All couples confront conflict in their marriage. Finding ways to navigate couple conflict is a topic that has been explored for several decades among marriage researchers (Rollin & Dowd, 1979). Repair, a strategy to help reconcile a situation or conversation that has gone awry, is important in helping couples overcome conflict. When couples are not able to repair and move forward, resentment arises. Unfortunately, the research on repair and resentment is limited, and the complexity of these variables can make it difficult to conceptualize. The present study utilized a qualitative lens (grounded constructivist theory) to explore relational repair and resentment in greater depth, hoping to capture the intricacies of how conflict arises and how couples either successfully or unsuccessfully get back on track and repair damage that has occurred. An analysis of 45 participant interviews revealed three main themes: 1) foundational elements 2) mid and post-rupture actions and, 3) moving forward. Clinical implications of the themes and corresponding sub-themes are discussed.

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This dissertation examines the influence of competing risks in shaping individuals' choices about potential intimate relationships. According to Ulrich Beck's "risk society" theory, the individualization of social risks has direct and measurable consequences for the ways people organize and evaluate potential intimate relationships (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, 2002, 2004; Giddens, 1994; Lupton, 2006). This study investigates the ways in which subjective or identity-related risks hypothesized by scholars of late modernity shape the perception and the actual risk of dating violence. Empirical research on dating violence identifies many objective “risk factors” related to a person’s chances of experiencing intimate partner violence; however studies investigating perceptions of dating risk from the subject’s perspective sometimes reveal more personal concerns and priorities. To date, no intimate partner violence research explicitly utilizes a conceptualization of risk informed by risk society theories. The present study explores the potential for utilizing risk society concepts in explaining the relationships between perceptions of instrumental risks and identity-related risks, and how these risk perceptions may impact involvement in dating violence.

The current study examined psychological distress in couples coping with a cancer diagnosis. Although it is widely recognised that spouses coping with a cancer diagnosis are at risk of psychological distress, debate exists within the literature regarding the amount of distress experienced by individuals, and about who is most at risk. Fifty-five couples coping with a cancer diagnosis completed questionnaires assessing psychological distress, social support and attachment style characteristics. Results indicated that partners psychological distress levels were more influenced by social support and attachment characteristics than patients were. Partners of those with cancer, who were higher on the insecure attachment dimensions, perceived providing and receiving less support and were less satisfied with support overall compared to less insecure partners. In addition to this, partner social support was significantly related to psychological distress, and attachment style was found to moderate this relationship. Specifically, partners were more vulnerable to psychological distress when they were higher on the insecure attachment dimensions and when support satisfaction was low or when they had a perception of low support receipt. Contrary to expectations, there were no significant findings for the patient group. Explanations and implications are discussed.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the signature wound of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has caused veterans to face numerous and complex challenges within their intimate relationships post-deployment. Although other studies have explored the intimate relationships of veterans, the same level of research has not focused on OEF/OIF veterans from the standpoint of dyadic adaptation using the Dyadic Adaptation Scale (DAS). The purpose of this study was to explore the level of dyadic adaptation in intimate relationships of OEF/OIF veterans who self-reported PTSD and those who did not. More specifically, this study identified the factors that were related to the level of dyadic adaptation for this population. Participants were 126 OEF/OIF veterans who were enrolled in colleges and universities throughout the state of Iowa; provided basic background information in response to a demographics questionnaire; and completed the DAS to yield scores of the participants' dyadic adaptation within their intimate relationships, the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES) that highlighted their levels of coping, and the Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE) that measured their life stressors within the last 12 months. The results of the correlation, MANOVA, ANOVA, and hierarchical regression analyses provided four major findings and implications. First, among participants with PTSD, DAS was correlated with tours of duty, FILE, F-COPES, and pharmacologic intervention, and among participants without PTSD, DAS was correlated with FILE. Second, the total dyadic adaptation scores for participating OEF/OIF veterans suggested an overall slight level of relationship dissatisfaction. Third, participants who self-reported PTSD had lower DAS total scores than participants who did not self-report PTSD. In addition, there was a significant difference on all four subscales (cohesion, satisfaction, consensus, and affectional expression) of the DAS between the two groups of participants. Fourth, in terms of participants who self-reported PTSD, tours of duty, types of relationships, and life stressors were the only variables that positively affected dyadic adaptation. In contrast, for participants who did not self-report PTSD, FILE was the only variable that affected the dyadic adaptation. These findings have important implications that highlight areas in which clinicians, educators, and individuals within the helping professions can join the Department of Veterans Affairs' initiatives to improve the reintegration of OEF/OIF veterans into their familiar roles post-deployment. Future research should explore the relationship norms pre-deployment and across relationship statutes, the identity of military intimate partners within treatment facilities, and the perceptions of treatment and dyadic adaptation after OEF/OIF veterans receive treatment in the community by civilian providers as compared to treatment in VA facilities.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis explores the experiences of white women who partnered Chinese men and their children in southern Australia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has been based on a wide range of sources, including newspapers, government reports, birth and marriage records, personal reminiscences and family lore, and highlights the contradictory images and representations of Chinese-European couples and their families which exist in those sources. It reveals that in spite of the hostility towards intimate interracial relationships so strongly expressed in discourse, hundreds of white women and Chinese men in colonial Australia came together for reasons of love, companionship, security, sexual fulfilment and the formation of family. They lived, worked and loved in and between two very different communities and cultures, each of which could be disapproving and critical of their crossing of racial boundaries. As part of this exploration of lives across and between cultures, the thesis further considers those families who spent time in Hong Kong and China. The lives of these couples and their Anglo-Chinese families are largely missing from the history of the Chinese in Australia and of migration and colonial race relations more generally. They are historical subjects whose experiences have remained in the shadows and on the margins. This thesis aims to throw light on those shadows, contributing to our knowledge not only of interactions between individual Chinese men and white women, but also of the way mixed race couples and their children interacted with their extended families and communities in Australia and China. This thesis demonstrates that their lives were complex negotiations across race, culture and geography which challenged strict racial and social categorisation.

Compared to men, women devote substantially more attention and effort toward enhancing the health of their spouses. Yet, scholars have been unable to explain why this gender gap persists. Women also do more unpaid work in the home than men, and a significant literature explains the origins of this gender gap. In order to better understand why women do more to enhance the health of their spouse, this dissertation maps well-tested theory on unpaid work in the home on the literature on social integration and health to develop the theoretical construct of health work. Health work is defined as the activities and dialogue concerned with enhancing others’ health habits. After developing this theoretical construct, this dissertation turns to a qualitative examination of health work dynamics in 61 straight, gay, and lesbian couples living in the United States (N = 122). Findings reveal two distinct ways that partners work to shape one another’s health habits. Respondents in all couple types describe specialized health work, whereby one partner does health work over the course of the relationship. In straight couples, women perform the bulk of health work and men were the primary recipients of health work. Individuals rely on gendered discourses of difference to explain these unequal health work dynamics. Cooperative health work, whereby both partners perform health work in mutually reinforcing ways, emerges nearly exclusively in gay and lesbian couples. Individuals rely on discourses of similarity to explain why they perform cooperative health work. Findings reveal that health work processes not only depend on gender, but also on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and the gender composition of a couple. Additionally, this dissertation finds that partners not only do health work to promote one another’s healthy habits, but that partners also attempt to promote one another’s unhealthy habits. The implications for the promotion of both healthy and unhealthy habits are discussed. / text

Bakgrund: Våldet mot kvinnor är ett folkhälsoproblem. Det är svårt att fastställa den faktiska prevalensen vad gäller våldsutsatta kvinnor delvis på grund av att mörkertalet är stort. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka samverkan i organisationer och myndigheter i arbetet med våldsutsatta kvinnor i nära relationer i Skaraborgsregionen. Metod: Tre semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med myndighetspersoner från X, Y och Z, vilka arbetar med våldsutsatta kvinnor i nära relationer. Resultat: Resultatet visade att femton kommuner i Skaraborgsregionen samverkar i arbetet med våldsutsatta kvinnor. Enligt informanterna var en av effekterna av samverkan möjligheten att hänvisa kvinnorna vidare. Informanterna såg potential till förbättringar i det framtida samarbetet, exempelvis med förskola och skola. Resultatet visade även att informanterna är medvetna om betydelsen av sitt bemötande mot våldsutsatta kvinnor, vissa mer än andra. Slutsats: En kommun kan inte ensam ge en kvinna tillräcklig hjälp, varför samverkan är viktig för de femton kommuner som deltar. Samverkan i Skaraborgsregionen fungerar bra, dock finns det delar som kan förbättras. Informanterna hade olika egna förslag till förbättring, exempelvis en utökad myndighetssamverkan. / Background: The violence against women is a public health problem. It is difficult to determine the actual prevalence of the violence against women because unreported cases are high. Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the interaction in organizations and agencies with abused women in intimate relationships in the region of Skaraborg. Method: Three semistructured interviews were conducted with officials from X, Y and Z, who work with abused women in intimate relationships. Results: The results showed that there are fifteen councils in the region of Skaraborg who interact with abused women. One of the effects of the interaction is to be able to refer further according to the informants. The informants saw potential for improvement in the future, for example by collaborating with preschool and school. The results also showed that the informants are aware of the importance of their treatment against abused women, some more than others. Conclusion: The interaction is important to the fifteen councils in the region of Skaraborg, because one council can not alone give the women adequate help. The interaction in the region of Skaraborg works fine, however there are things that can improve in order to get better. The informants had their own different suggestions on how to make changes to the better, an example is a wider interaction with other agencies.