The Health of Marital Relationship in the Light of Factors Affecting the Stability and Satisfaction of the Relationship: A Review Study

A healthy marital relationship is the desire of all couples. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the effective factors in this relationship so that psychologists and family counselors consider these factors in their educational-therapeutic interventions. The aim of this study was to identify the factors affecting marital relationship stability and satisfaction.

The method of this study was a systematic review and was conducted based on the Prisma guideline (PRISMA). In this study, foreign and national researches were used without time limitation. Various keywords were used to select the researches and research was conducted in national and foreign credible scientific databases. The selected studies have been conducted on heterosexual and non-cohabitation couples (formal marriage) with at least 10 years of marital history. To investigate the quality of the articles, a checklist of the standards for reporting qualitative research (SRQR) was used and data were analyzed using content analysis.

15 foreign and national articles were selected and it was found that a set of factors were involved in the stability and satisfaction of the marital relationship. These factors were coded and based on the coding, 9 categories were identified. These 9 categories were classified into 3 classes of intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental factors.

A set of intrapersonal factors (personality characteristics, physical and mental health, positive cognitive, and spiritual-religious characteristics), interpersonal (communication skills and constructive relationship, love and affections as well as sexual relationships) and environmental factors (social support, occupation and appropriate economic status) can affect the health of the marital relationship.