The purpose of this research is to explore the Impact of Marital Stress among Nigerian immigrant Couples in the U.S. The focus is on two dimensions: mainly, the study is intended to examine the effect of acculturative stress and the lack of the use of professional marital counseling among Nigerian immigrant couples in the U.S. Secondly, it is to investigate if the tools used hold in analyzing the participants responses. The tools used include:

• Demographic Questionnaire: includes questions about the individual’s name, age, ethnicity, marital status, number of marriages attempted, employment status and level of education.

• MSI-R inventory: this instrument is used to measure the nature and extent of conflict within a relationship. It contains 150 true or false questions; 17 of those were selected and adapted to meet the purpose of this study.

• Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation scale was used to measure the assimilation and rejection processes of acculturation.

• SAFE Scale (Hovey and King 1996) is used to measure acculturative stress in four contexts (Social, Attitudinal, Familial, and Environmental Acculturative Stress). The tool was used to measure stress associated with the acculturative process for the purposes of this study. The SAFE was originally developed by Padilla et al. (1985) (60 Items) and shortened by Mena et al. (1987) to 26 items.

These tests revealed that many Nigerian immigrant couples are assimilated into the American culture while still holding onto their culture of origin as seen in their resistance to seeking professional help when encountering marital conflict.