With newlyweds excited about their union and their living together, lately it has become a common thing to find that the marriages do not last and end up in divorce and of course with a lot of distress before the couple come to divorce as the way out. People get into these relationships out of love not knowing that there are dangers too of marrying for love and that it requires a lot of devotion and dedication if the marriage has to survive.
One also wonders if couples who are more affectionate as newlyweds are likely to sustain the same in their marriage and whether those who are highly romantic are more prone to divorce. Also one wonders if couples who wrangle all the time make their marriage work and do not end up in divorce. Hence, to observe how marriages works there are some hypotheses by some researchers which try to explain the basis on which marriages are formed and how the spouses involved stay in the relationship. The marriages are looked at as they are from the time of courtship to wedding and into the marriage itself which is the main focus of the study.
The researchers came up with three models that outline why some marriages work and others do fail. The Disillusionment Model, in this model according to Hustoun, people in courtship are brought out as lovers who are supposed to be in a blissful romantic relationship who are expected to behave in a way fixed to sustain the relationship and are not expected to look at each others weaknesses rather look at the values. When people marry they tend to imagine what the other partner want in the marriage and so they behave in a way thinking that what they are doing or how they are treating their partner is how they should, which is basically all imagination but not what the other partner expects or wants. This leads to disillusionments and can be very frustrating to the partner who is trying to put all the efforts to match up with the others expectations. According to Murray spouses who enter marriage with well-defined romantic illusions may find them unsustainable and become disappointed.Orbuch found that couples who were more romantic during their courtship became unhappy early in their marriages than couple who were less romantically involved during their courtship.Aronsons found out that shifts in a partners interest may be particularly important in predicting a partners attraction. The realization that one has become less or more affectionate may be more of concern than the current love and affection he or she is giving to the partner.
According to Huesmann, when divorcees are asked why their marriages ended they site lack of interest in the relationship, less love and loss of affection as the main causes of their marriages. The Emergent Distress Model is another hypotheses and it presumes that newlyweds get into marriage as affectionate lovers but they do not expect to maintain the same level of affection throughout the marriage. The seeds of distress are sown by the spouses emergence of negative behaviors .The expression of negativity weakens the relationship and this amplifies the spouses’ susceptibility to express further negative feelings.Gottmanns’ analysis shows that further negativity deepens spouses and lockout each other. The Enduring Dynamic Theory is yet another hypothesis which presumes that certain interpersonal patterns are established during courtship and they are carried on to marriage. This theory explains that problems that arise during courtship are carried on to marriage. This model counters the disillusionment view and explains that couples enter into marriage with full knowledge of their partners’ shortcomings.
From the study, we can conclude that those couples who divorce within a few months into their marriage had weak romantic bonds and their relationships were filled with hostility. The Enduring Dynamics model argues that spouses carry on their behaviors from the courtship into marriage and this shapes the unions’ eventual course therefore, as newlyweds headed for marital distress and divorce the couples tend to differ on how they feel about their partner and the marriage also on how they relate to each other. The disillusionment and Emergent models on the contrary, see newlyweds as uniformly in love with one another and argues that whatever happens after wedding determines the future happiness and stability of the marriage.
In conclusion, the results of this study clearly show that roots of marital delight, distress and divorce are different in many ways and most of marital problems arise at the beginning of the marriage or in the early years of a marriage. There is evidence from this study that positive features of a relationship are important for it to survive. Emergent Distress model is clear that problems arise in marriage grind down satisfaction and lead to divorce, while Enduring Dynamic model explains that problems are carried on from courtship into the marriage which survives if the spouses can keep up with each others shortcomings since they got into it of each others’ weaknesses.
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