Abstract
Current research was designed to assess the relationship between perceived stress,
forgiveness and marital adjustment among married men and women with mediating role of
forgiveness between perceived stress and marital adjustment as well. It was hypothesized that
there is likely to be a positive correlation between perceived stress, forgiveness and marital
adjustment among married men and women. It was also hypothesized that forgiveness is
likely to mediate the relationship between perceived stress and marital adjustment among
married men and women. Additionally, it was hypothesized that there is likely to be
significant gender differences between perceived stress, forgiveness and marital adjustment.
A sample 80 married men and 80 married women (N=160) with intact marriages, during their
first 5 years of marriage time span were recruited with snow ball sampling technique.
Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, 1983), Heartland Forgiveness Scale (Laura, et al., 2003) and
Marital Adjustment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1959) were used for measuring the perceived
stress, forgiveness, and marital adjustment respectively. Demographic and correlational
analysis, mediation and independent sample t-test were performed. Findings showed that
there were significant positive correlations between perceived stress, forgiveness and marital
adjustment among married men and women. Further, forgiveness significantly mediated the
relationship between perceived stress and marital adjustment. Additionally, there were nonsignificant gender differences in perceived stress and marital adjustment but forgiveness was
significantly higher in married men as compared to married women.