Associations between anxiety and marital adjustment

Cognitive-behavioral theories of marital functioning and contextual models of close relationships highlight the importance of proximal affect states such as anxiety in couple functioning. Despite these assertions, research examining the role of state anxiety is lacking in the literature on intimate relationships. In this study, the authors examined state anxiety and marital adjustment in a sample of 45 couples. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that husbands' Time 1 anxiety can predict their own and their wives' subsequent reports of marital adjustment. Wives' Time 1 anxiety did not predict their own or their husbands' subsequent reports of marital adjustment. In this study, the authors focused on the role of husband anxiety in marital adjustment and on implications for further study of the contextual model of close relationships.     

Effects of physical and verbal aggression,depression, and anxiety on drinking behavior of married partners: a prospective and retrospective longitudinal examination

In an ethnically diverse sample of 195 married couples, we conducted a latent factor growth analysis to investigate the longitudinal link (4 time points over 4½ years) between marital aggression (physical and verbal aggression self‐ and partner‐reports) and individual internalizing symptoms (depression and anxiety) as they relate to trajectories of alcohol use among husbands and wives. Alcohol use was operationalized as a latent factor with self‐ and partner reports of problem drinking as measured by the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test and the Alcohol Dependence Scale. Verbal aggression by husbands or wives, by itself, has no effect on their alcohol use over time. In conjunction with depression, however, verbally aggressive husbands do have elevated drinking levels. The effects of husbands' and wives' physical aggression on their own and their partners' drinking behavior were also significant. This study is one of the first to examine the change over time in alcohol use for marital partners as related to marital aggression and internalizing symptoms. Our results shed light on areas of marital functioning (aggression, internalizing, alcohol use) that have not been investigated in conjunction with each other in a longitudinal design. Aggr. Behav. 35:296–312, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Perceived Fairness,Marital Conflict,and Depression: A Dyadic Data Analysis

This study explored associations among perceived fairness, marital conflict, and depression. Data for this study included married participants (n = 401 couples) from the Marriage Matters Panel Survey of Newlywed Couples. This study tested three autoregressive cross-lagged models and hypothesized that fairness would precede marital conflict, and continued conflict would lead to greater depression. The final model found that wives' Time 1 perceived fairness was associated with their husbands' conflict at Time 2, and that husbands' perceived fairness at Time 2 was associated with their wives' depression at Time 3. Findings suggest some support for addressing perceived fairness with couples.     

Remarriage Beliefs as Predictors of Marital Quality and Positive Interaction in Stepcouples: An Actor–Partner Interdependence Model

Using an Actor–Partner Interdependence Model, we examined remarriage beliefs as predictors of marital quality and positive interaction in a sample of 179 stepcouples. Three beliefs were measured using subscales from the Remarriage Belief Inventory (RMBI) including success is slim, children are the priority, and finances should be pooled. Several significant actor and partner effects were found for both wives' and husbands' beliefs. Wives' marital quality was positively associated with their own beliefs that finances should be pooled and negatively associated with their own beliefs that success is slim. Wives' reports of their own and spouses' positive interaction were both positively associated with their beliefs that finances should be pooled. Their reports of spouses' positive interaction were also negatively associated with husbands' beliefs that success is slim. Husbands' marital quality was positively associated with wives' beliefs that children are the priority, positively associated with their own beliefs that finances should be pooled, and negatively with success is slim. Positive interaction for husbands was positively associated with wives' beliefs that finances should be pooled and negatively associated with their own beliefs that success is slim. Finally, husbands' reports of positive interaction for their spouses were positively associated with wives' beliefs that finances should be pooled. Implications for future research utilizing dyadic data analysis with stepcouples are addressed.     

Economic stress and marital adjustment among couples: analyses at the dyadic level

This survey study of 608 Finnish couples investigated the question of how economic stress is reflected in marital adjustment on the basis of the model presented by Conger and colleagues. We used the couple as a unit of analysis, performing a dyadic‐level analysis within the framework of LISREL models. The model showed that the path by which economic circumstances were linked to marital adjustment was as follows: poor economic circumstances were linked to economic strain, which was related to increased psychological distress, and psychological distress in turn was negatively reflected in marital adjustment. However, psychological distress only partially mediated the link between economic strain and marital adjustment: economic strain was also directly linked to decreased marital adjustment. In addition, there occurred crossover between partners' experiences. First, wives' psychological distress was negatively related to husbands' reports of marital adjustment and vice versa. Second, unemployment among men was directly linked to reports of marital adjustment among women: the longer the man's total spell of unemployment, the poorer the woman's marital adjustment. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived community disorder,hostile marital interactions,and self‐reported health of African American couples: An interdyadic process

Using a sample of African American husbands and wives, this study investigates whether marital interactions and health are linked to their perceived community disorder. Findings suggest that only husbands' perceived community disorder is associated with their hostile behaviors toward their wives. Although wives' perceived disorder is strongly associated with husbands' perceived disorder, wives' perceptions are not directly associated with their hostile behaviors toward their husbands. Findings also suggest that husbands' and wives' hostile behaviors are strongly associated with each other. In general, spouses' hostile behaviors toward their partners are associated with their own as well as their partners' physical and mental health. Furthermore, husbands' perceived community disorder is directly associated with their own physical and mental health.     

Marital adjustment among rural couples: The role of expressiveness

This study examined the relationship between marital adjustment and husbands' and wives' instrumentalness and expressiveness. Eighty-five rural couples completed the Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses indicated that husbands' expressiveness was the sole predictor of both husbands' and wives' marital adjustment. Results are compared to previous research findings with urban couples. Implications of the findings for gender-related patterns of socialization are also discussed.     

Sex role stereotyping in women with agoraphobia and their husbands

Thirty-two married women with Diagnostic Statistical Manual (3rd edition, revised) diagnosis of agoraphobia and their husbands were compared with 32 matched control women and their husbands on self-report measures of sex role stereotyping, psychological symptoms, personality, and marital adjustment. The experimental women scored significantly lower than the control women on the sex role measure of Autonomy and significantly higher on Intropunitiveness. Significant inverse correlations occurred between women's self-ratings of Masculinity and Autonomy and their agoraphobic symptoms. In the experimental couples, but not the control couples, significant and substantial disagreements occurred on ratings of each other's Masculinity and Autonomy, and husbands' marital satisfaction correlated strongly with wives' self-rating of Femininity. The findings justify further study of sex role stereotyping in agoraphobia, especially where the syndrome coexists with marital dissatisfaction and/or personality disorder.     

Type A Behavior and Marital Dissatisfaction: Disentangling the Effects of Achievement Striving and Impatience-Irritability

Previous research has documented an association between overall Type A behavior and marital dissatisfaction. The present study examines the nature of this relationship when a two dimensional approach to Type A behavior is adopted, and impatience-irritability and achievement striving are assessed separately. Subjects were 134 medical practitioners and specialists and their wives in South Africa. As predicted, husbands' impatience-irritability was associated with their own and their wives' marital dissatisfaction. However, neither their achievement striving nor global Type A behavior correlated with their own or their wives' marital dissatisfaction. The results are discussed in terms of the need for isolating the specific component of Type A behavior that is associated with marital dissatisfaction.     

Coping and anxiety in women recalled for additional diagnostic procedures following an abnormal screening mammogram.

This study characterized women's concurrent and subsequent levels of emotional distress associated with a questionable mammogram screening and relationships between women's coping and psychosocial adjustment. State anxiety was assessed in 98 women 1 day after receiving a mammogram screening (Time 1), after notification of a questionable screening result that necessitated additional testing (Time 2), and after being informed of their breast-cancer-free status (Time 3). Key findings include (a) women reported a significant increase in anxiety following notification of the need to return for follow-up testing; (b) significant and positive associations were found between anxiety and behavioral approach, behavioral avoidance, cognitive approach, and cognitive avoidance coping in cross-sectional analyses; and (c) cognitive avoidance coping was a strong predictor of final levels of state anxiety in women. Findings suggest that cognitive avoidance coping plays an important role in reducing anxiety in women recalled to clarify an initially ambiguous screening procedure.     

Work,marriage, and health behaviors of African American working couples

Using a sample of 379 African American working husbands and wives, this study examined a unique link between work and marital experiences on health‐promoting behaviors. Results of the dyadic model show that husbands' and wives' control over work are directly associated with husbands' and wives' health‐promoting behaviors, respectively, after taking into account the dependencies between husbands and wives. The results of the dyadic model also show that husbands' and wives' control over work are indirectly associated with husbands' and wives' health behaviors through their perceived marital integrations. By understanding how work control and marital integration combine to influence both husbands' and wives' health behaviors, programs that promote healthy behaviors can be better designed and more effectively implemented.     

Wives' and Husbands' Cortisol Reactivity to Proximal and Distal Dimensions of Couple Conflict

Poor marital quality has been linked repeatedly to spouses' health problems, with alterations to physiological stress response systems, such as the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenocortical (HPA) axis, as one putative mechanism. This study assessed wives' and husbands' HPA axis (i.e., cortisol) reactivity to marital criticism during laboratory‐based conflict discussions, in the context of marital aggression experienced during the previous year. Ninety‐five couples provided one saliva sample prior to—and three samples following—a triadic family conflict discussion involving their teenage child. Marital criticism during the conflict discussion was related to heightened HPA reactivity for husbands only. For wives, an interaction emerged between criticism during the conflict and previous‐year marital aggression: only those wives who had experienced high levels of marital aggression demonstrated a positive association between criticism and cortisol output. Husbands thus appeared to be more physiologically reactive to the in‐the‐moment critical behaviors, whereas wives' responses to proximal conflict were related to previous and perhaps more chronic experiences of marital aggression. These findings shed light on ways in which within‐couple processes during family conflicts involving children contribute to individual physiological functioning, enhancing our understanding of the role of family relationships in physical health outcomes.     

Intergenerational relationships and marriage in China: Within-family longitudinal associations and between-family differences

Marriage is embedded in the web of spouses' broader social ties, and relationship quality with parents and parents-in-law is associated with marital quality. Guided by Family Systems theory and using three waves of dyadic data from 268 Chinese different-sex couples across the first several years of marriage, we first conducted a Random-Intercept Actor-Partner Interdependence Cross-lagged Panel Model (RI-APIM-CLPM) to examine the within-family longitudinal associations among husbands' and wives' relationship quality with parents, parents-in-law, and spouse. Then, husbands' and wives' filial obligations were added as predictors of between-family differences in their own and their partner's relationship quality in the three social ties. Among husbands, increased relationship quality in one social tie (e.g., with parents) predicted reductions in relationship quality in the other social ties (e.g., relationships with parents-in-law and marital quality). Our examination of between-family differences demonstrated that high levels of filial obligations predicted higher intergenerational relationship quality and marital quality. By simultaneously considering the within-family associations of multiple social ties and how filial obligations account for between-family differences in relationship quality, we contribute to a nuanced understanding of how Chinese couples' romantic partnerships are embedded in their broader family system.     

The legacy of parents' marital discord: consequences for children's marital quality

Drawing on a national longitudinal study of 297 parents and their married offspring, the authors found that parents' marital discord was negatively related to offspring's marital harmony and positively related to offspring's marital discord. The transmission of marital quality was not mediated by parental divorce, life-course variables, socioeconomic attainment, retrospective measures of parent-child relationships, or psychological distress. Offspring's recollections of parental discord, however, mediated about half of the association between parents' reports of marital discord and offspring's reports of discord in their own marriages. Parental behaviors most likely to predict problematic marriages among offspring included jealousy, being domineering, getting angry easily, being critical, being moody, and not talking to the spouse.     

The marital and family functioning of adults with ADHD and their spouses

Little is known about the family relationships of adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Thus, the marital adjustment and family functioning of 33 married adults with ADHD and their spouses was compared to 26 non-ADHD control participants and their spouses. Results revealed that married adults with ADHD reported poorer overall marital adjustment on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1989) and more family dysfunction on the Family Assessment Device (FAD; Eptein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1983) than control adults. The spouses of adults with ADHD did not differ from control spouses in reports of overall marital adjustment and family dysfunction. A greater proportion of their marital adjustment scores, however, fell within the maladjusted range. The ADHD adults' perceptions of the health of their marriages and families were more negative than their spouses' perceptions. The way in which spouses of ADHD adults compensated for their partners' difficulties were explored through clinical interviews. The findings in this study underscore the need for assessments and treatments to address marital and family functioning of adults with ADHD.     

The Meta Marriage: Links Between Older Couples' Relationship Narratives and Marital Satisfaction

Drawing upon a relatively understudied population and a unique observational task, the current study sought to examine how older couples' interactional behaviors during a relationship narrative task were associated with marital satisfaction over time. Using observational data from a sample of 64 older, higher‐functioning married couples, we analyzed a series of Actor–Partner Independence Models (APIM) to explore how couples' interactional behaviors during a relationship narrative task were associated with spouses' marital satisfaction both concurrently and one year later. Analyses revealed that spouses' behaviors (e.g., expressions of positive affect, negative affect, communication skills, engagement) were associated with their self‐reported marital satisfaction both at the time of the narrative and with changes in marital satisfaction. We found particularly robust evidence for the role of husbands' negative affect during the narrative task in predicting changes in both spouses' marital satisfaction over time. Our results indicate that researchers and clinicians should carefully consider the influence of development on the associations between spouses' behaviors and marital satisfaction. Further, those seeking to improve marriages in later life may need to consider the meaningful role that gender appears to play in shaping the marital experiences of older couples.     

Interactional Patterns and Marital Satisfaction Among Dual-Career Couples

The relationships of interactional patterns to the marital satisfaction of dual-career cou~lews ere exolored. Greater marital satisfaction was related to create; equality and reciprocity in the relationships. Couples experiencing reater marital satisfaction were apt to both give and ta e supports, to be involved in each other's careers, have equal commitment to the relationship, and to practice equal decision making. Holding non-traditional sex-role attitudes. and the husbands' approving of their wives' careers were related to higher marital satisfaction. Women who began their career after their marriages were apt to experience less marital satisfaction, less job satisfaction, fewer spouse supports, and greater inequality in decision making. Implications for clinicians are included.     

Marital satisfaction,parenting satisfaction,and parenting behavior in early infancy

The relationships between marital adjustment, satisfaction with parenting and actual parental behavior were assessed for a sample of first-time parents. Results indicated that there were consistent relationships between fathers' satisfaction scores and their own behaviors, but few relationships between mothers' behaviors and satisfaction scores. It was suggested that the determinants of the behavior of mothers and fathers may differ. In the absence of specific socialization of fathers into a caregiving role, fathers' caregiving style may become organized and develop primarily in the context of their relationships with their spouses.     

Dyadic processes of relational turbulence theory

This study tested dyadic processes of relational turbulence theory (RTT) in heterosexual marriages. We tested propositions 1, 2, and 5 of RTT, which propose that uncertainty about the marriage biases cognitive appraisals, and that interference from a partner heightens negative emotions, both of which culminate in relational turbulence for spouses. Guided by these propositions, husbands' and wives' (N = 510; 255 marital dyads) dyadic cognitive and emotional processes were estimated using the actor-partner interdependence mediation model. Consistent with theoretical propositions, we found evidence for actor-actor indirect effects; for both husbands and wives (a) the effect of spouses' relationship uncertainty on their own relational turbulence was mediated by their own biased cognitive appraisals, and (b) the effect of spouses' experienced interference on their own relational turbulence was mediated by their own anger from communicating in the marriage. However, controlling for actor-actor indirect effects, partner-defined processes (i.e., actor-partner and partner-actor indirect effects) uniquely explained husbands' and wives' relational turbulence.