Personality and Interpersonal Characteristics Within Distressed Marriages

Abstract

Considerable research has established that particular partner characteristics have a negative impact upon marital quality and that marital distress often results from the failure of partners to resolve personality differences. This study assessed personality and interpersonal differences related to marital distress within 92 clinical couples. Husbands in marriages of 6 years or less reflected distant, apathetic, hostile, and domineering features, while their wives reflected a greater need for attention and stimulation. Husbands in marriages of 7 years or more reflected greater distant and apathetic, self-focused, hostile, and domineering characteristics, while their wives reported greater passive dependency. The shorter married wives’ and husbands’ marital distress was most strongly associated with their own avoidant and self-defeating characteristics. The longer married wives’ marital distress was associated with their husbands’ dominant and self-involved characteristics. The longer married husbands’ marital distress was most strongly associated with their own dominant and self-centered characteristics, but with none of their wives’ characteristics. Partner ratings supported interpersonal theory expectations that distressed couples would reflect noncomplementary interaction patterns. Marital therapists may increase the likelihood of remediating/preventing marital distress by helping couples to recognize that their own and their partner’s personality traits, and interpersonal styles can be linked to marital distress, that these links seemingly differ for males and females, and that these links are likely to change over the marital life cycle.