Conjoint trajectories of couples’ marital and parental conflictual behaviors and later-life mental, physical, and relational health

Abstract

Conflictual marital and parental relationships mutually reinforce each other generating family-level stress. The cumulative experiences of stressful family conflictual circumstances (a family-level construct of family conflictual circumstances (FCC), based on marital and parental conflictual behaviors) affect a couple’s well-being. The present study, utilizing longitudinal data of 370 couples in enduring marriages and a person-centered approach, examined: a) the existence of heterogeneous groups of couples with FCC trajectory patterns, b) whether individual and contextual factors are associated with FCC trajectory patterns, and c) differential later-life health and relational consequences of these groups. We identified four heterogeneous groups of couples with distinct FCC trajectory patterns in the early middle years (from 1990 to 1994; approximately age 40 for both husbands and wives). Personal (neurotic vulnerability) and contextual factors (family financial hardship) influenced the development of the FCC trajectories, and FCC trajectory patterns were consequential for spouses’ later mental, physical, and relational health (2001). Two features of the longitudinal synchrony in FCC trajectory patterns (severity and synchrony) were utilized to explain the differential impacts of the trajectory patterns on spouses’ later health and relational outcomes.