Couple resilience predicted marital satisfaction but not well-being and health for married couples in Bali, Indonesia

Abstract

Throughout their marriage, couples face numerous adversities, with marital dissolution the ultimate threat. Couple resilience is defined as the process undertaken by couples to manage adversity through positive relationship behaviors. Previous studies on couple resilience have focused on negative relationship behaviors, but have not explored the interaction effect between the dyads. Three hundred couples living in Bali, Indonesia participated in this study by reporting their positive and negative relationship behaviors, and the expected outcomes of these (marital satisfaction, emotional wellbeing, and general health status). Model fit analysis showed that the relationship behaviors did not predict the outcomes and that there was no interaction effect between couples. Positive behaviors, however, showed a higher probability of predicting marital satisfaction, especially amongst wives. The implication of this finding leads to the practical suggestion for future couple resilience studies to conduct a multiphase longitudinal study with repeated measures of the outcomes.

Keywords

• couple resilience
• marriage
• resilience