Online first. Instructions for authors. Current issue. Can close romantic relationships last? The commitment of partners in married and cohabitant couples. Iwona Lidia Janicka 1. Background: Western studies indicate the significance of commitment in close emotional relationships. Interpersonal com-mitment is regarded as a process which is indispensable for building and strengthening close relationships, and is associated with the continuation of relationships between happy or unhappy partners.
With this in mind, interpersonal commitment is an important topic for analysis. A theory by Stanley and Markman served as the inspiration for conducting studies on the commitment of partners in permanent relationships in Poland. Participants and procedure: The results for couples marriages and cohabiting couples were finally submitted for analysis.
The mean ages of the participants were Results: The present findings indicate that marriages tend to portend better than cohabitations. The latter may hinder partners, especially men, from leaving the relationship. Conclusions: Studies conducted in Poland tend to produce very similar results to those performed in the US concerning the level of commitment by partners in cohabiting relationships. It may be concluded that the type of commitment is specified more closely by the form of the relationship rather than the socio-cultural conditions in which the cou-ples live.
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