A Qualitative Study on Women’s Acquaintance Process with their Spouses in Stable Marriage

The family as the smallest and main unit of society which is formed by the bond of marriage. The stability of marriage and the family has great importance because of its impact on the individual and society. Every marriage is associated with an introduction called dating. The aim of this study was to investigate how couples get acquainted before marriage with a qualitative phenomenological method. The data collection tool was an in-depth and semi-structured interview. The study population is consisted of women with stable marriages who had been married for at least 5 years and who had given their marriage a score of at least seven out of ten. The sample was purposefully selected and interviewed with 19 people until the data was saturated. By analyzing the interviews conducted and coding the sentences and phrases, different types of participants' familiarity were identified. The findings included six main themes: "Planning for acquaintance, initial familiarity with the framework, understanding of characteristics and moods, behavioral observations, and facilitating families to deepen cognition, counseling, and counseling." The results showed that in different types of acquaintances of women with stable marriages, attention has been paid to cultural and family frameworks. The findings of the present study can be used in the design of premarital counseling model for guidance on how to get acquainted and its effect on marital stability.