Junior enlisted Marines are getting married at a faster rate than their civilian counterparts and nearly twice that of senior personnel (Gomulka, 2010; Cohen, Passel, Wang, & Livingston, 2011). With the high rate of marriage, these same junior Marines have a disproportionately high divorce rate. While the high rate of divorce is a significant…

What goes into designing and implementing a successful program? How do both research and practice inform program development? In this article, the process through which a federally funded training curriculum was developed and piloted tested is described. Using a logic model framework, important lessons learned are shared in defining the situation,…

This study measured marital satisfaction of low-income couples in a Western state following participation in the Building Healthy Marriages program, which aimed to educate couples and increase relationship satisfaction. The researchers' goals were the following: To determine the areas in which participants experienced the greatest number of…

A study of healthy marriages was conducted and five keys were found to exist in all of them: spirituality, intimacy, conflict resolution, communication and financial management. The author examined secular and spiritual literature and found these keys were prevalent in both. Military couples experience many stressors that are not found in…

In this study, we present the findings of an investigation of the effectiveness of 3 models of premarital education. The study compares the outcomes between a workbook-only self-directed program, a therapist-directed (unstructured) program, and an assessment-based (RELATE) relationship enhancement program. Results revealed significant differences…

"Connections: Relationships and Marriage" ("Connections") is a high school marriage education curriculum designed to teach students how to develop healthy relationships and marriages. This study evaluated the effectiveness of this curriculum over 4-years postintervention with a matched set of 72 high school students who were in either the…

Reviews several areas of marital and family enrichment: methodology and interpretation; subject characteristics and populations; format, composition, process, and leadership; component effectiveness comparisons; and program effectiveness comparisons. For each area, briefly summarizes major research contributions of the 1980s and offers…