The Impact of Relationship Wellness Checkups with Gay Male Couples

Abstract

Relationship health impacts many other health outcomes, including physical and mental wellbeing and the health of children in the family system (Goeke-Morey, Cummings, & Papp, 2007; Jaremka, Glaser, Malarkey, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2013; Jaremka, Lindgren, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2013; Pihet, Bodenmann, Cina, Widmer, & Shantinath, 2007; Rappaport, 2013; Robles, Slatcher, Trombello, & McGinn, 2014). Despite the importance of relationship health, couples do not regularly seek support for maintaining their connection (Eubanks-Fleming & Cordova, 2012). Early intervention programs that provide support are a growing public health initiative (Cowan & Cowan, 2014). One brief early intervention program, the Marriage Checkup (MC), positively impacts relationship satisfaction, prevents decline, and improves health on other relationship variables such as intimacy (Cordova, 2014). To date, the MC research has included only heterosexual couples. This study explored the question, “What is the impact of a relationship wellness checkup on gay male couples’ relationship satisfaction?” Using single-subject multiple-baseline, multiple-probe design, this study extends MC research to include gay may couples. Findings showed that the MC positively influenced satisfaction (NAP .73) for the group overall. In an analysis of each couple, two of the three couples improved and one couple showed a slight decline in satisfaction. The likely confounding event for this third couple was their marriage and honeymoon during the baseline phase. In light of research with newlywed and engaged couples from other studies, overall the results tentatively suggest the MC may increase satisfaction for gay male couples with additional research needed for newlywed couples.

Adapting the Marriage Checkup for Gender, Romantic, and Sexual Minority Relationships: Responses From 18 LGBTQ Partners Completing a Pilot Program

“…The pilot study used single-subject non-concurrent, multiple probe (Gast et al, 2014), multiple baseline (Barlow et al, 2009) design exploring the effectiveness of the MC with the subsets of GRSM relationships. Results on the MC's effectiveness with these GRSM partners, reported in previous articles, indicated overall that the MC had a moderate effect size in this pilot program (Minten & Dykeman, 2019, 2020a, 2020bMinten, & Muzacz, 2022).…”

“…The MC may provide benefits that complement relationship education (more privacy, more attention to the unique relationship and partners and their perspectives from the basis in MI, etc.). The MC improves relationship satisfaction for GRSM partners with only a few simple small adjustments to reduce heterosexist and cisgender bias (Minten & Dykeman, 2019, 2020a, 2020bMinten, & Muzacz, 2022), and additional changes to content (survey questions) and process (attending to topics relevant to GRSM relationships specifically) may improve the intervention in a way that parallels the research on adapting relationship education programs for GRSM relationships.…”

“…Six self-identified lesbian partners, six selfidentified gay male partners, and six self-identified transgender partners (note: transgender was defined for this study as a relationship where one or more partners self-identify as transgender or gender diverse) responded to a 6-month follow-up survey sharing their feedback on how they thought the MC could be adapted to better support them. The outcome results of the MC program itself on relationship satisfaction for these 18 partners are reported and discussed elsewhere (Minten & Dykeman, 2019, 2020a, 2020bMinten, & Muzacz, 2022). This article covers the partners' responses to the survey questions (1) how they would describe the helpfulness of the checkup (asked on a Likert scale and with an open-ended question) and ( 2) what would they like added to the checkup for their relationship (from a multiple choice list from previous research with sexual and gender minority partners and an open question).…”