Predictive Pattern of Marital Happiness in Married Individuals

The aim of this study was to identify the predictors of marital happiness and to suggest a pattern for predicting marital happiness in married individuals. The population of the present study comprised all married men and women with an age range of 20 to 50 years, residing in Tehran, and married for at least two years. The Sampling was conducted in two stages. The first stage was conducted via convenient sampling and 67 married individuals completed the Enrich Marital Satisfaction and the Tagarian Marital Happiness Questionnaires. At the second stage, via purposeful sampling, 20 of married individuals with the highest scores on both questionnaires have been­ interviewed. Finally, data were analyzed using qualitative research methods (open, axial and selective coding) to develop codes and categories. The results showed that four types of factors contributed to marital happiness. They were demographic factors such as age difference, education and income; interpersonal factors such as forgiveness; intrapersonal factors such as acceptance and family factors. According to the results, it seems that among these factors, intrapersonal factors, particularly one’s personal characteristics, perception and standards play a main role in prediction of the marital happiness.