiative.” Developing programs which make use of these funds has challenged me to consider: what is a healthy marriage? When I attended a recent meeting in Anchorage for directors of fourteen programs that received grants this year I learned a great deal about what does contribute to building a healthy marriage. Child Trends (www.childtrends.org), a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center, has done valuable research on this topic, which I summarize here.

This program begins by naming several assumptions:

• Healthy marriage is not an either/or thing. Couples don’t either have a healthy marriage or not have it. Rather, couples have healthy marriages to varying degrees, in varying respects, and the quality of the same marriage may differ over time.
• The elements of a healthy marriage need to be assessed differently for different populations. The issues faced by a couple raising children are different from those faced by childless newlyweds; and the concerns of couples with a partner away in the military or incarcerated are quite different from those of a couple who live together.
• The ingredients of a healthy marriage can be learned. If the partners are interested and motivated, a healthy marriage is capable of being built, changed or modified.
• A healthy marriage includes a commitment to any children that the couple may have. This perspective, then, is not limited to the couple, but extends to include children, if the couple has children.
• Healthy marriage needs to be distinguished from the antecedents and consequences of healthy marriage. Antecedents refer to prior conditions that can affect or influence marriage such as whether a partner brings children into the union. Consequences refer to the conditions that may result from marriage such as greater financial security.

Given those assumptions, here are some of the elements that help to define a healthy marriage. Based on decades of research on marriage and the perspectives of scholars who work in the field, there are ten characteristics that define a healthy marriage.

1. Commitment of the couple: taking a long-term perspective toward one’s relationship, having an intention to persevere when difficulties arise, and being committed to caring for the other person. To express it another way, committed couples have a sense of we-ness that sustains their relationship over time and through difficulties.
2. Satisfaction: individual satisfaction with various aspects of the marriage and with the marriage overall is important to a healthy marriage.
3. Communication: not just the sheer amount of communication is necessary; the quality and nature of the communication are equally or perhaps more important. Positive communication is respectful and involves compromise and humor.
4. Conflict resolution: since every marriage experiences conflict in the sense that people disagree and face problems and decisions that need to be worked out, couples must be able to address or resolve conflict that can undermine a relationship.
5. Lack of domestic violence: the presence of violence in a family, which incorporates physical assaults and psychological abuse, is a marker of an unhealthy marriage.
6. Fidelity: is an important element in the concept of healthy marriage. Research indicates that feared and actual infidelity is a major concern for contemporary couples and that many relationships do not survive this betrayal of trust.
7. Interaction and time together: while some amount of interaction seems necessary for couples, it is not the sheer amount of time they spend together, but the quality of the interaction that contributes to a healthy marriage. It’s important that couples have positive interactions and enjoy their time together.
8. Intimacy and emotional support: while closely linked with communication and interaction, the emotional aspects of a healthy marriage include feelings of trust, caring and love, as well as physical affection.
9. Commitment to children: for a truly healthy marriage, the couple must be committed to the development and well-being of all children born to or adopted by either spouse.
10. Duration and legal marital status: have a basis in research on family structure and child development. Children develop best when their biological parents marry and remain married, provided the marriage is not characterized by violence or high levels of conflict.

As you finish reading these characteristics, remember from the assumptions that a healthy marriage is not an either/or reality; marriages must be assessed differently for different populations and the ingredients that contribute to making them healthy can be learned.

Please feel free to contact this office if you are seeking support for your efforts toward building a healthy marriage.