Emotional Skillfulness in Marriage: Intimacy As a Mediator of the Relationship Between Emotional Skillfulness and Marital Satisfaction

We tested the theory that emotional skillfulness, specifically the ability to identify and communicate emotions, plays a role in the maintenance of marital adjustment through its effects on the intimacy process. Ninety–two married couples completed measures of emotional skillfulness, marital adjustment, and intimate safety. As predicted, we found that the ability to identify and the ability to communicate emotions were associated with self and partner marital adjustment. Furthermore, the association between these emotion skills and marital adjustment was mediated by intimate safety for both husbands and wives. Gender differences were found in the ability to communicate emotions and in the association between the communication of emotions and partners' marital adjustment.