The Honeymoon is Over: Maintaining a Strong Marriage After the First Year 

 

I conducted this study as part of my Human Communication Theory course as an undergraduate student in 2011. The purpose of the study was to determine how newlywed couples can maintain marital quality and satisfaction after the first-year of marriage. 

 

Specifically, I analyzed the “honeymoon-is-over” effect (Kurdek, 1998), and the “honeymoon-then-blandness” pattern (Aron, Norman, Aron, & Lewandowski, 2002). I then examined what constitutes a “satisfied” marital dyad, communication differences between sexes, and how recently-wed couples adapt to the challenges and changes that occur within the first-year of marriage. Using Baxter and Montgomery’s Relational Dialectics Theory, Thibault and Kelley’s Social Exchange Theory, and Tannen’s Genderlect Theory, I assessed how communication plays an integral role in the relational maintenance and satisfaction among spouses beyond the first-year of marriage.