Negative or Positive Impact of

¶ … negative or positive impact of infertility upon marriage is conflicted and has yielded mixed results. On one hand, some small case studies, such as that of R.D. Benasutti (2003) suggest that there may be an overstated impact regarding the negative influence of infertility upon a couple's interpersonal relationship. On the other hand, Peterson et al. (2003) in a study of 1,153 women and 1,149 men discovered a notable correlation between marital strain and infertility. Peterson's findings are borne out by a number of studies within the existing literature. Anderheim et al.

(2006) conducted a study of 117 couples undergoing IVF treatment, and found that those with unsuccessful treatment were notably less happy in their marriages than those who were successful. Johansoon's et al. (2009) long-term study of 400 couples found that after a 5-year follow-up, those who had children were significantly happier than those who did not have children, regardless of how the children were obtained -- through adoption or through successful IVF. Male infertility placed a particular strain upon the infertile couple's marital relationship, according to Russell et al.

(2006), given the ways that this specific form of fertility threatened a couple's sense of gender roles. However, very long-term studies, including a survey by Chou et al. (2004) of Chinese adults, found that infertility, despite the strong significance given to children in Chinese culture had less of an impact than initially suspected by the study's designers, at least amongst long-married couples. The lack of agreement amongst these different authors may be rooted in the fact that such divergent populations were studied over such different durations of time.

Also, the previous state of the marriage of the infertile couple was not assessed, nor was there a cross-comparison of happy and unhappy couples, and couples that had been married long or short periods of time. The next research step would be to study a broad population of infertile couples, and to first screen them for relative marital health.

A tentative hypothesis might be that while infertility does place an immediate strain upon a marriage that is alleviated by successful fertility treatment and pregnancy or successful adoption, infertility is merely an immediately exacerbating strain upon a marriage that is already in 'trouble' rather than a cause of marital discord. Also, infertility does not resolve a fundamentally unsound marriage. A wide selection of adults must be surveyed for accuracy. One problem with focusing on fertility clinics is that the participants tend to be relatively homogeneous and affluent.

Johansoon's study, for example, only focused upon middle and upper-class Scandinavian, heterosexual couples, and most studies, such as Holter's (2006) et al. are limited to those who can afford costly infertility treatments. To obtain a wide selection of individuals, approximately 1,000 couples seeking initial screening rather than treatment for infertility could be asked to take part of a study. They would then receive extensive questioning through questionnaires to ensure comfort and honesty about the state of their marriage.

Questionnaires would also be a relatively low-cost means of gaining a large amount of information from the study's subjects. The questionnaires would be filled out separately in some sections and jointly by the couples. The questionnaires would ask such true and false questions as whether they had contemplated divorce, as well how many times they had intercourse, their relative level of happiness with their partner, and other queries. The data could then be tabulated.

Then, the couples would be tracked for a period of five years, over which time they would fill out questionnaires periodically. Five years would be the period selected, given that the only other long-term study of such couples, that of Johansoon's et al. (2009), was selected. These questionnaires would solicit information regarding fertility treatments the couple sought, what kinds of treatment, if the treatment was successful, and the relative health of the participants' marriage.

The longitudinal nature of this study would examine the relative long-term impact of infertility upon marriage, and use a cross-comparison of different subgroups. The main groupings would be individuals in what would be called 'happy' or 'healthy' marriages.

For the purposes of this study, happiness would be defined as marriages in which the participants answered similarly for their single responses for the questionnaire, had not sought counseling for their marriage, had not contemplated divorce or separation, and expressed realistic attitudes about the prospect of having a child and its role in making their marriage more or less stable. These are to measure marital satisfaction and stability.

Those in unstable or unhealthy marriages characterized by proposed separation, discord, and an unhealthy attitude towards children and a child's ability to heal their marriage would be segmented into another group. The health of these different groupings of marriages would then be tracked. It would be proposed that healthy, happy marriages that resolved their infertility successfully would be slightly higher on the 'happiness' index of indicators over the years than those who had not resolved their infertility problem.

However, it would also be proposed that individuals who were in unhappy marriages would be significantly less stable than this first group, regardless of how their fertility concerns were resolved. There are some obvious problems regarding the subjective nature of happiness in marriage.

However, any assessment of anxiety or strain is subjective from the point-of-view of a researcher, and the couple's own assessment is perhaps the most valuable, especially if their rating of happiness is not based upon statements such as 'I am happy' but upon measures of how often they talk to their partner, have intercourse, and see the role of a child within the.