Personal Strengths and Compassionate Love for the Partner in Mexico

Human nature consists of strengths whose possession has personal and interpersonal advantages. Among these are resilience, self-efficacy in the exercise of emotional regulation strategies (SEERE), optimism and subjective well-being (SWB), which can condition the expression of compassionate love (CL) towards the partner. Based on this, the objectives of this research were: 1) to identify the effect of resilience, SEERE, optimism and SWB in the CL towards the romantic partner and 2) to examine the differences in the variables mentioned by education and time in the relationship. To do this, we worked with 202 heterosexual couples from Mexico City who responded voluntarily, confidentially and anonymously. Among the results, positive and significant relationships were found between resilience, SEERE, optimism and SWB with CL towards the partner. Likewise, it was found that the higher the school level, the more resilience, optimism and flourishing; as well as differences by time in the relationship showing that CL predominates at the beginning of the relationship; while in later stages, more family support and SEERE in cognitive reappraisal are reported.

of stress in the other and identification of the most effective response to alleviate such stress). She also suggests that this type of love can develop in the early stages of the couple relationship but is only put to the test when support and sacrifice are required over time. Neff and Karney (2008) consider that CL occurs at the beginning of the couple relationship and define it as a global positive assessment of the couple, as well as the precise understanding and acceptance of their strengths and weaknesses. Their model is based on two premises: 1) love is an integral attitude towards the partner (e.g., my partner is wonderful) that is based on a variety of perceptions and judgments (hierarchical) regarding their specific traits and abilities (e.g., my partner organizes clothes very well) and 2) the motivation of each member of the couple to see the other positively, may vary depending on the hierarchy of perceptions and judgments (general or specific), since it seems more important for the couple to believe that their partners are good or valuable in general, than to believe that they are talented in some particular aspect, which contributes more to marital satisfaction. In this way, the self-interest of each person can influence the global perception of their partner. In congruence, the motivation to see the partner under a positive light may not work so well when the members of the couple are evaluating specific qualities, since in this way they would be recognizing faults and imperfections that will have negative consequences on marital satisfaction. This reasoning suggests that among happily married and newly-wed couplesbasically-some people base their positive view of the other on an accurate understanding of specific qualities, while others do so generally. The latter also recognize the negative and positive qualities of their partner, but thanks to CL, the other is valued despite their faults and weaknesses, forgetting about their selfish concerns, that is, what they want to find in their partner.

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Although Berscheid (2006Berscheid ( , 2010 recognizes the importance of CL, his approach only describes that it is one of the main types, mentions its typical behaviors and places them both at the beginning of the relationship and posteriori. While Neff and Karney (2008) point out that there are those who feel a CL from the beginning of their relationship because it is based on a specific evaluation of features that are positive or, on a global one that arises because negative features are observed but that stop having importance because the imperative thing is to love the person and not the selfish complication of dealing with these attributes.
Returning to the notion of human strengths from Goodman et al. (2019) there are others such as resilience, self-efficacy in the execution of emotional regulation strategies (SEERE), optimism and subjective well-being (SWB). Although some have been studied with the CL, their approach has not been with Mexican couples, nor have they been together in the same investigation, so they will be described and intertwined below, giving rise to the approaches of this research.
Resilience has been studied as the dynamic process of coping (Grotberg, 2003) and successful adaptation of people to adversity, extremely difficult situations and highly stressful scenarios (Reich, Zautra, & Stuart, 2010), finding benefits and generating new meanings that allow the person to grow and face new challenges with greater security and in a better way (Seligman, 2002;Tashiro & Frazier, 2003), in other words, emerge stronger from misfortune. Thus, it goes through a tripartite process that integrates that the person: recovers, resists and reconfigures their reality (Lepore & Revenson, 2006) by means of a trajectory of healthy functioning over time, as well as the ability to generate and express positive emotions (Bonanno, 2005).
Although research on resilience in couple relationships is very limited, Skerrett (2015) coined the term we-ness to refer to the sense of commonality between the couple that allows them to respond in a unique way to the Personal Strengths and Compassionate Love for the Partner challenges of common life. Thus, in the face of a traumatic event, the members of the couple are likely to use a repertoire of behaviors and solutions based on similar previous experiences. In a study carried out by Neff and Brody (2011) on this topic, they identified that resilience was shown to be a key element in the management of relational difficulties and their maintenance over time. In such a way that that to the extent that couples have the adequate resources to cope with moderate stress in their lives, the exposure to it cultivates the belief of being effective and resilient. As a basis for the notion of Skerrett (2015), Walsh (2011) mentions that mutual empathy facilitates relational resilience, and also describes as such, the relational empowerment achieved through the expression of CL and relational competence creates a socio-emotional intelligence between both of which include awareness, generosity, curiosity, healthy boundary setting, and interpersonal sensitivity. Together these elements contribute to the quality of resilience and are essential to its process during the stress that the couple may experience and the strategies they use to regulate their emotions.
In this line, the personal belief of each member of the couple about their abilities to organize and execute the necessary strategies to handle the emotions that are presented to them and that lead them to successfully achieve these actions (Sánchez-Aragón, Díaz-Loving, & López-Becerra, 2008) is known as self-efficacy in the exercise of emotional regulation strategies (SEERE). Two of the most relevant are: 1) cognitive reappraisal (CR) that involves the reconstruction of a potentially eliciting situation of emotion in such a way that its impact on the individual is modified and the stimulus is better responded to and 2) expressive suppression (ES) that involves the inhibition, camouflage or concealment of expressive behaviors of emotion favoring health problems (Gross & Thompson, 2014). Hence, when people consider that they dominate these strategies it is understood that they have SEERE.
In relation to CL, Stellar and Keltner (2014) indicate that because this type of love is an affective response focused on the suffering of the other, the person who expresses it must feel capable of managing their own emotions to provide someone who suffers with another way the CL would become stress. From another perspective, feeling CL impacts negative affect or favors positive affect, which would put CL as a means of emotional regulation (Gilbert, McEwan, Matos, & Rivis, 2011). Since CL implies, on the one hand, the sadness of seeing the other suffer and the love to do something for them. On that account, they suggest that the successful use of certain sadness regulation strategies-particularly CR-allows to react more affectionately towards the affected person, which also favors the connection with them (Stellar & Keltner, 2014). However, other investigations indicate that precisely the use of CR as a strategy to regulate one's CL as an emotion, reduces the compassionate response because it prevents getting negatively engaged with the dejection of the other (Cameron & Payne, 2011). Thus, it can be said that CL and SEERE interact in such a way that the way in which CL is provided to the other person will depend on the ability to regulate one's own emotions (Inwood & Ferrari, 2018).
Another strength with evidence in the literature for its beneficial effect on human life is optimism. Kleiman et al. (2017) recognizing the multifaceted nature of this construct, describe it as having positive expectations towards the future, a style to infer with a positive bias, the illusion of personal control over situations, as well as an "improved" focus to others. For their part, Raksha and Swaran (2018) conceptualized it as the generalized tendency to expect life situations to be positive. In consequence, optimism is related to hope, self-efficacy, motivation, confidence and perseverance in the face of stress-provoking situations or those of great adversity (Seligman, 2002). And it is linked to greater professional success, better problem solving, good health (Zepeda-Goncen & Sánchez-Aragón, 2021) and a longer life (Peterson, 2000).

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More specifically, some researchers have identified the qualities that encourage the healthy functioning of the couple, among which CL and optimism stand out for generating intimacy, inspiring warm feelings, openness and the desire to be reciprocal, facilitating forgiveness, satisfaction and commitment (McDonald, Olson, Goddard, & Marshall, 2018). According to these authors, optimism enriches creativity, the ability to solve problems in a more cooperative and constructive way (Assad, Donnellan, & Conger, 2007;Neff & Geers, 2013) and it has positive effects on energy, which predisposes individuals to seek that their partners are also happy and welfare not only individually but also within the relationship (e.g., Williamson, Karney, & Bradbury, 2013), which is particularly evident in women (Goddard, Olson, Galovan, Schramm, & Marshall, 2016). In addition, the fact that the CL agent is positive in life, places it in a slightly dominant or advantageous position compared to the receiver, since the former is conceived with sufficient cognitive and emotional resources to provide CL (Smith, Ruiz, Cundiff, Baron, & Nealy Moore, 2013) and with it well-being on a personal and interpersonal level.
Finally, SWB as a health reference, includes from Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin's (1985) vision and Diener et al. (2010): 1) positive and negative affect that involves the emotional aspects experienced by people, 2) flourishing that evaluates self-perceived success in areas such as relationships, self-esteem, purposes in life and enthusiasm and, 3) satisfaction with life understood as a cognitive judgment regarding the evaluation that a person makes over the quality of their life considering the expectations about it and the quality of their personal relationships such as that of a couple, life events, discrepancy between aspirations and achievements, perception of self-efficacy, as well as positive or negative thoughts.
In relation to CL, it has been identified that those with higher SWB are better able to be compassionate with others and with themselves and conversely, as they feel more CL, their well-being increases (Sprecher, Fehr, & Zimmerman, 2007;Zessin, Dickhäuser, & Garbade, 2015). And this is because experiencing momentary and permanent positive emotions predisposes the individual to perform compassionate acts (e.g., provide support, care, sacrifice and be responsive) in a close relationship-such as that of a couple-and vice versa, that is, experience CL by a friend or partner is associated with feeling good, improving their self-esteem, increasing their closeness and elevating their spirituality (at the individual level) as well as having all these effects in the recipient of such loving manifestations .
Although the effects of gender and even certain diseases have been sought in some of these variables, the search for differences by education or by time in the relationship was not identified. In this regard, Giménez-Hernández (2005) and Morales-Rodríguez and Díaz-Barajas (2011) reported that the more education, their participants scored more in optimism and resilience, which can be explained by the fact that studying provides resources that give the person greater possibilities of being happy even at the cost of adversity, they can have more hope, a positive forecast for the future, be more cautious and deepen the analysis of the situation they face and thereby generate a better approach and solution (Gómez-Azcarate et al., 2014). As for the time in the relationship, Berscheid (2006Berscheid ( , 2010 points out that CL occurs at the beginning of the relationship and as time passes it is tested. In turn, Neff and Kerney (2008) mention that it occurs mainly at the beginning of the relationship. In a study by Sánchez-Aragón (2018) optimism in couples in development versus dissolution was compared, finding that at the beginning of the relationship there is more of it. However, the scores do not decrease from the theoretical mean.
Personal Strengths and Compassionate Love for the Partner Self-efficacy in the Execution of Emotional Regulation Strategies Scale (Sánchez-Aragón et al., 2008) consists of two sections: trait and state. However, for this research only the trait factor was used, which is composed of 12 items divided into two factors that explain 61.42% of the variance and whose five-point Likert-type response format, evaluate to what extent it is believed that there is the capacity to carry out each of the two emotional regulation strategies: 1) Cognitive Appreciation with α = .84 and with items such as: "I re-evaluate the situation and modify my reaction" what is coming will be negative," 2) Internal Control (α = .78) with statements such as: "I think that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything," 3) Self-confidence (α = .81) and even statements like: "no task is too difficult for me" and 4) Hope (α = .80) consisting of sentences like: "I think my future is going to be very good." Subjective Well-being Scales (Diener et al., 1985(Diener et al., , 2010

Procedure
The application of approximately 30 minutes was carried out by qualified psychologists who went to places where they could find people with a current relationship and at least 1 month of living together (shopping malls, houses, schools, offices, recreational and cultural centers, etc.). So, participants (both members of the couple) were asked to participate in a voluntary and anonymous manner answering the scales that would not cause them any harm They were also told that their answers would only be used for scientific purposes.
Likewise, their questions were answered immediately during the application and their personal results were made available to the participants.

Results
To meet the first objective, a product-moment Pearson correlation analysis was performed. The results show that the more hope (optimism) and life satisfaction, the more support and empathy (CL) is displayed. In addition, the more social support, family support, strength, structure and social competence (resilience), CR, hope, positive attitude, internal control and self-confidence (optimism), flourishing, life satisfaction and positive emotional experience, greater altruistic love is expressed (CL) (see Table 1). Subsequently, one-way variance analyzes were carried out both to examine the differences by education and by time in the couple relationship. For the first case, it was found that people with bachelor's studies showed more resilience, optimism and flourishing compared to the other groups but mainly with those with middle school studies (see Table 2). Regarding the differences by time in the relationship, there were fewer differences among the groups and more similarities. Thus, the data show that people with more time in the relationship (from 13.3 years onwards) scored more in family support (resilience factor) and in self-efficacy in the exercise of CR; while those with less time in the relationship (from 5 months to 13.3 years) scored more in negative emotion experience and in CL (see Table 3). Note. SEERE = self-efficacy in the exercise of emotional regulation strategies; CR = cognitive reappraisal; CL = compassionate love; ES = expressive suppression; SWB = subjective well-being.

Discussion
The premise of this research was that personal strengths are the qualities that enrich the lives of those who possess them and of those who are close to them, particularly their partners. This research was aimed at: 1) identifying the effect of resilience, SEERE, optimism and SWB in the CL towards the partner, and 2) examining the differences in the variables mentioned by education and time in the relationship. To do this, some correlation and variance analysis were carried out, which showed interesting results.
Regarding the first objective, it was found that when participants have more conviction that their future will bring good things (hope-optimism factor) and feel more satisfaction with the conditions of their own life compared to their ideal, the participants try to help more their partner, they consider that their partner can trust that they will receive what they need, and they recognize that when they see their partners sad, they feel the need to help them (support and empathy-CL factor). This may be because when a person has a positive vision of both the past and what the future holds, it gives them a potential value that enables them to generate actions aimed at alleviating or providing comfort to their partner (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005), prioritize them, show them how important he/she is and understand them (Reis, Maniaci, & Rogge, 2014). In addition to the above, the fact that CL has empathy as an emotional component, allows us to infer the right moments in which CL can manifest itself and thus alleviate the suffering of the partner (Villar-Ezcurra, 2007). This is particularly important because to the extent that the partner is well, the participant will also experience their own well-being (Berscheid, 2006(Berscheid, , 2010Sober & Wilson, 1999).
Moreover, the data show that to the extent that participants feel better people whose life is useful and meaningful, who have characteristics such as being optimistic and competent as well as being respected by others (flourishing); with greater life satisfaction and more positive emotions in everyday life such as happiness, pleasure and joy (SWB); likewise, greater encouragement towards life's challenges and situations (positive attitude-optimism), more beliefs of self-efficacy (internal control-optimism), greater self-confidence about one's own abilities (self-confidence-optimism) and hope for the good that the future will bring (hope-optimism); as well as more social and family support, strength that comes from learning from adverse situations in the past, a more structured life and greater capacities to relate socially (all resilience factors), they express their CL in an altruistic way, preferring to suffer themselves than seeing their partner suffer, they also prefer to engage in actions that help the partner, and to sacrifice for the partner. This, in general, confirms that the individual's Aragón personal strengths contribute to spending a lot of effort and time being attentive to the well-being of their partner, a fundamental intention of CL (Underwood, 2002(Underwood, , 2009 where generosity and lack of selfishness are evident . More specifically, when individuals feel flourishing, they experience positive emotions and by evaluating their life as valuable, this predisposes them to provide, to care, to be responsive to the needs of their partners and to sacrifice for them; which consequently will make them feel good, improve their self-esteem and increase closeness with them  in addition to the positive effects on partners such as feeling loved, valued, accompanied and supported (Zessin et al., 2015). Concerning the relationship between optimism and altruistic love, it can be said that when people have positive expectations about the future (Kleiman et al., 2017;Raksha & Swaran, 2018) and trust in their own resources, this puts them in a slightly dominant position to solve the problem that afflicts their partner through CL (Smith et al., 2013). Finally, the relationship between resilience and altruistic love can be better understood from the Grotberg (2003), Reich et al. (2010) and Seligman (2002) perspectives, whom, when defining resilience, list its attributes: successful adaptation to adversity, ability to find benefits, generate new meanings to situations, allow growth and face situations with greater security and better way. All of them enable people to see stressful stimuli as a challenge and not as a threat, therefore, they can solve not only their problems, but also those of their partner in a sensitive and competent way (Skerrett, 2015;Walsh, 2011) by connecting better with them (House et al., 2011) and their needs. Even when the scenario is negative, the person sees the benefits of doing good to their partner (Tashiro & Frazier, 2003) and therefore to themselves . Finally, when examining the differences by time in the relationship in resilience, SEERE, optimism, SWB and CL, it was observed that participants with more than 13 years in their relationship scored more in family support (resilience) and in self-efficacy in the exercise of CR compared to those who have less time in their relationship.
These findings may be due to the fact that being in a relationship for more than 13 years implies continuity, an ingredient in the stability of couple relationships (Retana-Franco & Sánchez-Aragón, 2006), which is why the members of the couple have had the opportunity to: 1) experience ups and downs that have allowed their families to be counted on, which is particularly important in collectivist cultures such as the Mexican culture, this coupled with 2) learning not to easily "get hooked" or negatively engaged on emotional-triggering events to resolve them in the best way (Gross & Thompson, 2014) and making use of the Skerrett's commonality (2015) to exercise shared resilience among the members of the couple; all this with the purpose of not damaging the relationship (Sánchez-Aragón, 2009). On the other hand, participants with less than 13 years in their relationship experience more negative emotions (SWB) and express more CL for their partner (support and empathy, and altruistic love) compared to those who have more time. This could be due to the fact that Personal Strengths and Compassionate Love for the Partner the less time in the relationship, leads to a coexistence between the couple which presents them with more novel situations that can elicit more differences between their members, in addition to that, more "errors" are manifested since the couple is still getting to know each other. This helps emotions to be experienced more intensely and impulsively, which can tinge the person with negativity (Sánchez-Aragón, 2018). In contrast, less time in the relationship contributes to the participants feeling more CL for their partner, this is supported by Berscheid (2006Berscheid ( , 2010 who considers that this type of love develops in the early stages but is actually tested when support and sacrifice are required over time. For their part, Neff and Karney (2008) say that CL occurs more in newly married couples or those happily married, and they explain that this type of love can arise from the global evaluation of the couple and the subsequent acceptance of their negative qualities without damaging the relationship; or, from the immediate evaluation and acceptance of the specific characteristics of the couple.
Lastly, Sánchez-Aragón (2018) found that in the development and maintenance stages of the relationship there was more support, expression of love, interaction and communication compared to those people in the process of dissolution, showing that at the beginning there is more empathy and willingness to sacrifice for their partner because there is more motivation and love.
In conclusion, this study confirms the value of personal strengths (Goodman et al., 2019) in the individual and in their couple relationship, since some effects that were not very high were evidenced and they indicate positive relationships between resilience, SEERE, optimism and SWB with the attitudinal and behavioral expression of CL. This work theoretically complements the field because its findings provide empirical data that reveal how the variables studied are linked to the notion of sacrifice for the partner, but not to "regular support." This could imply that there are other variables-to be identified-that can determine the presence of empathy and support, but also that the strengths studied only emerge in situations that require sacrifice or deprivation.
Likewise, the results-although in some weak cases-provide more comprehensive information on how various variables not studied together in other countries, including Mexico, are associated with CL for one's partner.
In the same way, it was found, on the one hand, that formal education contributes to the enrichment of these resources, and on the other, that CL predominates at the beginning of relationships and aspects such as social support and reappreciation of the emotions that arise in life. These features manifest better as the years go by.
This knowledge obtained makes it necessary to strengthen the members of the relationship in terms of their personal resources, mainly when they have low education or go through other stages of the couple life cycle. In this sense, the results are also a guideline towards their application in clinical or marital orientation contexts.
Regarding the future directions of this study, it is suggested to analyze the variables in the stages of the couple's life cycle more deeply, adding other variables such as gratitude, tolerance and empathy, which would provide a clearer idea of the mechanisms fundamentals of CL and even explore the behavior of the same variables in other types of personal relationships.

Funding
Research project approved and financed by the UNAM-PAPIIT IN304919 Program entitled: "Protective and health risk factors in healthy couples and with chronic-degenerative disease".