The team of 'Education of affectivity and human sexuality' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra has launched the project AMAR (Antecedents of Marital Adjustment Research) with the goal to study which aspects of the couple's relationship help to be successful in marriage.

The AMAR study is aimed at couples who intend to get married in the coming months. The aim is to monitor their relationship from courtship and during the first years of marriage through the collection of data at different moments of the relationship. Each couple will periodically receive a questionnaire which will analyze variables such as communication, how conflicts are resolved, the Degree of commitment to the other person, how time and effort are invested in the relationship or the Degree of giving priority to the "we" over the "I".

Alfonso Osorio, one of the people in charge of project and researcher of the ICS, explained in the magazine Alfa y Omega that 'what the team wants to know is what variables help a marriage to remain happily married. This relationship will be analyzed to see how these marriages differ from others'.

In the same interview, Osorio also pointed out that the research seeks to find the core topic of 'marital satisfaction', because 'staying married is important, but staying happily married is even more important. There are concrete analyses that allow us to discover the factors that help simply to stay married and others to enjoy marital satisfaction. There are ways to measure this, direct and indirect questions, reliable and serious questionnaires that even provide the Degrees of satisfaction with the relationship'.

A study in time

AMAR is a longitudinal study that intends to introduce new couples over the years. The extension of the project over time will provide better data on what really works in a relationship and will help improve future marriages.

This subject of programs of study has great value educational for future marriages as it can describe the conditions that increase the probability of success and thus prevent failure if one tries to incorporate protective characteristics into one's married life and avoid those that are risk factors for breakup.