The Concept and Aspects of a Successful Marriage as Stated by Successful Iranian Couples and Experts: A Qualitative Study

Successful marriage and the strengthening family foundation bring about numerous positive outcomes for both the family and society. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the concept and dimensions of successful marriage from the perspective of successful couples and experts in this field.

This qualitative study was done by the conventional content analysis method through the participation of 10 Iranian couples (10 men and 10 women) and 14 experts in related courses to marriage. The research environment was health centers. The couples entered our study after obtaining at least %70 of the score from the ENRICH questionnaire. The sampling was done purposefully and the data were collected using unstructured in-depth interviews and continued until achieving saturation. In the meantime, data analysis was conducted using a conventional content analysis method.

The obtained main concepts from the data were four main themes and ten main categories. The main theme included recognizing and understanding the needs, life skills, personality liberation, along with development and flourishing

For a successful marriage, the couple’s premarital knowledge of each other and their spouse’s family, knowing necessary life skills, as well as recognizing and understanding married life are necessary. Moreover, the couples will acquire the necessary development and flourish to manage married life through achieving positive behavioral qualities including personality liberation. To achieve success in married life, one cannot ignore the role of training in acquiring life skills both before and after the married life.