Holland Karen J, Lee Jerry W, Marshak Helen H, Martin Leslie R
School of Public Health, Loma Linda University.
La Sierra University.
Psycholog Relig Spiritual. 2016 Aug;8(3):218-227. doi: 10.1037/rel0000062.
Intimacy is an essential part of marital relationships, spiritual relationships, and is also a factor in well-being, but there is little research simultaneously examining the links among spiritual intimacy, marital intimacy, and well-being.
Structural equation modeling was used to examine associations among the latent variables-spiritual intimacy, marital intimacy, spiritual meaning, and well-being-in a cross-sectional study of 5,720 married adults aged 29-100 years ( = 58.88, = 12.76, 59% female). All participants were from the Adventist Health Study-2, Biopsychosocial Religion and Health Study.
In the original structural model, all direct associations between the three latent variables of spiritual intimacy, marital intimacy, and well-being were significantly positive indicating that there was a significant relationship among spiritual intimacy, marital intimacy, and well-being. When spiritual meaning was added as a mediating variable, the direct connections of spiritual intimacy to marital intimacy and to well-being became weakly negative. However, the indirect associations of spiritual intimacy with marital intimacy and with well-being were then strongly positive through spiritual meaning. This indicates that the relationship among spiritual intimacy, marital intimacy, and well-being was primarily a result of the meaning that spiritual intimacy brought to one's marriage and well-being, and that without spiritual meaning greater spirituality could negatively influence one's marriage and well-being.
These findings suggest the central place of spiritual meaning in understanding the relationship of spiritual intimacy to marital intimacy and to well-being.
亲密关系是婚姻关系、精神关系的重要组成部分，也是幸福的一个因素，但很少有研究同时考察精神亲密、婚姻亲密和幸福之间的联系。
在一项对5720名年龄在29至100岁（平均年龄=58.88岁，标准差=12.76岁，女性占59%）的已婚成年人进行的横断面研究中，采用结构方程模型来检验潜在变量——精神亲密、婚姻亲密、精神意义和幸福——之间的关联。所有参与者均来自基督复临安息日会健康研究-2，即生物心理社会宗教与健康研究。
在原始结构模型中，精神亲密、婚姻亲密和幸福这三个潜在变量之间的所有直接关联均显著为正，表明精神亲密、婚姻亲密和幸福之间存在显著关系。当将精神意义作为中介变量加入时，精神亲密与婚姻亲密以及与幸福的直接联系变得微弱为负。然而，精神亲密通过精神意义与婚姻亲密以及与幸福的间接关联随后则强烈为正。这表明精神亲密、婚姻亲密和幸福之间的关系主要是精神亲密给一个人的婚姻和幸福带来的意义的结果，并且没有精神意义，更高的精神性可能会对一个人的婚姻和幸福产生负面影响。
这些发现表明精神意义在理解精神亲密与婚姻亲密以及与幸福的关系中具有核心地位。
