Untying The Knot: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Enduring Marriage

A qualitative analysis using a modified grounded theory approach was performed on 11 interviews from one representative of 11 marriages, including examples of both happy and unhappy marriages, in order to generate a participant-informed account of the enduring marriage. The heuristic model created through the qualitative analysis was contrasted and compared to the existing body of literature on lasting marriage in order to identify areas of convergence and divergence. The qualitative analysis identified a core category termed Emotional Anchoring and seven defining categories that thematically united all examples of lasting marriage in the present study. Results suggest that there are different ways of remaining married but that each example of a lasting marriage is a testament to participants’ ability to balance the competing demands of autonomy and connection in their union.