In the United States,
 

millions of couples marry each year for the first time, almost always with the hope that the marriage will last forever,

most of these couples are highly committed to doing what it takes to make their relationship strong and satisfying,

about half of these marriages eventually end in divorce or separation, most often in first few years following the wedding, and

these couples have few places to go where they can receive a scientifically-validated program that is known to prevent marital distress and divorce.

We are troubled by the fact that motivated couples who are eager to have a strong marriage have very few places where they can receive effective preparation for marriage. Our view is that couples entering into a long-term committed relationship should have the opportunity to participate in an educational program that will help them to keep their relationship strong and fulfilling.

We believe that we can help to solve this problem by developing educational programs for couples, which are based firmly on available research, and by testing them so that we can identify optimal strategies for helping couples establish lasting and satisfying relationships. This study is designed with this purpose in mind.

 

The first step in such a study would involve recruiting a reasonably large number of couples who have recently married or who are engaged to be married. Then they would be randomly assigned to receive one of the programs that are being tested. The programs might vary in what skills and information they focus on, in how much time they require, or in their format. The key goal is to find out if the programs actually help the couples to have better marriages than they would have had they not received that program. In such a study it is usually informative to have some kind of "control group," or a group of participants who do not receive any program. The results for the couples who did participate in the programs are then compared to each other, and to the couples in the control group.

In a study like this, we ask couples in each of the various groups how happy they are, and we examine how many divorces and separations happen in each group. A rather large number of studies have been conducted that look at how happy couples are a week, a month, or six months after the end of the program. These studies tell us very little about the effects of programs on marriage, because they study couples for just a short period of time. In contrast, very few studies examine marriages over long spans of time - more than 2 years, for example -- yet these are the studies that will tell us whether the available programs are truly working.

Often overlooked in this kind of study is the idea that a significant number of couples in the control group - people who did not receive any kind of active intervention - must either divorce and/or become maritally distressed. It is only when these unfortunate events happen that we can claim that marital distress and/or divorce have been prevented. If most or all of the couples in the control group are not having marital difficulties, then this means that the couples selected for study tended to be too healthy.

We think it is essential that couples have the opportunity to take part in a program that is likely to really help them have a better relationship. Scientists at various labs around the world, including our own lab, are conducting studies like this one to develop and test programs that will give couples the skills they need to have a good marriage.

 

We are very much in favor of couples receiving premarital and early marital enrichment classes through their church or synagogue. One of our long-term goals is to work closely with leaders of religious organizations and other community organizations so that we can share our findings and knowledge with them.

Nevertheless, we are concerned that most of the educational programs that couples receive in religious organizations (and elsewhere) are probably not effective. To a large degree, we believe this is due to the fact that the necessary scientific studies have not been conducted that would demonstrate that one or two programs are clearly superior to all others. Many of the people working with couples in religious organizations are doing their absolute best with the knowledge at hand. Our goal is to improve the quality of that knowledge so that they can do even better.

Another consideration is that, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, about 25% of couples marrying for the first time do so outside of a religious organization. (A higher proportion of remarrying couples, about 42%, marry outside of religious organizations.) This means that marriage preparation programs have to be offered outside of religious organizations if a large number of couples are to participate. Our concern is less about where people receive marriage preparation, and more about the quality and scientific support for the marriage preparation programs that people receive.

Finally, we believe that there are common principles and ideas that are acceptable to people from virtually any religious (or non-religious) background, and that can be effective in helping people from all backgrounds achieve better marriages.

 

If you participated in this study, chances are good that you responded to one of our advertisements or you received a brochure from us as a result of attending a bridal show. More than 900 people called our laboratory after hearing about the project. We interviewed 840 of these people by telephone, with each interview taking 30 to 45 minutes.

We conducted the telephone interviews to "screen out" some couples. This is a standard procedure in the field, and it helps to ensure that the people who end up participating are in fact appropriate for the project.

For example, we asked people to give us an indication of how well their relationship was functioning - how happy they were. We asked this because we felt that our program would not be the best approach to helping couples who were having very serious problems in their relationship. If we interviewed someone who was having serious difficulties in their relationship, we provided them with information about where they could receive low-cost help in their area. All other couples were allowed to participate, assuming they met all of the other requirements for the study.

We also screened out

Couples in which only one member would agree to participate, because the programs we tested are designed specifically for couples,

Couples who did not have a date set for their wedding, because we wanted to be sure that couples had some minimum commitment to marrying in the future,

Couples who were married longer than 6 months, because our focus is on helping couples from the very beginning stages of marriage,

Couples who are not comfortable reading and writing in English, because we did not have the personnel to deliver our programs in other languages,

Couples younger than 18 and older than 45, because the vast majority of couples marrying for the first time are between these ages, and

Couples in which one or both partners had been married once previously, because couples marrying for a second or third time often have different concerns or problems (e.g., being a step-parent) that are not well addressed by the programs in our study.

At every step in the process of selecting couples for the study, we worked hard to make sure that our advertising reached couples from all walks of life. By doing so, we hope to ensure that our results will be helpful to many kinds of couples rather than a select few.

Based on our "selection criteria," you know that all of the participants were couples who were planning marriage or were married within six moths of participation, who could read and speak English, who were between the ages of 18 and 45, who were not significantly distressed in their relationship, and who were in or planning for their first marriage.

From among this group of 840 couples that we had interviewed, we selected those 274 couples who were eligible and invited them to take part in the study. Many of these selected couples were unable to participate because of scheduling conflicts, because they were moving, or because they had changed their minds about participating in the study.

The people who actually participated in the study had the following characteristics:

Men averaged 28 years old, with a range of 19 to 43 years.
Women averaged 27 years old, with a range of 18-44 years.

Men and women came from a variety of educational backgrounds. On average, participants had completed 3 or 4 years of education following graduation from high school.

With regard to race, participants identified themselves as African-American, Asian-American, Native American, Latino/Latina, Middle Eastern, Caucasian, or some combination of these categories. Just over half of the men and women identified themselves as Caucasian.

Catholicism was the most commonly reported religious affiliation, representing about 40% of the participants. Other religious affiliations endorsed by participants included Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Judaism, Hindu, and Islam. About 30% of the participants reported some other religious affiliation, or no religious affiliation.

Participants represented a wide range of occupational backgrounds. For example, people reported being small business owners, sales personnel, managers, teachers, administrative assistants, carpenters, real estate agents, and attorneys.

Overall, we believe that our sample is diverse and that the findings of our study will be applicable to couples from all walks of life.

Unfortunately we cannot tell you a lot about the workshops until the study is completed. This is because people might learn about the workshops and decide that they would have really preferred to be in "program x" when in fact they were assigned to "program y," If this were to happen, we could not be sure if "program y" failed to work because (a) it was basically ineffective or (b) people thought it would be better for them to be in "program x." So to make our job easier later, we have to limit what we can tell people at this point.

We can tell you that there were three main workshops, that all required couples to come to UCLA, and that we fully expect that all three of them could have a beneficial effect on marriages. The three different workshops are rather different in terms of what material they cover and how it is presented.

We did not have a formal "control group," which would be a group in which couples received no intervention. Why? For the most part this is because we pretty much know, based on other studies we have conducted, what will happen to untreated newlywed marriages if they receive no formal premarital education. We can use this information to determine whether couples taking part in the three kinds of workshops fare better than those not taking part in any workshop.

Our main goal is to determine whether we have been successful in helping couples to have strong and fulfilling relationships. Thus, after the workshops, at regular intervals, we will administer a series of questionnaires that will help us to capture the degree to which relationships are working well - or poorly -- from the perspective of the individual partners.

A secondary goal is to determine whether couples who receive different workshop programs are using similar or different kinds of skills. For example, if participants in two different workshops do equally well, is it because they are doing the same thing in their relationship, or are they actually doing different things? And regardless of which program couples receive, do all successful couples tend to engage in the same behaviors, or are there fundamentally different pathways by which successful marriages can be achieved? Again, questionnaires will be used to answer these questions.

We recognize that brief questionnaires may not be the best way to gauge what is happening in couples' relationships. Ideally we would like to observe couples as they talk to each other, or we would like couples to complete extended diaries of what goes on in their relationship. At present we do not have the resources to collect these kinds of data. However, questionnaires are an efficient means of collecting a lot of important information relatively quickly, and they can suggest areas that merit more careful measurement in future studies.

For the most part we are shying away from media coverage until we know the results of our study. But from time to time we accept invitations to discuss our work in the media, often as a way of encouraging more couples to contact us about participating. (However, recruitment for this study is now complete.) Here are three newspaper articles that you might find interesting; click on the headline to read any one of them.

The Marrying Man: UCLA Researcher Tom Bradbury Leads Study to Save Marriages
          Westside Weekly supplement to the Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1998
          Article by Cory Fisher

Wanted: Newlyweds or Couples Planning Marriage
UCLA Study hopes to help couples better prepare for marriage;
Results to be shared with local clergy members
          The Tidings, January 15, 1999
          Article by Brenda Rees

To Err is Human, to Forgive Takes Work
          The Los Angeles Times, August 11, 1999
          Article by Mary Rourke

The workshops ended in September, 2000, so it is still a bit early to report any major findings. Right now our main task is to collect follow-up information from couples at regular intervals over the next few years.

We do know that couples enjoyed participating in our workshops and that they found the workshop staff to be professional and effective. When each couple completed the workshops, we asked for their anonymous responses to several questions. The responses to these questions were quite consistent; for each question below, the average response was VERY OFTEN or higher, on a scale ranging from NEVER to ALWAYS.

Note that a "coach" is the trained staff member who worked individually with couples as they were learning specific skills. The "leader" is the staff member who was responsible for the presentations to the entire group of couples.

What we did in the workshop gave me new ways of looking at our relationship.

The coach treated me with respect.

I felt comfortable working with the coach.

I found the coach to be helpful and skillful during the sessions.

The leader was well prepared for the workshops.

I liked the leader and found him/her to be friendly.

The presentation of the lecture material was informative and helpful.

I believe the skills we learned to use to strengthen our relationship are valuable.

We also asked a related set of questions for which the response scale ranged from NOT AT ALL to EXTREMELY. For the following questions, responses ranged from VERY to EXTREMELY:

Overall, how satisfied are you with the training you received in the workshop?

Overall, how much did you enjoy the workshops?

How much did you learn about your relationship in this workshop?

99% of the men and 100% of the women said they would recommend the workshop to their friends!

Overall, then, we can conclude that couples were very satisfied with the workshops and the way we delivered them. This is important, but we must not confuse these ratings with the question of whether the workshops work. The most important question is whether we were able to provide couples with the skills and knowledge necessary to foster a strong and satisfying relationship. When we have the answer to this question (and several others), we will post the information here on the web site. We will also notify all of the participants at that time, so they can be among the first to know what we have learned.

Our plan is to collect information from all couples either until 3 years have passed from the time the workshops were completed, or until couples end their relationship. Three years is not that much time in a marriage, of course, and we would like to continue with the project if we are able to secure additional funding. But even if we are unable to continue the study beyond 3 years, we know that these first years are crucial to the longevity of marriage. We believe that if we are able to alter the initial course of marriages, that this may well provide couples with the foundation they need to maintain a satisfying and enduring relationship.

When the project is completed, we will

update this site with the results of the study,

write articles to report our findings for professional audiences,

give talks at professional conferences to publicize the study, and

offer workshops to couples in the community that are justified on the basis of the research.

This last point is an important one! If we find that one of the three programs is clearly superior to the others in helping couples have a strong relationship, then this is the program we will offer and promote. Other patterns of results will lead to different strategies. For example, if we find that two of the programs do equally well (particularly relative to no treatment), then we might develop a workshop that combines features of both programs, or we might try to determine which programs work best for particular kinds of couples. And, of course, in the unlikely event that none of the programs prove effective, then we go back to the drawing board, re-think our theories and methods, and strive to develop new approaches for strengthening couple relationships.