Forgiveness in Marriage: From Incidents to Marital Satisfaction

Abstract

Although marital forgiveness has been found to increase marital satisfaction, no research to date has examined the actual mechanism. This could derive from the ABCM model of marital satisfaction (Hall, 2021), in which disposition to forgive is understood as one of the marriage maintenance strategies contributing to spousal happiness. In two cross-sectional studies, we examined the association between marital forgiveness and satisfaction. We also tested a model in which dispositional forgiveness mediates the link between forgiveness of a particular marital incident and satisfaction with spousal relationship, moderated by transgression severity and apology. The Marital Offence-Specific Forgiveness Scale, the Heartland Forgiveness Scale and measures of marital satisfaction were used. Positive main effects between forgiveness and multidimensional marital satisfaction emerged. Moderated mediation revealed the mediation effect of dispositional forgiveness, which did not depend on the level of the moderators (severity and apology).