How Couples Perceive Their Marriage?

Abstract

Marriage is an important type of interpersonal relationship in terms of individual and societal mental health and, also, in terms of the social order. Based on this important effect of marriage, this study aimed to reveal how couples perceived their marriage. Participants in this study included a total of 57 married couples (114 individuals, 57 females, and 57 males) that lived in Mersin in 2015 and were approached through snowball sampling. Married couples' perceptions about their marriages were obtained through "The Marriage Perception Form" created by the researchers in this study. In this form, participants were asked about their expectations of ideal marriage, areas where they experience problems in their marriage, strategies of coping with stressful situations in their marriages, and expectations about their own marriages. Data, obtained after entering the participants' filled-out forms in the computer, were analyzed through content analysis, a qualitative analysis method. The results obtained indicated that, first of all, both women and men expected a marriage based on love, respect, and understanding. Female participants stated that they mostly experienced problems with raising children and older family members in their marriages; male participants, on the other hand, stated that they experienced problems with raising children and disagreements. However, couples express that they did not often experience problems in their marriages. Also, couples conceive that women's strategies of coping with problems included talking, trying to keep calm, and keeping silent; men's strategies of coping with problems included trying to keep calm and leaving that environment. Finally, among the participant couples, women expected a happy marriage based on love and respect and men similarly expected happy and peaceful marriage based on love. These results were discussed in the light of studies found in relevant literature and suggestions for researchers were offered.