Back to TTM ResultsAt the beginning of the study, the couples were very satisfied and less than 3% of the husbands and 3% of the wives scored in the distressed range on global satisfaction measures. By the end of the study, of the 183 wives just over 7% were in the distressed range and of the 180 husbands almost 6% scored in the distressed range. On average, marital quality did decline over time in the sample and this is consistent with other research on married couples. Just fewer than 10% of the couples who completed the final phase of the project had received some form of couple therapy, but the couples who were relatively distressed were not necessarily the couples who were seeking help.