Research on couple instability, particularly earlier work, was built either implicitly or explicitly on family development assumptions of "normative" relationship progression (Sprenkle & Piercy, 1992), and little attention was given to context and characteristics of couples (Karney & Bradbury, 2020). As research on couple instability progressed to match the diversity of couples' demographics and contexts, specialized information has emerged that serves to inform clinical practice and intervention. This chapter provides research information and clinical guidelines for work with several specific types of families in which couples may face a number of challenges that threaten stability: fragile family couples (a term used to describe low-income, nonmarried partners expecting a child or having a child under age 3), couples with a child on the autism spectrum, stepfamily couples, and multiracial couples. The bulk of research on each of these couple types has focused on cisgender, different-gender couples, and thus the literature review and clinical guidelines are limited to those partnerships.
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