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INTRODUCTION
International immigration is a major life episode that forces a redefinition of identity and self. Vattimo (1992) and Melucci (1989) suggest that migration challenges one's veiy sense of reality, as what was once the reality of life and relationships becomes but one reality among several. Roles that were once so familiar that their components were assumed to be part of the natural order may be challenged by the accommodations that must be made in establishing oneself in a new countiy. The old, familiar roles and ways of being a man, woman, husband, wife or parent are no longer the only ways and may not even be possible or desirable any longer. The degree of challenge in adapting to a new countiy varies across ethno-racial and religious groups and is based on particular migratory experiences (Bern, 1 990) . High rates of depression, anxiety and family conflict documented in some immigrant groups have been credited to the stresses of adaptation, loss of cultural referents, un- or underemployment of male immigrants and the role strain and associated threats that these pose to identity, self esteem, and psychological well-being (Darvishpour, 2002; Farver, Narang, and Bhadha, 2002; Gill and Matthews, 1995; Hojat, Shapourian, Foroughi, Nayerahmadi, Farzane, Shafieyan, et al., 2000; Hum and Simpson, 2004; Moghissi and Goodman, 1999; Zhou and Xiong, 2005).
At the core of the impact on marital relationships are the challenges to gender and marital roles and identity posed by migration from societies that hold to traditional, often religiouslybased, values and beliefs about gender and patriarchal family systems to societies where gender roles, identities and family systems are more post-modern, secular, egalitarian and fluid (Giddens, 1992; Bauman2000; 2003). Not only are immigrants surrounded by examples of lifestyles and families that challenge their beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, proper and improper, but the circumstances in which they find themselves may force them to make adjustments in their own family and couple relationships that would be unacceptable in their home country.
This paper uses in-depth interviews with 15 male and 15 female immigrants to Canada from Iran who are in marriage or marriage-like relationships to examine the challenges to gendered marital roles and relationships experienced with immigration to Canada and how this sample of...