Background. The issue of divorcement has become one of the most serious problem in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia ranked first in Asia Pacific in term of our divorce rate with the number of 347,256 couples or 17.7% of total married couples were divorced. West Java Province needs to be highlighted, seeing how the number of divorces in this province ranked as the third largest in Indonesia which is contributed mostly by Depok City. This might be due to their low marital satisfaction since people with lower marital satisfaction have higher risk of divorcement. Newly-weds more specifically, are ultimately prone to this risk as marital satisfaction tends to free-fall in early years of marriage. Past interventions has touched a more physical aspect of marriage as there has been training and/or socialization to prevent domestic violence and parenting for instance by local Family Development Association or Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (PKK). Scientifically, past interventions on marital satisfaction focused more on heightening life skills of married couples, but is this what Depok’s newly-weds actually need? Furthermore very few past researches focused on this newly-weds sample. Thus this study wants to find out what are the main aspects contributing to that variable, and what possible intervention could be done to tackle the issue.

Methods. This research is a baseline study which will further be incorporated in an action research developing an intervention to tackle this actual phenomenon. Data were collected through an in-depth interview with 6 newly-weds to explores which marital satisfaction dimension(s) contribute mostly to their daily hustle as a family. Participants were acquired through snowball method who fulfills the criteria of being married for maximum 5 years, with no child (yet), and live in Depok City. Marital satisfaction level is the analyzed descriptively and interview recordings were then coded thematically according to the dimensions of marital satisfaction.

Results. Our in-depth interview founds that out of ten dimensions of marital satisfaction, only four are considered to be an actual problem according to the newly-weds in Depok. Those four dimensions are communication, personality issues, family and friends, and financial management. The theme of communication were found fourteen (14) times across all participants. This theme includes how spouse received an emotional information, miscommunication and arguments, and the comfortability of couples delivering cognitive information The theme of personality issues, eleven (11) times which includes whether couples accept each other’s personality, their process of adaptation, and their expectation of others’ behavior. Family and friends was found also eleven (11) times which includes mainly of conflict with mother-in-law. Lastly, financial management issue was found seven (7) times. This theme includes budgeting issues, debts, and inconsistent income. Other themes was only coded once or twice.

Conclusions. Answering the research question in hand, we found out that communication, personality issues, family and friends, and financial management are the main foundational problems in the marital satisfaction dimensions which could cause worsening or ending newly-weds family. These are the dimensions that should be targeted in an intervention to elevate Depok’s newly-weds’ marital satisfaction in order to prevent the high rate of divorcement.

Added-Values. There are three main added-values from this research. First, this research can fill-in the existing research gap. The status quo before this research was conducted showed that, The City Government (by Depok City PKK) has applied several intervention programs for newly-weds couples with the same goal to reduce the rate of divorcement in the future. Some of those intervention programs such as, Pre-Marriage Preparation Training Program, Family Planning Ambassadors, and Maturity Marriage Age Program. But, these programs has not been applied intensively to newly-weds couples, not conducted within a sufficiently long periods of time, and not related with the basic skills that needed for newly-weds couples. Second, the study contribution to the society from this research are to provide understanding and training to newly-weds related with the necessary skills of marriage. So, it potentially would decrease the rate of divorcement in the future. Last, this research could be transformed to be a policy papers which is a form of collaboration between academics and government in order to create smart living in Depok City.

Keywords: marital satisfaction; divorce;intervention