Attachment, marital satisfaction, and divorce during the first fifteen years of parenthood

Abstract

This study examines two overlapping longitudinal samples of U.S. couples with children, covering a period of 15 years after the first child's birth. The first sample extended from the pregnancy with a first child until that child was 5.5 years old; the second from ages 4.5 to 14.5. Growth curve analyses revealed that marital satisfaction declined over 15 years for both husbands and wives. Attachment security measured in the second sample was associated with greater marital satisfaction, but did not buffer against declines in marital satisfaction over time. Husbands' lower initial level of marital satisfaction measured around the first child's transition to school was the only significant predictor of marital dissolution. The discussion emphasizes theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Attachment, marital satisfaction, and divorce in the first fifteen years of parenthoodMany married individuals experience significant changes in their lives after they become parents, including identity changes, shifting roles in the marriage and outside the family, and changes in the relationship with their own parents. How do couple relationships fare over time after partners become parents, and what are the factors that predict the long-term marital success of these couples? Over the past 50 years, a number of researchers have proposed that marital satisfaction peaks around the time of the wedding and tends to decline from that point on (e.g., Burgess & Wallin, 1953; Vailliant & Vailliant, 1993). Nonetheless, some recent evidence suggests that when children leave home couples experience an increase in their marital satisfaction (Gorchoff, John, & Helson, 2008). The transition to parenthood is a particularly important milestone event in a marriage that provides excitement and joy, but is also often related to distress in the individual parents. Thus, the Please address all correspondence to Gilad Hirschberger, Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900, Israel. hirschg@gmail.com. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript period following this transition may be a critical time for determining the health and longevity of the marital relationship.Many of the early studies of marital satisfaction relied on cross-sectional designs (e.g., Blood & Wolfe, 1960;Dentler & Pineo, 1960) and therefore provided limited information about how marriage unfolds over time. In the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of published longitudinal studies of marriage (see Berscheid, 1994 and Notarius, 2002 for reviews). In spite of the growing longitudinal literature in this field, many studies suffer from methodological problems, such as failing to distinguish between childless couples and parents, and failing to analyze husbands' and wives' data separately (see Karney & Bradbury, 1995 for a review). Moreover, according to Karney and Bradbury (1995), over 60% of studies follow marriages for 5 years or less. Consequently, many st...

Variables demográficas y engrandecimiento marital en Monterrey, México

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