Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: The stability of marriage is one of the indicators of a good married life. One of the most important factors that affect the family's stability, durability, and growth is the quality of the parent–child relationship. On the other hand, the experience of usness in couples' relationships is a fundamental component and can help make couples' relationships more flexible. Experience of usness is a fundamental change in individual consciousness that focuses on both parties (couples). Also, the initial experiences of each person cause the formation of a kind of attachment and have an important impact on the development of personality and behavior in adulthood. This study aimed to provide a model of marriage stability based on the quality of parental relationship and attachment with the mediating role of experience of usness.
Methods: The research method was analytical–correlational. The study's statistical population included all married university students in Qom branch, Islamic Azad University, Qom City, Iran, in the academic year 2020–2021. The study sample included 250 students who had been married for three years or more. They were selected by purposeful sampling. To measure the main variables of the research, we used the Marital Instability Index (Edwards et al., 1987), Quality of Parental Relationship Questionnaire (Sanaei et al., 2008), Attachment Subscale of Bell Object Relations Inventory (Bell et al., 1985), Marital Union Subscale of Family Triad Systemic Scale (Cheraghi et al., 2017). Data analysis was performed at a significance level of 0.05 using descriptive and inferential statistical methods (path analysis) in SPSS 27 and LISREL 8.8 statistical software.

Results: The quality of the parent's relationship with the stability of the marriage had a direct and significant effect (p=0.007, β=0.305). Attachment directly and significantly impacted the stability of marriage (p=0.015, β=0.220). Also, the bootstrapping results showed that experience of usness mediates the relationship between the quality of the parents' relationship quality (p=0.002, β=0.07) and attachment (p=0.016, β=0.052) with the stability of the marriage. The results showed that the research model fits the collected data, and the research conceptual model was confirmed (RMSEA=0.001, CFI=0.99, CFI=0.99, AGFI=0.98).

Conclusion: The quality of the parent–child relationship and attachment are effective factors in the stability of marriage, and experience of usness affects the effect of these factors on the stability of marriage. Therefore, to increase the stability of marriage, it is necessary to pay attention to the role of mediating variables such as the experience of usness.