Background:High quality and supportive relationships is essential to develop healthy individuals in all aspects of life. This study deals with the marital instability frequency and its predisposing factors and predictors in a representative sample of Mashhad, Iran, in 2014.

Methods:In a cross-sectional study, a total number of 583 couples participated. A checklist and the marital instability index (MII) were divided into 2 sections: the first section (part A) focused on the marital instability of couples and the second section (part B) focused on attractions and obstacles in each family, completed via a face-to-face interview.

Results:247 (42.2%) participants were male and 338 (57.8%) were female. The median age of participants was 34 years with a maximum of 82. The mean score of the marital instability was 19.97 ± 7.29 and 13.96 ± 3.08 for attractions and obstacles. Age, education, suspicion regarding the partner, history of divorce, the way to get married (personal or by family), socioeconomic concordance with partner, expressing love to partner and partner expressing love, were identified as predictors of marital instability. Sex, addiction, history of divorce, socioeconomic fit, family interfering, violence behavior and love expression regarding the partner, were predictors of attractions and obstacles part.

Conclusion:The overall score obtained from the marital instability questionnaire in this study was fair and showed lower levels of marital instability and divorce among our participants. However, it was necessary to inform young couple about the underlying factors of marital instability. Findings could be promising for the policy makers to design specific interventions suited to target population.