Relationships between marital satisfaction,resources, and power strategies

A study was conducted to determine usefulness of the Falbo and Peplau model for understanding the power strategies and marital satisfaction of 42 nonstudent married couples. In addition, this study examined the impact of imbalanced resources on power strategy use and marital satisfaction. Overall, the results supported the hypothesis that people who see themselves as Equal Partners are more satisfied with their relationship than Traditional Partners. The results also indicated that Equal Partners reported using fewer strategies overall in trying to get their way. Thus, the greater use of power strategies may be associated with being in an imbalanced resource relationship, such as a traditional marriage. Furthermore, the results of this study supported the expectation that marital dissatisfaction is associated with the use of indirect strategies. Although husbands and wives overall were not found to differ in their power strategy use, there was a suggestion that traditional wives used more power strategies, regardless of type, than traditional husbands.This research was based upon the first author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin.