The Meaning of Couple Relationship Maintenance in Mexico

The concept of couple relationship maintenance is used to identify the efforts towards maintaining a healthy relationship (Noller & Feeney, 2006). According to Stafford (2008), a maintenance relationship is that in which one can find conducts directed to maintaining, preventing its failure, and/or repairing whatever is wrong with the relationship. The purpose of this research was to know the meaning of couple relationship maintenance in adult men and women. 487 Mexico City residents (246 men, 241 women; M age =37.34; SD=15.68) participated in this research. The Natural Semantic Modified Networks technique (Reyes Lagunes, 1993) was used for this research. Results show that men and women in current dating relationships (group 1) consider that love and trust define our target variable. Group 2 (men and women with no children) consider that love, communication and trust are the words that best define. Group 3 (men and women with children) consider that love, details, tolerance, respect, trust, and support are the concepts that best define our variable. Group 4 (Men and women with children over 23 years) defines the variable as love, communication, respect, and comprehension. It is concluded that “love” is the best way to define couple relationship maintenance. This is best described by Diaz-Guerrero (1982), who culturally described Mexico as the culture of love. Research supported by Project PAPIIT IN306417.