Relationship quality of partners in heterosexual married, heterosexual cohabiting, and gay and lesbian relationships.

Studied the relationship quality of 44 married, 35 heterosexual cohabiting, 50 male homosexual, and 56 female homosexual monogamous couples. Each couple lived together and did not have children in the home. Relationship quality was dimensionalized as love for partner (LP), liking of partner, and relationship satisfaction (RS). Cohabiting partners had the lowest LP and RS scores on a questionnaire assessing relationship quality. Differences were found among partner types on barriers to leaving the relationship, alternatives to the relationship, a belief that mind reading is expected in the relationship, masculinity, femininity, androgyny, dyadic attachment, shared decision making, and perceived social support from family. The 4 groups did not differ in psychological adjustment. For each type of couple, LP was related to many barriers to leaving the relationship and high dyadic attachment; liking of partner was related to few alternatives to the relationship, high dyadic attachment, and high shared decision making; and RS was related to many attractions, few alternatives, few beliefs regarding the destructiveness of disagreement, high dyadic attachment, and high shared decision making. Results are discussed in the context of existing models of relationship quality. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)