Relationship quality in middle adulthood is associated with how individuals regulate their emotions and respond to disagreements with their partner. The aim of this master’s thesis was to examine the associations between conflict resolution styles, emotion regulation strategies, and relationship quality among individuals in middle adulthood, as well as to examine how these factors jointly predict relationship quality. The study included 274 participants aged between 40 and 60 years. Participants completed the Conflict Resolution Styles Inventory (CRSI), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS), and the Short Triangular Love Scale (TLS-15). Relationship quality was operationalized as a composite measure combining relationship satisfaction and the total TLS-15 score. The results showed that positive problem solving was associated with higher relationship quality, whereas conflict engagement and withdrawal were associated with lower relationship quality. Suppression was also associated with lower relationship quality, while cognitive reappraisal was not significantly associated with relationship quality. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that conflict resolution styles significantly contributed to explaining relationship quality, with conflict engagement and withdrawal emerging as the clearest unique predictors. Emotion regulation strategies did not significantly increase the explained variance after conflict resolution styles were included in the model. The findings indicate that conflict responses should be considered when examining relationship quality in middle adulthood and that emotion regulation strategies should be interpreted in relation to the contexts in which they are used.
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