On April 24th, eight members of our research team attended the Illinois Council on Family Relations (ILCFR) 2026 Annual Conference, hosted at the NIU Naperville Conference Center in Naperville, Illinois. During the conference, we presented two poster presentations and one workshop that highlighted the public…

When you ask happily married couples what helps them through difficult seasons, you often hear recurring themes: trust, open communication, shared beliefs, and forgiveness. These traits rarely work in isolation. Research shows that they are intertwined and grounded in a deeper sense of meaning. At…