Date of Award

1986

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Art

Department

Counseling

First Advisor

James D. Evans

Second Advisor

Carol Lark

Third Advisor

James A. McKenna

Abstract

This study was an investigation of the marriage relationship. It specifically investigated those spouses who are experiencing severe enough difficulties in their marriage to seek professional counseling.

The subjects (N = 405) for this study were couples who had come for counseling at PACT (formerly PAC), a private counseling agency in the St. Louis metropolitan area. The information was gathered by reviewing the files of couples who had come to PACT over a 10 - year period, from 1977 through 1986. The criteria to qualify as a "couple subject" was (a) that it was the first marriage for each spouse, and (b) that all the necessary demographic information was included in the file.

To reveal an overall and detailed characteristic description of the "couple subjects" used in this study, the data were used to develop an average profile of these couples over the 10 - year period.

Seven empirical questions were researched in this study. These questions were formulated to discover if there were any trends in those specific attributes that were evident during over the 10 - year period, 1977 through 1986.

The results of this research indicated that the incidence of the critical characteristics in the profile of the unstable marriage does not appear to have changed significantly over the past decade. This suggests that the "face of marital instability" seems to have remained stable over the 10 - year period studied.

It is hoped that the information gathered in this research will be useful to demographers and researchers in the future study of the marital dyad and specifically the instable marriage. It is also hoped that it will be useful, in a practical way, to marriage therapists in their practice.

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