The Impact of Outside Friendships on Relational Satisfaction for Dating and Married Couples

Abstract

The influence of outside friendship on Couples’ relational satisfaction (RS) was explored with a sample of 444 romantically involved participants from central Alberta. There were, therefore, 222 couples, 89 of the couples were dating or engaged; 133 of the couples were Married or cohabitating. All couples were heterosexual. The primary focus of the study was to identify the relationship between the number and quality of outside friendships and relational satisfaction of the couples. Friendships were divided into three types: unshared (individual) friends, family friends, and shared (mutual) friends. A combination of the George-Wisdom Marital Satisfaction Scale and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale measured relational satisfaction. Results underlined the importance of friendship-related variables on couples’ relational satisfaction; they accounted for 37% of the variance (in relational satisfaction) for men and 47.5% for women. Additional results found that individual friendships are a serious liability to couple satisfaction, family and mutual friends are associated with greater couple satisfaction. Finally, in regression analyses the families supporting the relationship and liking the partner were the greatest predictors of relational satisfaction.