MJAAR

Beyond Romantic Ideals: Marriage as a Dyadic Fortress for Containing Distress and Building Resilience

Musiimenta Nancy, Asiimwe Isaac Kazaara


Abstract

This study examined marriage as a dyadic regulatory system — a shared psychosocial fortress through which couples jointly contain emotional distress and cultivate long-term resilience, moving the scholarly discourse beyond conventional romantic idealism. Using a cross-sectional quantitative design, data were collected from 520 married individuals across urban and peri-urban settings through structured questionnaires measuring dyadic coping, psychological distress, marital satisfaction, resilience outcomes, and sociodemographic characteristics. Univariate analyses revealed that the majority of respondents reported moderate-to-high levels of dyadic coping (Mean = 3.84, SD = 0.71) and marital satisfaction (Mean = 3.67, SD = 0.82), while psychological distress was inversely distributed. Bivariate analyses using Pearson correlation and independent samples t-tests confirmed statistically significant associations between dyadic coping and resilience (r = 0.61, p < .001), and between marital satisfaction and distress containment (r = −0.53, p < .001). Multilevel modelling (MLM) revealed that, after controlling for individual-level covariates including age, education, and income, dyadic coping (β = 0.47, SE = 0.06, p < .001) and joint problemsolving (β = 0.39, SE = 0.07, p < .001) were significant predictors of resilience, with couple-level clustering accounting for 24% of the variance in resilience outcomes (ICC = 0.24). Furthermore, couples who engaged in mutual emotional support demonstrated significantly lower levels of psychological distress compared to those with low dyadic engagement. The study concludes that marriage, when characterized by active dyadic coping and mutual emotional investment, functions as a potent buffer against psychological distress and a robust incubator of resilience. Interventions targeting couples should prioritize dyadic coping skill-building, communication enhancement, and joint crisis management to leverage the relational fortress that healthy marriages uniquely provide.

Keywords

Dyadic coping psychological distress marital resilience multilevel modelling relational fortress marital satisfaction
Metropolitan Journal of Academic and Applied Research

Cite This Article

Musiimenta Nancy & Asiimwe Isaac Kazaara (2026). Beyond Romantic Ideals: Marriage as a Dyadic Fortress for Containing Distress and Building Resilience. Metropolitan Journal of Academic and Applied Research, 5(3). https://journals.miu.ac.ug/pages/article.php?article_id=330

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