Don't be afraid of growing up in an unhappy family: Breaking the cycle
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https://doi.org/10.70736/ijoess.1641Keywords:
Interparental relationship, happy marriage, unhappy marriage, building a happy home, qualitative researchAbstract
Marriage is one of the most significant relational experiences in an individual’s life. This study aims to examine the perceptions of women who define their parents’ marriage as unhappy but consider their own marriages as happy, with respect to both happy and unhappy marital experiences. The research focuses on the dimensions in which differences emerge between the two marriages and the relational dynamics that facilitate this transformation. It is believed that understanding how women manage to build a fulfilling relationship despite being raised in the shadow of an unhappy parental marriage will provide a novel perspective to the literature. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach, specifically within an interpretative phenomenological design. Criterion sampling, a purposive sampling method, was employed. The participants consisted of 20 married women, aged between 24 and 42, who defined their own marriages as happy and their parental marriages as unhappy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using content analysis with MAXQDA 20 software. Three main themes were identified in the analysis: “unhappy parental relationship,” “happy couple relationship,” and “building a happy home.” The first two themes encompass the categories of “the domain of intimacy and connection: attachment” and “the domain of autonomy/power and boundaries: identity.” The third theme, “building a happy home,” was structured under six categories: “self-awareness: recognizing intergenerational transmission and initiating change,” “the woman’s individual transformation: differentiating from the mother,” “prioritizing the relationship and investing in it,” “mutual recognition and acceptance of differences between spouses,” “the spouse factor: having a partner unlike the father,” and “the role of spirituality in marital satisfaction.” Findings were discussed in light of the relevant literature, and several suggestions were presented.
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