Research has yet to explain how individuals develop and incorporate their religious and spiritual views into their sense of self and romantic relationship beliefs and behaviors. The current study seeks to understand how individuals and couples understand their spiritual and religious beliefs and use them to negotiate satisfying marital relationships. Self-discrepancy theory assists in understanding the ways in which individuals and couples navigate the development of their spiritual, religious, and relationship beliefs, as participants beliefs are often fluid as they work to reconcile various discrepancies. To understand how participants experience these beliefs in family of origin, courtship, and the early years of marriage, a story-telling methodology is employed. Many couples experience their religious beliefs as being focused on the organization, denomination, rites, and rituals, whereas spirituality is more often about beliefs, movement or questioning, and connection to a God or Higher Power. Spiritual and religious beliefs influenced the way participants viewed romantic relationships in terms of marriage, sex, marital cohesion, dating, family of origin, children, pregnancy, cohabitation, and divorce. This study represents participants' lived experiences and the various ways in which spiritual and religious beliefs permeate into other aspects of marital life. Interestingly, there appears to be a high salience of religious and spiritual beliefs in regards to relational beliefs and behavior beginning in adolescence leading up to marriage and then a reduction in saliency for some after marriage until the presence of children when saliency increases for some couples.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/194300 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Payne, Pamela B. |
| Contributors | Ridley, Carl A, Ridley, Carl A, Silverberg Koerner, Susan, Butler, Emily A., Wilhelm, Mari S. |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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