Remarriages end in divorce more often than first marriages, so many stepchildren experience multiple parental divorces and the potential loss of significant family ties. Although there is substantial research on parent–child relationships after divorce, little is known about stepparent–stepchild relationships after divorce. Therefore, the authors conducted a grounded theory study of 41 adults who had undergone a stepfamily dissolution to explore their experiences with former stepparents. Postdivorce relationships with former stepparents are a function of whether stepchildren thought of their former stepparents as kin. Postdivorce step‐relationships were based on whether the stepchild had claimed the stepparent as kin, had once claimed them as kin but disclaimed them after the divorce, or had never claimed them as family members (unclaimed stepparents). Emotional reactions to parental divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement for continuing step‐relationships were identified. Implications for families, practitioners, and researchers are discussed.

This study examined the mediating roles of loneliness and intimate communication in the association between alexithymia and marital quality. Guided by a personality-behavioral approach to loneliness and affection exchange theory (AET), two actor-partner interdependence models (APIMs) were examined to test the associations among the variables. Path models (N = 155 couples) indicated that, for both spouses, loneliness and intimate communication fully mediated the association between alexithymia and marital quality. More specifically, higher alexithymia was associated with greater loneliness, which predicted lower intimate communication, which was related to lower marital quality. Multiple specific indirect effects were also significant, suggesting that the association between alexithymia and marital quality may be explained through divergent intrapersonal and interpersonal pathways. Although the magnitude of the intrapersonal associations was similar for both spouses, the results revealed gender differences in spousal interpersonal associations. For husbands, consistent differences were found between intrapersonal and interpersonal associations. Conversely, for wives, no significant differences were found between intrapersonal and interpersonal associations, suggesting that their marital quality was most strongly predicted by their own and their spouse's alexithymia, loneliness, and perceptions of intimate communication. Theoretical implications and future directions for research are also discussed.

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Previous research has implicated alexithymia as a psychological impairment to accurately decode emotional messages. This study attempted to explore potential neurological reasons for this impairment. Using functional brain imaging procedures, an experimental design was undertaken to assess group differences between individuals high and low in alexithymia on brain activation while viewing images of individuals displaying neutral or positive affect. While controlling for activation due to neutral affect images, results showed less activation for alexithymic versus nonalexithymic individuals due to positive affect images in several areas of the brain, including the amygdala and the hippocampus. Several implications and directions for future research are also discussed.