Philippine E-Journals

Coping Styles of Filipino Women in Intact and Broken Marriages

Lucia Jemima O. Munez

Discipline: Psychology, Social Science

 

Abstract:

Coping styles are used in handling stress or anticipated stress. In particular, this study aims to compare the respondents' coping with the decision to either continue striving for commitment in a marriage or file for nullity of marriage, for an annulment, or legal separation brought about by the circumstances in a marriage. Forty women in intact marriages and thirty-five in broken marriages in Quezon City were interviewed for this study.

 

Personality type and coping styles of women in intact and broken marriages were obtained from the scores of MBTI and ENRICH. These revealed significant differences in three areas: (1) Conflict resolution and religious orientation were significantly affected by age. (2) Psychological types of judging/perceiving varied depending on the type of profession. Under coping styles, marital adaptability differed between intact and broken marriages. (3) Differences in coping styles were dependent on length of marriage and whether the women were in intact or broken marriages.

 

Women in intact marriages were more satisfied with their marriage, more accepting of personality differences, had better communication and conflict resolution skills. They differed in the way they spent leisure. And they also had healthier attitudes towards sex, children, family, and friends.

 

In the context of an increasing number of petitioners for nullity of marriage and legal separation this study answers a growing need to strengthen Filipino marriages.