Self - Esteem and Marital Satisfaction: The Impact of Marital Counselling Intervention Program

Abstract

Background: In a vital marriage, couples nurture their individuality in spite of enjoying shared activities with their partners. Self-Esteem determines a person’s self-value and self-feeling based on their relationship with outer world. It plays a major role in any interpersonal relationships especially marriage and determines the marital satisfaction of the couple.
Objective: The current research tries to explore the role of mindfulness-based interventions and marital counselling intervention program on self - esteem and marital satisfaction of army couples.
Method: Around 312 (156 couples within first five years of marriage) between 21 to 30 years of age from Army cantonments in Gurdaspur, Punjab, India took part in the study. The participants were selected using purposive sampling technique. Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory – Adult form (CSEI-AD) and the Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI) by Funk & Rogge (2007) was used to measure self-esteem and marital satisfaction of couples.
Results: Repeated measures of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to find out the interactive effect of the different groups (control and experiment) and the trials (pretest, posttest, and follow up). The results revealed that the studied research population experienced low level of self-esteem and there was a significant positive correlation between self- esteem and marital satisfaction. Further the couples in the experimental group were found to have higher and significant difference than control group in their level of self-esteem.
Conclusion: The results further highlight the significance of designing evidence-based intervention program for strengthening the couples’ relationship in a marriage.