The Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 2010) focuses on teaching appropriate communication and conflict skills, and provides information to help couples evaluate expectations, understand relationship commitment, and enhance positive connections through friendship and fun ( Ragan, Einhorn, Rhoades, Markman, & Stanley, 2009). Given these negative outcomes of marital conflict and divorce, the overarching goal of premarital relationship education has been to provide couples with skills to have healthy marriages. Marital conflict and divorce have also shown to be associated with negative child outcomes including lower academic success ( Frisco, Muller, & Frank, 2007 Sun & Li, 2001), poorer psychological well-being (Sun & Li, 2002), and increased depression and anxiety ( Strohschein, 2005). These results provide new insights into the timing and content of premarital and relationship education.ĭivorced individuals, compared to their married counterparts, have higher levels of psychological distress, substance abuse, and depression, as well as lower levels of overall health ( Amato, 2000 Hughes & Waite, 2009).

Recommendations from participants for the improvement of premarital education included receiving relationship education before making a commitment to marry (when it would be easier to break-up), having support for implementing skills outside of the educational setting, and increasing content about the stages of typical marital development. More participants blamed their partners than blamed themselves for the divorce. The most common “final straw” reasons were infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use. The most commonly reported major contributors to divorce were lack of commitment, infidelity, and conflict/arguing. Participants also provided suggestions based on their premarital education experiences so as to improve future relationship education efforts. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study sought to understand participant reasons for divorce (including identification of the “final straw”) in order to understand if the program covered these topics effectively. The study presents findings from interviews of 52 divorced individuals who received the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) while engaged to be married.

The lost world 1992 money