Resilience of Older Immigrant Couples:

Long-Term Marital Satisfaction

as a Protective Factor
Maria Cheung

ABSTRACT. Long-term marital satisfaction has been found to be a

protective factor for immigrant couples' adjustment to immigration and
integration. In this study, a mixed methodology of quantitative and qual-
itative methods was used to understand the resilience of immigrant cou-
ples. The couples under study experienced hardships and went through
major adjustments after they had immigrated to Canada. The factors in
the marital processes that lead to the couples' resilience in immigration
and integration included (1) adjustment to the changing gender role rela-
tionships in the couples' marriages after immigration, (2) increased inti-
macy and mutual reliance in the couples' marital relationships, and (3)
management of conflict and compromise of differences. The extemal
factors that enhanced immigrant couples' resilience included attainment
of biculturalism, and availability of formal and informal support net-
works.doi:l0.1080/15332690802129697Mrt'c/e copies available for a fee from
The Haworth Document Delivery Service: l-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
<docdelivery@hawonhpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>
© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.]

Maria Cheung, PhD, is Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of

Manitoba, Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, 521 Tier Building, Winni-
peg, MB R3T 2N2 (Email address: maria_cheung@umanitoba.ca).
The research is supported by the Prairie Centre of Excellence for Research on Im-
migration and Integration (PCERII) and the Metropolis Project. This project is part ofa
two-year project on Resiliency and Well-Being: Reflections of Older Adults on Immi-
gration and Integration. Appreciation is extended to Age and Opportunity for facilitat-
ing the data collection.

Joumal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, Vol. 7(1) 2008

Available online at http://jcrt.haworthpress.com
© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1080/15332690802129697 19
20 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELA TIONSHIP THERAPY
KEYWORDS. Resilience, immigrant couples, long-term marital satis-
faction, immigration, integration

INTRODUCTION

Resilience of imtnigrant couples is an under-studied topic. Research

on older immigrant couples is nearly non-existent. Protective factors in
the marriage and their social contexts are important in the life satisfac-
tion of older adult immigrants during their process of adjustment to a
new environment. The older adult immigrants' successful adaptation
also facilitates their acculturation and integration into mainstream soci-
ety. In this study, I have adopted a social construction framework to ex-
amine the factors that affect resilience in older immigrant couples'
immigration and integration (Cheung, 1997; Gergen, 1985). The older-
couple respondents were seen as actively constructing and reconstruct-
ing their marital lives in a new environment which had a socio-cultural
context that was unfamiliar to them.
In recent years, family scholars have paid more attention to the study
of resilience among couples. Couple resilience is defined as the way
couples thrive during hardship and the related protective factors against
stressors (Connolly, 2005; Patterson, 2002). For immigrant couples, it
is the way they move from barriers and difficulties to acculturation and
integration to a new cultural environment. Some literature considers re-
silience as a trait or characteristic, while some studies view it as a pro-
cess (Patterson, 2002). If we consider resilience as a trait, personality
characteristics of the couples that facilitate a resilient outcome will be
examined. If we see resilience as a process, the constant construction
and reconstruction of adaptation processes among couples will be stud-
ied. In this study, I examined the processes which respondents co-con-
structed to attain resilience during their immigration and integration,
and the resultant protective factors. The research questions are (1) What
difficulties and barriers did the immigrant couples experience during
their immigration and integration? (2) What were the protective factors
and related processes that facilitate immigrant couples' resilience pro-
cess during immigration and integration? (3) What were the external
factors that enhanced the immigrant couples' resilience to deal with the
difficulties encountered during their immigration and integration?
 Maria Cheung 21

UNDERSTANDING IMMIGRATION
AND INTEGRATION OF COUPLES

Adjustment and acculturation to a new country come with many

challenges and sacrifices (Willgerodt, Miller, & McEImurry, 2002).
Immigrants are believed to be at high risk for mental health problems
(Santos, Bohon, & Sanchez-Sosa, 1998). Kelaher, Williams, and Man-
derson (2001) have suggested that acculturation plays an important role
in determining health differences. Depression is typical among elderly
immigrants, for most of them also have to struggle with deteriorating
health and stressful life events with limited resources. The most com-
mon risk factors for depression among these older immigrants are pov-
erty, low education attainment, language barriers, poor physical health,
social isolation, and high rates of family disruption, especially when
family supports are weakened or unavailable (Mui, 1996).
The immigrants' experiences of immigration and integration into the
host society have a major effect on their overall quality of life. Immi-
grants who have found fulfillment in their immigration are more likely
to be satisfied with their lives than those who have not (Ying, 1992).
Ying found that satisfaction in five subjective life domains-work,
health, marriage, friendship, and biculturalism-constituted successful
predictors of life satisfaction among her sample.
Researchers have consistently found a strong positive association be-
tween marital satisfaction and global life satisfaction (Jacob, 1999).
Chipperfield and Havens (2001) found that in a group of older adults
who had lost their spouses, life satisfaction had declined. Such phenom-
enon was more prominent for men. Marriage has protective effects on
immigrants in terms of stress, interpersonal affective problems, and
medical diagnosis. People in marital relationships have substantially
fewer emotional problems than single people do (Hao & Johnson, 2000;
Ritsner & Ponizovsky, 2003). In comparing mortality and marital status
among immigrants and locally-bom Canadians, Trovato (1998) con-
cluded that marriage served as a protective factor against the premature
mortality of immigrants, as well as local-born Canadians.
During the process of immigration and integration, changes in gender
attitude are among the inevitable outcomes of acculturation (Hojat,
Shapurian, Farzaneh, Foroughi, Parsi, & Azizi, 1993). The process of
immigration can lead couples to question and redefine their gender ide-
ologies and practices (Ortiz, 1996). The study by Hojat et al. (1993) on
Iranian heterosexual couples who had immigrated to the United States
discovered that their increased marital discord could be an inevitable
22 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

outcome of gender differences in the pace and the extent of their accul-
turation. During the adaptation process, female immigrants are more
likely to adopt egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles sooner than
their male counterparts (Hojat et al., 1993). Women's greater participa-
tion in the labour force than their spouses after immigration may lead
them to challenge their husband's privileged status and take on more
non-traditional roles. Attitudinal disparity between the husband and
wife could lead to a decrease in mutual understanding. As a result,
marital conflicts might arise that could jeopardize the conjugal male-
female relationship.
Two interconnected factors that have a profound effect on immi-
grants' acculturation and integration are language acquisition and social
network. Kelaher, Williams, and Manderson (2001) found that in-
creased exposure to language and social groups will result in immi-
grants' more successful integration into the new country. In some
circumstances, language may be the most salient obstacle to immi-
grants' acculturation, hindering their abilities to reorient themselves in
their new situation (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003). Language barrier
can cause individuals to confine their contacts to members of their own
ethnic community (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003).

METHODOLOGY
A mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative methods was
used in this study (Gibbs, 1996). I used the Dyadic Adjustment Scale
(Spanier, 1976) to measure the level of marital adjustment and satisfac-
tion ofthe respondents. The husbands and wives filled out the quantita-
tive measure separately, mostly with the help of the interviewer or
interpreter. Then, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with
the couples separately, with the wife first and then the husband. Each in-
dividual interview lasted for an hour to an hour-and-a-half.
Purposive sampling method was used to select immigrant couples
who (I) had immigrated to Canada at least two years before the study,
(2) identified English as a second language, with one or both spouses at-
tending English as Second Language (ESL) classes at the time of inter-
view, (3) were in their first marriage and had been married for thirty
years or more, and (4) had both spouses consenting to participate in the
research. A consent form was signed by each respondent. The research
was approved by the Joint-Faculty Research Ethics Board of the Uni-
versity of Manitoba. Screening was done with seven ESL classes for se-
 Maria Cheung 23
niors at the largest elderly service agency in Manitoba, Canada. Eight
couples were screened for interviews.
The 16 respondents (eight couples) reported in this article ranged in
age from 56 to 78 years old (males, 60 to 78; females, 56 to 72). These
eight couples had been married for 34 to 53 years, were all in their first
marriage, and had an average of two or three children. The sample
showed different stages of the respondents' acculturation and integra-
tion. They had immigrated between 2 and 34 years ago; five had been
residents for between 5 and 15 years. One couple had immigrated to
Canada two years previously, while two had arrived in Canada over 20
years ago. Winnipeg, Manitoba, was their first landing place. Among
the eight couples reported in this article, there were three Chinese (two
from Mainland China and one from Hong Kong), one Ukrainian, one
Polish, one Italian, one Korean, and one Vietnamese.
The respondents were interviewed in their own language according
to their preference. The qualitative interviews with the Chinese, Viet-
namese, and Polish couples were conducted by interviewers who spoke
their native languages. In the case of the Ukrainian couple, who spoke
Russian, their adult son helped with the interpretation. The interviews
with the Italian and Korean couples were conducted in English since the
respondents had been in Canada for over 20 years and had reasonable
English proficiency. However, some ofthe Korean wife's response was
in Korean, which required translation. The qualitative interviews were
audio-taped and mostly transcribed in verbatim format. The Polish and
Vietnamese interviews were transcribed by the respective interviewers
and translated into English. The English version of the Dyadic Adjust-
ment Scale (DAS) was used for the quantitative measure, with the help
of the interviewers or interpreters, while the Chinese version of the
DAS (Shek, Lam, Tsoi, & Lam, .1994) was administered to the Chinese
group.
The in-depth interviews were analyzed by narrative analysis (Labov,
1982; Riessman, 1993). Narrative analysis unfolds personalized mean-
ings of how the respondents reconstruct their lives after immigrating to
Canada. This method is most appropriate for discovering the cross-cul-
tural meaning of the respondents' lived experiences (Cheung, 2005;
Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, Zilber, 1998). Narrative analysis illuminates
the contextual meanings of respondents of different cultures by analyz-
ing their nuances of speech. More than 500 pages of transcripts from
sixteen interviews with the eight couples were analyzed according to
their line and stanza structures (Gee, 1991). In the discussion of the
24 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

findings, some of the respondents' words verbatim will be displayed

line by line in order to preserve their narrative structures.
The DAS developed by Spanier (1976) is a widely used, reliable, and
valid, global measure of couples' marital adjustment, in terms of their
dyadic consensus, dyadic cohesion, dyadic satisfaction, and expression
of affection. These four areas formed the subscales ofthe measurement.
The DAS has a high reliability alpha of .96, and a high convergent va-
lidity in the correlation between the DAS and the Locke-Wallace Mar-
tial Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 2001). The two scales correlated .86
among married respondents and .88 among divorced respondents (p <
.001). The DAS served as an indicator for understanding the couple re-
spondents' marital satisfaction level. The results were verified by the
couples' narratives in the in-depth interviews. The use of a quantitative
scale was hoped to explain the association between marital quality and
the narratives that the respondents presented regarding their marriage.

DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS

Dyadic Adjustment Scores ofthe Respondents

The DAS is well known for its ability to differentiate distressed from
non-distressed couples (Shek et al., 1993; Touliatos, Perlmutter &
Strauss, 2001). According to Spanier's samples (1976), the mean score
for couples with satisfying marriages was 114.8, while 70.7 was the
mean score for distressed couples on the verge of divorce. The global
DAS score of 100 is typically adopted as the cut-off for screening cou-
ples with satisfying marriages (Spanier, 2001; Young, 1995). In the
present study, the respondents' DAS scores ranged from 102 to 136.5.
Each missing response was replaced by the respondents' average score
on the respective subscale.
In the cases of five couples, both spouses' DAS scores were above
the average point of 114.8. Three couples had DAS score of 124 to 136,
indicating very high marital adjustment and satisfaction. Three couples
had borderline DAS scores between 100 and 111. However, their narra-
tives indicated they were satisfied with their marriages, in general. The
discrepancy between the quantitative and qualitative data in these cases
could be because of the differences in the cultural definitions of marital
satisfaction and the indicators specified in the DAS. The other reason
could be that the one-time measure of the DAS failed to capture the re-
spondents' long-term marital satisfaction. For example, one couple had
 Maria Cheung 25
a spouse who was struggling with illness at the time of interview, which
affected their marital satisfaction score.

Barriers and Difficulties Couples Faced During Immigration

and Integration

The respondents' narratives portrayed hardships experienced during

their adjustments after immigration. Three respondents, male and fe-
male, reported crying at night. Two women respondents cried every
night in the first six months after moving to Canada. One lapsed into a
depression at that time. The other still cried during the interview when
she recalled those difficult moments. They described their first experi-
ences as "terrible" and "hard." The following is how the Polish female
respondent narrated her experience at the time of her immigration ten
years earlier:

I would cry every time I heard somebody speaking Polish.

I just was very homesick. I couldn't go to a Polish church.
We had a very beautiful garden, nice apartment.
And here . . . We came to live with my daughter.
A small room . . . I didn't feel good.
I have left behind everything. My garden is what I regret the most.
It was a beautiful garden.
My daughter had a small one here, but it wasn't the same.
I couldn't find myself a place.

Men experienced the same hardship, though they claimed to be tougher

in adjusting to the environment. One respondent lamented, "at the
beginning, everything seemed strange; I didn't know anything, you
know... So I have to get tough, you know, to survive." A Chinese male
respondent vividly described his frustration with the barriers he experi-
enced in the five years after immigrating:

Because I don't understand English, it's like I can't see even

though I have an eye, I can't hear even though I have an ear, and
can't talk even though I have a mouth. I don't know how to drive
either, so I can't go where I want, even though I've my legs.

Acculturation refers to the psychosocial adjustment and adaptation to

a new culture for people from another culture (Shen & Takeuchi, 2001).
The respondents' degree of acculturation depended on their circles of
26 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

interpersonal communication. For instance, the Vietnamese couple had

immigrated to Canada 14 years before, but their integration was limited
by their language abilities. They could only mingle with friends who
spoke Vietnamese. Another couple emigrated from Hong Kong 10
years before the study. Because the couple had a business, they inter-
acted with people from different ethnic groups. As a result, they had
higher intercultural engagement in the broader community even though
their English was still limited.
The respondents' limited English abilities made interaction with lo-
cal people difficult. Except for those who had been in Canada for over
20 years, the respondents could not conduct in-depth exchanges in Eng-
lish conversation. They wanted to understand local culture more, but
they felt frustrated by their inability to communicate and understand
Canadians better. The Ukrainian husband had been in Canada for two
years at the time ofthe study. Aided by his son's interpretation, he said,
"I want to communicate with Canadian people, and to understand them,
but I can't, so I feel frustrated." The wife said, "When you cannot really
talk to them, that's something that makes you unhappy."
Although seven of the eight respondent couples commented that lo-
cal people were nice and they felt accepted, one couple had experienced
racism. This percentage was a little less than the 20% of visible minori-
ties in Canada who reported having experienced racism (Statistics Can-
ada, 2002). Even though most of the respondents had limited English,
they tried to communicate with neighbours. A Chinese couple commu-
nicated with their neighbours by making them delicious Chinese food.

Long-Term Marital Satisfaction as a Protective Factor

in Couples' Immigration and Integration
My findings indicate that a satisfying, long-term marriage is a major
protective factor for the resilience and adjustment of immigrant cou-
ples. The couples' long-term relationships constituted a good foun-
dation that helped them to endure hardships during the process of ad-
justment. One couple was struggling with a spouse's sickness at the
time ofthe interview; their marital satisfaction was affected by the hard-
ship and thus their DAS scores were relatively low (both around 111).
The wife remarked in her in-depth, qualitative interview, "when you are
sick, even the relationship changed." However, the couple's narratives
about their marital satisfaction provided much insight for understanding
how a satisfying, long-term marriage enhanced the couple's resilience
 Maria Cheung 27

during the struggle. The husband recalled how his wife's presence kept
them stronger when the couple built their lives from the start in Canada:

I came here by myself, no friends, no relatives and the language is

zero. The English was completely useless. So, I spent days, days,
thinking and worrying, and when she [wife] came, the situation
started changing. I was coping with my problem better because
there were two of us.

This husband was very sick at the time of interview. Their marriage was
so strong that the couple strove to adjust to the adversities, and their nar-
ratives were full of hope. The husband said,

[The marriage] has not been destroyed by my sickness. That's

what keeps me stronger... I think that's what kept my spirits a lit-
tle bit high, because I need to know somebody loves me; other-
wise, I would crash.

In the following section, I discuss three significant processes of the

way the immigrant couple respondents co-constructed a satisfying
long-term marital relationship that contributed to the couples' immigra-
tion and integration. These processes are namely (1) adjustment to the
changing gender-role relationships in the couples' marriages after im-
migration, (2) increased intimacy and mutual reliance in the couples'
marital relationships, and (3) management of conflict and compromise
of differences.

Adjustment to the Changing Gender Role Relationships

in their Marriages

In my earlier cross-cultural, long-term marriage study (Cheung,

2005), I found that if the long-term married couples, in particular the
husband, could adjust to the changes in the gender-role relationship, the
couple would attain a higher level of marital satisfaction. A more flexi-
ble gender role relationship enhanced the couple's long-term marital
satisfaction. The change in gender-role relationship was mainly due to
the change in wives' employment status after the couple had immi-
grated to Canada. Half of tJie wife respondents who had previously been
stay-at-home housewives were engaged in some form of employment,
such as baby-sitting and childcare after they immigrated. As one of the
28 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

husbands observed, "Here she [wife] has found a job as a baby-sitter.

So, there are some differences. She has her own money."
The most significant change in the couples' gender relationships was
manifested in the changes in their division of labour. Prior to immigra-
tion, these couples' division of labour was defined in a traditional man-
ner, with the husband as the breadwinner and the wife responsible for
taking care of the household. However, with the changes in the wives'
employment status, housework was no longer the wives' sole responsi-
bility, but became more shared between the couple. One couple narrated
the change in their division of labour:

Wife: We do everything together. There is no division that you do

this or that. If my husband wants to do something, he does that.
Now, when he is not working anymore he helps me a great deal.

Husband: Today I cook dinner, not even asking my wife what to

cook and how to prepare it. She wasn't home. She didn't wait for
me to make something for her. Sometimes I eat first, and I don't
wait for her to wash my plate.

The respondents co-created satisfying marital relationships to adjust

to the changes they were undergoing. The Asian men (Chinese, Viet-
namese, and Korean) had not done any housework when they were in
their home country. After immigration, the husbands participated in
some forms of housework. For example, the Vietnamese husband took
part in cleaning, laundry, and washing dishes, while a Chinese husband
participated in food preparation. Not only the couples' gender behav-
iours had changed, but their gender attitudes also changed. The follow-
ing husband's narrative reflects his acculturation of Canadian values:

My culture was changing. I was not changing my life like they

used to do in Italy. The women stay in the kitchen, and all those
things. My mentality changed, because I was young when I came
here and today I am more Canadian than ltalian-the way I do
things, the way I think. But in that time, lots of times I decided the
final words was mine.

The husband of this couple used to be the head ofthe household. During
their marital relationship in the new country, they shared more deci-
sion-making and, at the time of interview, the wife made most decisions
because of her husband's sickness. She remarked:
 Maria Cheung 29

I feel fulfilled.
I feel that I had accomplished . . .
I feel like a strong person and I can do what I need to do, and what I
want to do.
I am not feeling constricted because I'm a woman, no.
Not even in the marriage, no.

Increased Intimacy and Mutual Reliance

in the Couples' Marital Relationships

Construction of increased intimacy and mutual reliance in the cou-

ples' marital relationship was found to be an important process which
contributes to the respondents' resilience in their acculturation and inte-
gration. Research on older couples has found that those with satisfying
marriages have intimate relationships that are companion-like in nature
(Kaslow & Hammerschmidt, 1992). The respondents in this study com-
monly addressed each other as "old pal." They claimed that they did not
need to say much to express their needs to their spouses, and they had
strong, mutual understanding. The couple with the highest DAS scores
(wife 136; husband 128) reported that their love had grown after immi-
gration. The husband remarked, "As we get older, I find she [wife] is
still like a young person, so I am more and more fond of her." Gilford
(1986) pointed out that sexual interests remain an integral part of older
couples' marriages. This same couple described how their sex life was
more compatible than before they immigrated. The husband narrated:

Our sex life is even better than when we were young. Our sex drive
does not deteriorate. Sex is an exercise.

The wife remarked that the couple's sex life was better because they had
more privacy in their Canadian living arrangement. They underscored
that sex is a binding force that wove through all qualities ofthe couple's
marriage and promoted their communication, mutual care, and consid-
eration toward each other.
The respondents unanimously said that their couple relationships
were closer after they had immigrated to Canada, although, for some,
their relationships had already been close in their home country. The
couples indicated that they were more interdependent and reliant on
each other after immigration. Since half of the respondents were retired,
the couples spent much time together shopping, traveling and garden-
ing. For the Chinese, they went to dim sum and played machong to-
30 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

gether, in addition to grocery shopping. One of the reasons for the

interdependence among these immigrant couples was their limited Eng-
lish language abilities. The wives usually depended on their husbands
as interpreters in daily activities such as going shopping and seeing the
doctor, because the husbands had more proficiency in English. The
Vietnamese wife commented in her own language that, "my husband
not only keeps me company, but he is also my interpreter." There was
an exceptional case in the sample in which the wife had better Eng-
lish-language skills than her husband; consequently, she had a leading
role in the family. She did more banking, and arranged where her hus-
band would go. She commented that this was not compatible with the
role of women in her traditional Chinese culture. She expressed her di-
lemma:

I feel that our family is lacking of a real man; it's like we lack a pil-
lar in the family . . . He [husband] should take up my job.

The immigrant couple respondents felt they needed to depend on

each other more, resulting in fewer arguments. A Korean wife com-
mented that she and her husband argued less after they had moved to
Canada. She recalled when they were in Korea, she would leave the
house when the couple argued. Without the local language ability, she
felt "less safe to go out" by herself in Canada. In facing a new environ-
ment, they tried to resolve their disagreement by apologizing and stop-
ping the arguments sooner. Another reason for the increased mutual
reliance in the couples, especially for those who came from a col-
lectivistic culture, was their feeling of insecurity in an individualistic
Western society. A couple lamented that, "Children here are not obliged
to support their parents. When we talk about Chinese tradition of filial
piety, it is hard. But this is not their fault; it's just part of the culture
here."

Management of Conflict and Compromise of Differences

A significant finding in marriage research is that couples' abilities to

manage confiicts and reconcile their differences are crucial factors in
maintaining long-term marriages (Bradbury, Fincham & Beach, 2000;
Gottman, 1994). In the present study, the couples' abilities to manage
disagreements and solve problems together were found to be an impor-
tant process in sustaining their marital relationships in order to survive
 Maria Cheung 31
the vicissitudes of immigration and integration. All the respondents told
stories about their struggles during immigration and integration. Two
couples recalled that they had experienced major problems related to fi-
nancial and family matters after they had immigrated to Canada. How-
ever, their commitment to resolve the problems together sustained their
long-term marital relationship. One husband remarked:

As we feel that we belong to each other, then we should accept

each other and have an open mind toward each other. With this
thinking, all the problems will be gone.

Another wife respondent echoed similar views:

When I was down, he would always tell me, it's okay; everything
will be fine. And the same thing with him. I would always try to
find another solution and then we would [settle the issue].

All of the couples in this sample had been married for over 40 years,
except for one who had 34 years of marriage. They were primarily in
traditional relationships in which the husband was considered the head
ofthe family. However, the spouses respected each other's ideas and al-
ways discussed major decisions. The couples with satisfying marriages
had open communication with each other. The respondents remarked
that they could always share their feelings and views with their spouses.
The couples commented that there were "no taboos" in their relation-
ships. They could talk about anything and share their feelings, including
insecurities and loneliness. For example, the couple that was struggling
with the husband's sickness could still communicate well. The husband
was able to convey his fears about his sickness to his wife. In the follow-
ing, the husband narrated how the couple's long-term marriage facili-
tated their communication:

We have been living together for so many years that we know what
one is thinking about the other. So, we talk about everything to-
gether.

An important way the couples survived their arguments was that they
usually did not stay angry for more than a day or two. The golden rule
for these couples was that one of them, in particular the wife, would stay
quiet when they were in heated arguments. One wife narrated:
32 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

I have only one solution-I just do not argue. I keep quiet. I can stay
quiet for a long time.... I would rather keep quiet. My husband
would talk, and I keep quiet.

The couple that attained the highest DAS scores underscored the func-
tionality of arguments, which added colour to their love and marriage:

Little arguments will stimulate new thinking, then we compro-

mise, and two becomes one again.

External Factors Contributing to the Couples' Resilience

in Acculturation and Integration

In this section, I discuss two external buffers for immigrant couples

that enhanced the respondents' resilience during their acculturation and
integration. They are the attainment of biculturalism, and informal and
formal supportive networks. Immigrant couples live in the context of
the wider community and culture of society. Their contacts with the
mainstream society affect their level of cultural exposure. Biculturalism
was found to be a significant predictor of life satisfaction and successful
integration for immigrants (Willgerodt, Miller, & McEImurry, 2002;
Ying, 1992). Biculturalism refers to one's competence, when in a new
culture, in acquiring a dual cultural perspective. An immigrant's bi-
cultural competence is demonstrated by his or her ability to function in
both the heritage culture and that of the host society (Safdar, Lay, &
Struthers, 2003).
The respondents' integration was proportional to the length of time
they stayed in the host country and their English proficiency. The re-
spondents, mostly men, who Jiad been in Canada the longest, one 34
years and the other 27 years, were the two respondents who achieved
the most integration into mainstream society. These respondents' social
networks included people from different cultures in the community.
The wider the social network that the respondents could build with the
wider community, the more integrated they were. The male respondent
who had immigrated to Canada 34 years before the time of study
narrated his multicultural experience:

You picked up a little bit from everybody. I pick up from your cul-
ture, you pick up from mine. It's kind of multiple cultures; you
learn, and you don't know. Automatically, we change. We're
 Maria Cheung 33

changing our way to talk . . ., because I stay with Chinese, Japa-

nese, all kinds of people.

Maintaining one's own cultural heritage is a protective factor for the

respondents' adjustment to immigration and attainment of bicultural
competence in integrating into the mainstream society (Safdar, Lay, &
Struthers, 2003). One respondent remarked, "I'm in good contact with
my tongue and roots." The respondents spoke their own language at
home, cooked their own ethnic food, and practiced their traditions. The
close connection with their own cultural heritage provided the respon-
dents with the necessary security to make contact with the host culture.
On the other hand, their feeling of acceptance by the host society en-
couraged them to attain a sense of biculturalism. The following respon-
dents described this reciprocal process:

Wife's narration: It's our cultural heritage that we bring along.

And we always feel Italian, and Canadian, too. We are Italian Ca-
nadian, but our Italian culture is a big part of us.

Husband's narration: You feel close with your home because you
are accepted in the Canadian society, but, at the same time, you are
your own individual with your own culture and your own [heri-
tage].

The second external buffer is formal and informal support. Kelaher et

al. (2001) found that social support networks are crucial for accultura-
tion and adaptation to the host country. Low level of perceived social
support is correlated with increased stress and symptoms of depression
in the immigrant population (Shen & Takeuchi, 2001). In this study, cir-
cles of friends were found to be the most significant informal support
network for the respondents during their struggles with immigration
and integration. The wife who narrated her difficulties in adjusting to
the new environment in her first few years after immigration received
support from friends to overcome her depression. The Korean couple,
who knew very little English at the time of immigration, formed their
social network in Canada by phoning people who had Korean last
names in the phone book. At the time of the interview, 27 years after
their immigration to Canada, this couple was active in a large Korean
church congregation and was helping new Korean immigrants to build
their supportive network. They also had friends from other cultural
backgrounds.
34 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELA TIONSHIP THERAPY

Another important informal support came from the respondents'

immediate families. Although seven of the eight couples lived by them-
selves, they had one or more offspring who lived in town and maintained
close interaction with the respondents. Half of the respondents, in par-
ticular women, indicated that the children or grandchildren were a
major factor that motivated them to stay and adjust to the new environ-
ment. A wife respondent, who had immigrated nine years ago, under-
scored this tie:

When we first came here, we felt so restricted, as we didn't have

the language and had no friends. But because of our grandson, we
stayed Now I've learned how to garden; I brought seeds from
China and grow nice little cucumbers, green beans, and fruit. This
is great!
Because the language barrier is one ofthe difficulties that immigrants
face, an important formal support for the respondents' adjustment to
their immigration and integration was the ESL program. The respon-
dents' English proficiency was a main factor that affected their integra-
tion. Most of the respondents immigrated to Canada with minimal or no
English. Through the ESL programs, they learned some functional Eng-
lish to maintain the necessary contact with the mainstream society, such
as greeting their neighbours and simple purchase at stores. Unfortu-
nately, women respondents were less likely than their husband to attend
the ESL classes. Among one-third of the respondent couples, only the
husbands attended ESL classes, even though their wives were working
in their own cultural communities. Furthermore, two women respon-
dents waited until they retired before they attended ESL classes.

CONCLUSION

The couple respondent who struggled through their migration and, at

the time of the study, struggled with the husband's illness concluded in
the following the meaning of struggle and resilience in marriage:

Wife: I feel complete. I feel pretty happy, actually. Even though

he's sick, it was the only thing now that things changed.... I feel
like I'm stronger now, almost. Yeah, I feel stronger that if I have to
make a decision, I do it. And then once I do it and everything turns
 Maria Cheung 35
alright, then I feel like I've accomplished something, therefore I
feel stronger . . .

Husband: Maybe you have to go through all, or some of these

struggles in order to build a concrete marriage, because if every-
thing goes easy, you know, you don't know what marriage is
about. This way you work hard for her, she works hard for you and
you do things together, and you get mature.

Recent trends in family scholarship view resilience as not only over-

coming adversities and meeting challenges of life, but as gaining com-
petence and strengthening relations, as a result of thriving (Connolly,
2005). As is evident in the immigrant couple respondents' stories, they
did not only adjust to a difficult transition of life, but also exhibited
competence and growth to construct a satisfying life in the host country,
as best they could. Sustained by their long-term marital satisfaction,
they were able to survive hardships by "staying positive," not giving up,
and believing that "sooner or later it's going to be the light at the end of
the trouble." Regardless of the number of years since the respondents
had immigrated to Canada, the respondents strove to maintain their in-
dependence. Although the respondents found it difficult to learn a new
language, they went to ESL classes. After settling in Canada for a num-
ber of years, the respondents enjoyed their new life and had no intention
of going back to their old countries, nor did they regret moving to a
strange new country.
Earlier resilience literature mostly focuses on the intrinsic qualities
that people possess which help them to overcome adversities (Fonagy,
Steele, Steele, Higgit, & Target, 1994). In this study, I found the process
whereby respondents co-constructed their married lives in a new envi-
ronment is as important as the intrinsic marital qualities the couples
possess. The respondents' long-term marital satisfaction was co-con-
structed by the couples through the process of changing their gender
role relationships, increased intimacy and mutual reliance, management
of confiict, and compromising their differences during their immigra-
tion and integration. Even though one of the couple respondents had a
relatively low DAS score in my sample, their narratives demonstrated
much resilience during their struggles through the husband's illness.
Resilience should not be only judged by the result, but by the way peo-
ple strive to the best of their abilities, even during struggles.
From my samples, bicultural satisfaction was found to be a success-
ful indicator for the respondents' integration into the host society, and it
36 JOURNAL OF COUPLE & RELATIONSHIP THERAPY

was mediated by their social contact with the wider community. Formal
and informal networks are important buffers. Marital therapists need to
work beyond the intrinsic marital processes and create synergies be-
tween counselling and social support network to facilitate immigrant
couples' acculturation and integration. Connection of couples (and their
families) to groups and activities in the community can enhance the
companionship and closeness of couples, and their social contact.
In this study, long-term marital satisfaction was found to be an im-
portant protective factor for couples' adjustment to the new envi-
ronment. Furthermore, I found immigrant women's gender attitudes
changed faster than their husbands, especially if the women participated
in the work force. The differential changes in gender attitudes between
men and women during their acculturation process are potential con-
fiicts in marital relationship. With only a small sample, my study is an
initial effort to explore this issue. Further studies on the gender aspect of
immigrant couples' acculturation and integration are needed to find out
the ways they reconcile their gender differences and mitigate confiicts.

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RECEIVED: 09/01/06
ACCEPTED: 11/10/06