Relationship Satisfaction among South Asian Canadians: The Role of ‘Complementary-Equality’ and Listening to Understand

Abstract

This study explored the ways in which adherence to traditional marital expectations in ones marriage was related to styles of interpersonal listening and marital satisfaction among IndoPakistanis living in a Western country. Participants (n = 114) were recruited from a large metropolitan city in Canada, were married, and their ages ranged from 19 to 67 years. They completed measures of marital satisfaction, listening styles, and traditional orientation to marriage. Results indicated that greater adherence to traditional marital beliefs were correlated with lower levels of interpersonal listening and marital satisfaction. However, closer examination of the traditional orientation subscales revealed that expectation of traditional husband and wife roles did not result in lower empathic listening in one's marriage or lower marital satisfaction, but the lower degree to which one believed in upholding equality in undertaking such traditional roles did. Furthermore, empathic listening mediated the relationship between belief in equality in one's relationship and marital satisfaction. The implications of these results for enhancing relationship satisfaction for Indo-Pakistanis are discussed. Key Words: Traditionalism, listening styles; South Asian; marital communication; cross-cultural relationshipsMarriage is by far the most important personal relationship for South Asians. The stability and continuity of a marriage is important not just to the members of the marital dyad, but to their family and community as a whole. Traditionally, South Asians expected their marriages to be arranged by their elder extended kin who continued to play a significant role in the couple's lives.Husbands and wives expected each other to follow gender-based division of labour where the husband is responsible for financially supporting the family and the wife is responsible for 1 Doctoral student, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada. Email: sahmad@yorku.ca. Saunia's key research interest is on mechanisms of change in psychotherapy process, cultural factors in family and marital therapy and interpersonal relationships. 2 Professor, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada. Email: dreid@yorku.ca. Dr. Reid's key areas of research interests are: interpersonal relationships with special interest in marital dynamics, psychological change mechanisms and psychotherapy processes. He is also household work and childrearing. More recently, the rapidly changing social and economic trends have led to changes in expectations of marriage for South Asians, particularly those that have migrated and settled in Western countries and are exposed to new value systems.South Asians have been found to rapidly acculturate to Western values in the area of work and school as they are motivated to be economically and professionally successful, however, they tend to maintain traditional expectations regarding family life (Vaidyanathan & Naidoo, 1991; Wakil, Siddique, & Wakil, 1981). ...

Enhancing the Relationship Adjustment of South Asian Canadian Couples Using a Systemic‐Constructivist Approach to Couple Therapy

“…This subscale includes items such as satisfaction with each other's educational and occupational achievements, sharing of cultural, religious and familial ideals, and involvement of extended family in their marriage. The RRAS‐C had previously demonstrated high internal consistency (α = .93) and significant positive correlations with measures of active listening among a sample of 114 South Asian marital partners (Ahmad & Reid, ). In the present study, Cronbach's alpha for the 23‐item RRAS‐C was .87 and .92 in the first and final sessions, respectively.…”

Marital Adjustment Trend in Asian Indian Families

“…Results of Valiant and Valiant (1993) and Twenage et al (2003) indicated that marital adjustment in couples declined in the first 10 years of marriage, with the lowest level of satisfaction for the couples with teenagers. This trend was then followed by the first child to the last child leaving home (Fincham & Beach, 2010;Umberson et al, 2005), by "empty nest" situation (McGoldrick et al, 2010), and, lastly, by retired couples (Aslinia, 2010;Ahmad & Reid, 2008).…”

An Examination of Work-Life Balance, Listening Satisfaction, and Relationship Dissolution Among Marital and Cohabiting Couples

“…However, partners who report suffering from a work-life imbalance experience work stress and their relationship becomes less satisfying overtime, which leads to relationship dissolution (Debrot, Siegler, Klumb, & Schoebi, 2018;Yucel, 2012). When relational partners perceive that their partner is listening to them to understand their situation, they are more likely to experience "we-ness" and relationship satisfaction, which may reduce the likelihood of relationship dissolution (Reid, Dalton, Laderoute, Doell, & Nguyen, 2006;Ahmad & Reid, 2008).…”