Contexts or Environments
Contexts and environments are the settings in which individual and couple traits are developed. These influential contexts are placed at the bottom of the Marriage Triangle because they form the foundation of the development of individual and couple interactional traits. Larson (2003) divides these contexts into two general domains - personal contexts and relationship contexts.
Personal context characteristics include family-of-origin influences, such as the degree of love and unity in the family in which you grew up, the quality of your parents' marriage, and your degree of autonomy in your family-of-origin.
Relationship context refers to the situation or environment in which your relationship currently exists. Examples of relationship context factors include support from in-laws, chronically unresolved marital problems, and stress caused by spending too much time or energy in raising children, dealing with financial problems, and so on.
Individual Traits
Individual traits that influence marital satisfaction or dissatisfaction include a person's personality, attitudes, and skills (Larson, 2003). Larson identifies difficulty coping with stress, dysfunctional beliefs, excessive impulsiveness (e.g., impulsive spending, obsessive compulsive behaviors, etc.), extreme self-consciousness, excessive anger and hostility, untreated depression, and chronic irritability as the major liabilities toward the achievement of marital satisfaction.
Conversely, Larson identifies extroversion (i.e., sociability), flexibility, good self-esteem, assertiveness, commitment, and an ability to love as the major assets toward the achievement of marital satisfaction.
Couple Traits
Couple traits that influence marital satisfaction and dissatisfaction include communication and conflict resolution skills and several other traits specifically pointed out by Larson (2003) that include the following:
Cohesion - time spent together compared with time spent apart that leads to a perception and feeling of emotional closeness.
Intimacy - the combination of self-disclosure, affection, sexual relations, and cohesion.
Control or power sharing - "the ability to influence another person to go in the direction you want" When there is give-and-take and the power and control is equitable and shared, then a feeling of satisfaction generally occurs. When one spouse tends to "exercise too much power or control in decision making" then dissatisfaction can occur.
Consensus - "the degree of agreement you and your partner experience on a variety of marital issues such as proper behavior in public, religious matters, decision making, and displays of affection". Similarly, Larson states that "consensus can be realized in one of three ways in marriage:
(1) you accept and appreciate that you are already similar,
(2) you accept your differences without resentment or despair, or
(3) you reach consensus through healthy conflict resolution"(p. 25).
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