Patterns of marital interaction associated with marital dissatisfaction and depression.

This research compared couples reporting high and low levels of marital interactions in which one spouse responds ineffectually to the rights-infringing behavior of the mate. The results of planned comparisons indicated that high frequencies of such interactions were associated with reports of marital dissatisfaction and depression in husbands and marital dissatisfaction in wives. When both spouses described their mates as transgressive and themselves as ineffectual responders to transgression, the dysfunction reported by both spouses was pronounced. Examination of partial correlation, coefficients indicated that each spouse's role in the interaction pattern contributed to its dysfunctional nature.