Abstract

Summary This study tests the hypothesis that the marital helping relationship acts as a moderator between the stress experienced by the marital partners and their resultant well-being. Ss were 189 husband-wife pairs. Each individual provided information about his or her life and job stress; satisfaction with spouse's helping efforts; satisfaction with job, marriage, and life; and mental and physical well-being. Measures of well-being were positively related to satisfaction with spouse's help and negatively related to amount of experienced stress. Satisfaction with spouse's help remained significantly related to the measures of well-being controlling for levels of experienced stress. Thus it was concluded that the husband-wife helping relationship is an important moderator between experienced stress and individual well-being.