Two satisfaction measures were employed: The 3-item Kansas Marital
Satisfaction Survey (KMS; Schumm, Nichols, Schectman, & Grigsby,
1983) and the 18-item Marital Adjustment Test (MAT; Locke &Wallace,
1959). The KMS assesses the global happiness of current marriage. All
three questions were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (very unsatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied). The KMS score was the mean of the
three items. The more extensive MAT assesses a variety of relationship
issues. Depending on the nature of the issue, the rating scale ranges
from two to five points. The MAT score was the sum of the 18 items. To
compute the composite satisfaction score, we first z-scored the KMS and
MAT scores within each gender and then averaged the two z-scores.