| Abstrakt: |
Since the early 1990's, marriage scholars and activists have increasingly cited commitment as the key to long-term marital quality and stability (Love, 2007; Stanley, Markman and Whitton, 2002). "Commitment" has become a buzz word in the marriage-preserving community, and is considered by many to be the cornerstone for the public preservation of marriage (Doherty, 2001; Stanley, Rhoades, & Markman, 2006). In this paper, I briefly revisit my dissertation findings that are relevant to commitment and husbands' job loss experiences. In doing so, I share my data about how couples' subjective notions of commitment impacted the presence of hostility for some couples. Findings indicate that positive affect, as demonstrated in subjective notions of commitment, can influence marital quality despite external circumstances. While it is impossible to understand from this study the importance of commitment to coping with adversity, it appears as if relationships are what we make of them. Subjective notions of commitment and marital quality are reflexive, and can cause us to construct our external circumstances in different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
