Patterns of marital change during the early childhood years: Parent personality, coparenting, and division-of-labor correlates.

Abstract

Cluster analysis was applied to the marital reports of 99 husbands and wives (from 104 families) obtained when their firstborn sons were 10,27, 36, and 60 months of age to identify distinct patterns of change in marital functioning. Husband-love and wife-conflict scores revealed 3 distinct change patterns-stays good, bad to worse, and good gets worse-which afforded the opportunity to address 2 distinct questions, the 1st dealing with the correlates of consistently good and poor functioning marriages and the 2nd with what distinguishes marriages that initially functioned similarly (and well) but proceeded to develop in distinctively different ways. Results show, consistent with related findings from a study of newly weds (B. Kamey & T. Bradbury, 1997), that the answer to the 1st question is found in enduring personality traits of spouses, whereas the answer to the 2nd is found in observed marital dynamics (reflecting coparenting processes).

The Internal Structure and Ecological Context of Coparenting: A Framework for Research and Intervention

“…However, mothers' or fathers' perceptions of how child-rearing labor is divided, by themselves are not predictive of parental or couple adjustment (Belsky & Hsieh, 1998;Bristol, Gallagher, & Schopler, 1988). The issue in this domain is satisfaction; Are the parents satisfied with both the process of negotiating responsibilities and the division that results?…”

“…Parents' individual characteristics include factors such as attitudes (e.g., gender role expectations) and emotional and mental health. For example, depression or hostility in one or both parents may limit parents' ability to express positive emotional support, engage in productive resolution of childrearing differences, and maintain boundaries such that children are not exposed to undue interparental hostility (Belsky & Hsieh, 1998).…”

Growing Points for Coparenting Theory and Research

“…Studies that have disentangled coparenting and family group processes from husband-wife relationship systems (e.g., Bearss & Eyberg, 1998;Belsky & Hsieh, 1998;Floyd, Costigan, & Gilliom, 1998;Lindahl & Malik, 1999;McBride & Rane, 1998;McHale & Rasmussen, 1998;Schoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Frosch, & McHale, 2004) have made fundamental contributions to this emerging field, and we encourage researchers working in this field to continue considering such distinctions. Indeed, in that wellfunctioning marital partnerships often set the stage for better coordinated coparenting partnerships Katz & Gottman, 1996;Katz & Woodin, 2002;Lewis, 1989;Lindahl & Malik, 1999;McHale, 1995;McHale, Kazali, et al, 2004;McHale, Khazan, et al, 2002;Van Egeren, 2003), researchers should look more closely at families that do and do not fit this general trend (e.g.…”

Spouses’ gender-typed attributes and their links with marital quality: A pattern analytic approach

“…Here we sought to address how the patterning of spouses' gender-typed attributes represents divergent contexts for marital relationships that are differentially related to husbands' and wives' marital quality. Based on findings demonstrating that personal-social attributes predict levels of marital quality over time but not changes in those levels (Belsky & Hsieh, 1998;Karney & Bradbury, 1997), we expected couple profiles to be linked to relatively consistent levels of marital quality across the 3 years of measurement rather than patterns of change in marital quality.…”