Presenting a Conceptual Model of Enduring Love Based on Emotional Intimacy, Cognitive Empathy, Active Commitment, and Conflict Management in Long-Term Marriages
Keywords:
Enduring love, emotional intimacy, cognitive empathy, active commitment, conflict management, long-term marriage, qualitative studyAbstract
Objective: This study aimed to develop a conceptual model of enduring love in long-term marriages based on couples’ lived experiences of emotional intimacy, cognitive empathy, active commitment, and conflict management.
Methods and Materials: This qualitative study was conducted using thematic analysis. The participants included 24 married individuals, corresponding to 12 couples, from Tehran, Iran, who had been married for at least 15 years. Participants were selected through purposive sampling with maximum variation in age, education, marriage duration, and occupational status. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and sampling continued until theoretical saturation was reached. All interviews were conducted after obtaining informed consent, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using NVivo software. Data analysis followed the six-phase thematic analysis procedure, including familiarization with the data, initial coding, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the final report. Trustworthiness was enhanced through member checking, peer debriefing, analytic memoing, audit trail documentation, and continuous comparison of codes and themes.
Findings: The analysis resulted in one core theme, “enduring love as continuous relational care,” and four main categories: secure emotional intimacy, cognitive empathy and contextual understanding of the spouse, active commitment and daily investment in the relationship, and constructive conflict management. The findings indicated that enduring love in long-term marriages is not merely the persistence of early romantic emotion; rather, it is a dynamic and intentional process through which couples preserve, repair, and renew their marital bond through emotional responsiveness, perspective-taking, conscious commitment, and relational repair after conflict.
Conclusion: The proposed model suggests that enduring love emerges from the interaction of emotional, cognitive, volitional, and communicative components. Therefore, couple therapy and marital enrichment programs for long-term marriages should move beyond conflict reduction and focus on strengthening emotional intimacy, empathic understanding, behavioral commitment, and constructive repair processes.
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