Interpersonal Communication in

Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen in the past. Although the eighties had experienced a slight decline in divorce rates, "half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death." (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of wordsw, "until death do us part," uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by true love, or, quite simply, the couples mistakenly have different relational expectations. Ultimately, all the possibilities point to one thing, which is a lack of communication. Somewhere along the line, there must have been a breakdown in the interpersonal communication process. Seemingly, the marital dyad has not used the correct communication patterns needed to sustain their relationship. In some way, each of them has notevaluated their partner carefully enough to ensure that this chosen individual is, in fact, truly their life long partner. By no means, is this the sole reason for divorce, but it certainly plays an enormous role. In fact, no one could ever pinpoint the exaact cause of divorce since each situation is unighu and is usually quite complicated. However, it would be unreasonable not to believe that interpersonal communication does not play an integral part in marital satisfaction. Since interpersonal communication affects almost all facets of a relationship, it has a huge impact on each and every part of both individuals' lives. Marital satisfaction, something that everyone would like to find an equation for, is the goal that all married couplesnaturally wish to