Maintenance strategies and physical affection as predictors of love, liking, and satisfaction in marriage

The purpose of this research effort is to examine five relational maintenance strategies and two measures of physical affection as predictors of love, liking, and satisfaction in marriage. The sample consisted of 200 married couples. Results indicate that perceptions of the partners’ use of maintenance strategies and respondents’ own satisfaction with physical affection were strong predictors of love, liking, and satisfaction. Moreover, the variables differed in their relative predictive ability of the relational characteristics.