A multifaceted approach to the study of marital intimacy : behavioral and phenomenological analyses

A review of the literature indicated several conflicting definitions of marital intimacy. Based on previous research, I defined intimacy as the ability to maintain the "I" within the "We" on the three dimensions of intimacy, affective, interactional and cognitive, each of which operated on the disengaged-enmeshed continuum. In addition, marital intimacy was studied from two different perspectives, the behavioral and the phenomenological. The hypotheses in this study were exploratory, and were (1) to find the relation between the three dimensions of intimacy and the scores on the marital questionnaires (2) to describe the structure of marital intimacy based on the phenomenological interviews and (3) to give a description of marital intimacy that captured the intricacies of both perspectives. Data were obtained from eighteen middle class, normal (defined as couples who had not sought counseling), Caucasian couples who voluntarily agreed to participate in this study. Husbands', wives' and couples' videotaped interactions were rated separately by trained undergraduates using a rating scale devised by the author. Correlational and multiple regression analyses (stepwise) were conducted to find the best predictor of the husbands', wives' and couples' marital satisfaction, commitment and adjustment test scores. In addition, husbands and wives were interviewed separately. Behavioral results indicated that the wives' cognitive ratings were negatively correlated with their marital commitment and adjustment scores. This suggests that the more wives' described characters in their stories as sharing their thoughts and feelings and agreeing/disagreeing with each other, the less adjusted they were in their marriage. In addition, the wives' interactional rating was positively correlated with their marital adjustment scores which suggests that the more wives argued/took charge or agreed/gave in, the more adjusted they were in their marriage. The phenomenological interviews supported this paradoxical finding. In addition, seven themes were apprehended from the interviews. These were best friends, reciprocity, non-verbal communication, time, contrast, children and destiny/surprise. Both perspectives suggest that marital intimacy is paradoxical in nature.