Prevention is better than cure

A realization that I have come to have after analyzing some of these journals would be that prevention is better than cure. That is why positive psychology strives to find ways in order to prevent marital conflicts from forming. In order to do so some studies have been conducted in order to further analyze the perceptions that different sexes have towards their partner’s forgiveness as well as the overall marital forgiveness. This analysis is done on early marriage couples because conflicts are usually not yet formed at this stage.

According to a journal that I have found it was stated that men tend to be more forgiving during their early stages of marriage compared to women (Miller, A. J., & Worthington Jr, E. L., 2010). This statement is further supported by another study which has shown that over a course of five study waves that men tend to have a higher average mean compared to women in both characteristics of forgiveness and self-control (Tila M. Pronk et al., 2017). These findings differed from previous studies conducted on individuals where it was shown that females tend to be more forgiving than males (Fincham et al., 2006). That is why it is hypothesized that during early marriage men might consider their level of forgiveness, empathy and self-control based on their global sentiments whereas women tend to consider their level of forgiveness, empathy and self-control with event-specific attributions (Kurdek, 2005).

These global sentiments will tend to decrease with time whereas event specific attributions will vary accordingly with each individual transgression. Therefore, it is theorized that men will tend to be more forgiving during the early stages of marriage whereas women will tend to become more forgiving during the later stages of marriage or the gap between both sex will just decrease over time. The findings in this study has also shown that during early marriage men will tend to perceive themselves as being more forgiving compared to their partners’ and this statement has been further agreed upon by their partners’(Miller, A. J., & Worthington Jr, E. L., 2010).

The theory that marital satisfaction, sex and marital forgiveness are connected are also being tested upon in this study. Through this it can be seen that marital satisfaction is indeed connected with marital forgiveness (d= 0. 47) and that sex is also accounted for a certain amount of variance in marital forgiveness (Miller, A. J., & Worthington Jr, E. L., 2010).

Another study however which has chosen to focus upon the importance of the relationship between self-control and forgiveness towards marital satisfaction has claimed that there is indeed a positive correlation between self-control and forgiveness. This statement was further proven through five study waves that there was a significant positive connection between self-control and forgiveness for both the husbands (r = . 29, p < . 001) as well as the wives (r = . 26, p < . 001) (Tila M. Pronk et al., 2017). Even though there is a difference in focus between both studies, it can still be agreed upon that marital satisfaction will dwindle with time and the severity of problems will increase as well (McNulty, 2008).

Another one of our findings would suggest that an increase in forgiveness within a marriage will allow the individuals involved to experience less depression as well as hostility (Miller, A. J., & Worthington Jr, E. L., 2010). This is so for example if one were to ask for forgiveness from their partner it would require a lot of courage on their side to re-experience the shame again. However, by doing so they would then be able to overcome their conflicts and resolve their hostility towards each other. They would also discover that by doing so it gives them a sense of healing (E. Wayne Hill, 2010).

Another study has also shown us that marital satisfaction within both males and females will decrease over time however, for females it will decrease more drastically. This is because for females who tend to start of their marriage with more feelings of distress and less forgiveness will tend to experience a much more dramatic trend of decreasing marital satisfaction compared to their partners (Kurdek, 2005). That is why in order to prolong the longevity of the marriage, interventions have to be implemented during early marriage in order to help these couples build their communication skills as well as conflict resolution (Miller, A. J., & Worthington Jr, E. L., 2010).