PRELIMINARY TYPOLOGY OF COUPLEHOOD FOR COMMUNITY-DWELLING WIVES - I VERSUS WE

A qualitative analysis of women whose husbands reside in nursing homes was conducted to understand the concept of couplehood. Couplehood is defined here as the extent to which one person perceives herself as ma rried to another person (feeling like an ''I'' or like part of a ''We' '). An ''I''--''We'' continuum was presented to each woman, and notice able patterns emerged. Some women identified themselves as perceiving no couplehood with their institutionalized husbands (''Unmarried Marri eds''). A second group of women perceived a high degree of couplehood ('' 'Til Death Do Us Parts''), while a third group perceived low coupl ehood (''Husbandless Wives''), Differences seem to exist in terms of t he degree to which couplehood is perceived (no, low, high). Implicatio ns of such a typology are offered for researchers, clinicians, and com munity-dwelling wives.