HOW CONTEXT AFFECTS COUPLE SATISFACTION?

There are few studies that focus on the influence that contextual aspects have in marital satisfaction (Meléndez, Aleixandre,& Saez, 1993).However, nowadays the reasons for a divorce are related to the actual social situation (Khalfani-Cox, 2009). Thus, the aim of this study is to identify contextual aspects that are associ-ated with marital satisfaction; in order to accomplish this objective, we conducted two studies. The purpose of the first study was to identify recent context aspects that influence marital satisfaction throughout an open question, which was ap-plied to 131 people. The results indicate that the dimensions of economic, labor time, home safety, stress in the environment, and the place where they live influ-ence marital satisfaction. In the second study, based on the information obtained previously, we formed indicators that were applied together with a scale of mari-tal satisfaction to105 couples. The results show that the context is closely related to marital satisfaction. In addition, the results determine that men give greater importance to the economic and employment situation than women do. Overall, this study indicates that sex differences prove that the roles and cultural expecta-tions have remained in the dynamics of the relationship and thus influence the assessment of marital satisfaction.