Sexual relationship: Items reflect attitudes about sexual issues, sexual behaviour, and sexual fidelity. Children and parenting: Assesses attitudes and feelings about having and raising children. Family and friends: Assesses feelings and concerns about relationships with relatives, in-laws, and friends. Items reflect expectations for and comfort with spending time with family and friends.

Egalitarian roles: Items reflect occupational, household, sex, and parental roles. High scores indicate a preference for more egalitarian roles. Conception of life: The Swedish version of this scale, originally created by Olson and co-workers [ 28 ] has been evaluated [ 29 ] and shown to be reliable and valid. Scores vary between 1 and 5, with higher scores indicating a better relationship.

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The scale has been used in long-term follow-up of IVF-couples and has been found to be a valid and reliable instrument to measure relationship satisfaction in clinical samples of couples requesting assisted reproduction [ 21 - 23 ]. The study resulted in the identification of five distinct types of married couples. Vitalised couples reported high relationship quality in all subareas. Harmonious couples had relatively high relationship quality.

Traditional couples had scores that were slightly above average with markedly higher scores on parenting and religious scales. Conflicted couples were characterised by moderately low scores on all but the role scale. The study did not report any mean values or cut-of scores for the different types of couples, however, the range reported for vitalised couples were mean As the assumption of normality could not be met in all of the studied variables, we chose to primarily use a non-parametric approach when analyzing the data.

The Mann—Whitney U test was used to examine differences in ENRICH scores between the two study groups, as well as subgroups, while paired samples t-test was used to examine scores over time. The study was designed according to the Helsinki declaration. M 29— At T1, in general, lesbian couples reported better relationship satisfaction than heterosexual couples. The overall satisfaction with relationship quality decreased in both lesbian and heterosexual couples between T1 and T3.

At T1 as well as T3, the lesbian couples had higher congruence scores than the heterosexual couples on all subareas except for Children and Financial. Difference on the ENRICH scores within the couples for each subarea comparing measurements before treatment and three years after treatment, reported by successful and unsuccessful treatment, was measured. Also an analysis of differences on the ENRICH scores on each subarea, before treatment and about three years after treatment, reported by successful or unsuccessful treatment and couple type was performed.

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The main finding in this study was that the lesbian couples reported higher satisfaction with their relationship during the trajectories of assisted reproduction. Although there were differences in many of the ENRICH assessments, the heterosexual couples did not report a low relationship satisfaction.

Harmonious Couples and Vitalised Couples [ 30 ]. To date no previous studies have compared relationship satisfaction in lesbian and heterosexual couples during the time of undergoing assisted reproduction in Sweden. The data from this study are unique and contribute important knowledge to the existing research on planned lesbian families.

The strengths of the study design also include the prospective longitudinal method, which allows investigation in changes over time. The couples were recruited from the whole of Sweden, at all university clinics that perform sperm donation treatment and hence the study is comprised of a wide range of couples from both rural and urban areas.

How are Gay and Heterosexual Relationships Different?

Furthermore the ENRICH inventory is a well-established instrument which is frequently used in studies of couples undergoing assisted reproduction [ 21 - 23 ]. The large sample of couples responding to questionnaires at two time points provide further strengths to the study. However, one must bear in mind that the couples in this study are a selected group of stable couples that went to a fertility clinic to conceive.

Hence, the result from this study can only be generalised to couples that undergo assisted reproduction in a clinical setting. Due to responses from only one partner in the couple, many of the couples that participated at T1 dropped-out at T3. This means that the sample of this study is comprised of couples that are still cohabiting or married approximately three years after the commencement of treatment.

Both lesbian and heterosexual couples reported a decrease in relationship satisfaction compared to when they first commenced treatment.



Similar to previous findings [ 21 - 23 ], the subarea sexual relationship was the only subarea that, jointly for the couples, did not decrease over time. Previously, both Kurdek and Peplau and Fingerhut have reported more similarities than differences between same-sex and heterosexual couples with regards to aspects of relationship quality and wellbeing [ 1 , 27 ]. It has been reported that lesbian couples are more egalitarian in their roles and share household and childcare tasks differently than heterosexual couples [ 31 ].

In this study, we could not see any differences in satisfaction with egalitarian roles; all parties, lesbian treated women and partners, and heterosexual women and men experienced a decrease in egalitarian roles. Perhaps this mirrors the fact that this is a selected group of couples, highly motivated towards parenthood and with stable relationships. Some interesting differences were found between the couples when the treatment was unsuccessful.

Whilst the lesbian treated women and their partners only reported a decline in relationship satisfaction in the subarea communication, an unsuccessful treatment seemed to affect heterosexual treated women much more; several of the subareas were associated with lower scores. Maybe one explanation for this can be found in the fact that many lesbian couples when they build their family, take in turn to be the birthmother [ 16 , 32 ]. In this way the lesbian couples may perceive that they have another chance to have a child if the assisted reproduction treatment of one of the women in the couple is unsuccessful.

For the heterosexual women the alternatives after unsuccessful IVF-treatment are limited to gamete donation, adoption or to live without children. Some minor differences emerged when the treatment was successful and resulted in the birth of a child. The subareas conflict and financial revealed a significant difference between the lesbian and heterosexual treated women, and the heterosexual women reported lower satisfaction on this matter. Heterosexual men reported lower satisfaction in personality and leisure compared to lesbian partners with a successful treatment.

Perhaps this can be explained by gender differences and that lesbian couples might benefit from the presence of two women in the couple. Some authors suggest that lesbian couples may be able to operate more easily in terms of equality because partners in lesbian couples create their relationships without reference to traditional roles and come to their relationships with a history of being socialised into the same gender roles [ 33 ].

It has also been suggested that same-sex couples may be more effective than their heterosexual counterparts in their ability to navigate conflict [ 34 ] and to work harmoniously on joint tasks [ 35 ]. Some suggest further that women are better support providers than men, and that female partners providing better support can also explain the lower level of conflict in lesbian couple [ 36 ]. At a three-year follow up after assisted reproduction with donated sperm, lesbian couples reported stable relationships and a high satisfaction with their relationship, also after an unsuccessful treatment.

Compared to heterosexual IVF couples, lesbian couples reported higher satisfaction. Merck Serono provided financial support throughout the implementation of the study. Competing interests. CB was primarily responsible for writing the paper. All authors were involved in the drafting and revising of the paper and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Catrin Borneskog, Email: Claudia Lampic, Email: Marie Bladh, Email: Agneta Skoog Svanberg, Email: National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. BMC Womens Health. Published online Dec Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Corresponding author. Received Mar 11; Accepted Nov This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract Background More and more lesbian couples are planning parenthood through donor insemination and IVF and the number of planned lesbian families is growing in Sweden and other western countries. Methods The present study is a part of the Swedish study on gamete donation, a prospective longitudinal cohort study. Results Lesbian couples reported higher relationship satisfaction than heterosexual couples, however the heterosexual couples satisfaction with relationship quality was not low. Conclusions At a follow-up after assisted reproduction with donated sperm, lesbian couples reported stable relationships and a high satisfaction with their relationships, even when treatment was unsuccessful.

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Relationship satisfaction, Lesbian couples, Sperm donation. Background Research into factors that influence intimate romantic relationships has previously been mainly conducted on heterosexual couples. The following specific research questions were posed: Methods The Swedish study on gamete donation is a prospective longitudinal study aiming to investigate the psychosocial and medical aspects of donor conception.

Open in a separate window. Figure 1. Flow chart over participants and drop-outs. Table 1 Demographic data for women and men participating in the study. Details of ethical approval The study was designed according to the Helsinki declaration. Heterosexual Lesbian Heterosexual vs.

Background

Figure 2. Couples congruence on Enrich subscales at T1 and T3. Discussion Main findings The main finding in this study was that the lesbian couples reported higher satisfaction with their relationship during the trajectories of assisted reproduction. Strength and limitations To date no previous studies have compared relationship satisfaction in lesbian and heterosexual couples during the time of undergoing assisted reproduction in Sweden. Interpretation Both lesbian and heterosexual couples reported a decrease in relationship satisfaction compared to when they first commenced treatment.