Title: Analyze factors contributing to a successful marriage.
Course: GRADS: Family Focus (19905-36) > Section: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Analysis should include such factors as

- ability to give and receive mature love
- commitment
- shared expectations and goals
- similar ethics, attitudes, priorities, interests, backgrounds
- mutual respect, trust, dependability, responsibility
- friends: separate and shared
- ability to communicate, make decisions, resolve conflicts
- ability to give, care, share, and compromise.

Process/Skill Questions

Thinking

- What has influenced your ideas about a healthy marriage?
- What characteristics might predict a healthy marriage?
- How is an adolescent marriage different than marriage between older partners?

Communication

- How can you communicate your commitment, both short- and long-term?
- How would you describe your ideal mate?
- What skills are necessary for effective communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution?
- How is a relationship affected when one partner insists on having his or her own way most of the time?

Leadership

- What is the importance of maintaining your own friends and friends as a couple?
- How can you show mutual respect, trust, dependability, and responsibility in your marriage? Why is it especially important at a time when there is a high level of stress in your relationship?
- What help/resources are available for a couple in stress?

Management

- When you think of a couple whom you consider to be happily married, what do you think are the reasons for their success?
- What do you think is the difference between a mature love and an immature love?
- What personal guidelines can you set for yourself to maintain qualities of giving, caring, sharing, and compromising in your marriage?