Stability and Change in Marriage across the Transition to Parenthood: A Second Study

Abstract

This 2nd longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood focuses on 67 middle class caucasian primiparous couples residins in Pennsylvania US and substitutes a measurement system more differentiated than the widely used Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) for evaluating marital change. The instruments selected for this 2nd longitudinal study require respondents to rate their subjective evaluations of various interaction events of their partners and of the relationship in general. Data were therefore gathered on activities moods and attitudes concerning the marital relationship. An attempt is made to replicate and extend the several trends discerned in the 1st study. It is hypothesized that mean levels of satisfaction with marital interactions with the relationship in general and with the partner would decline across the transition to parenthood and that spouses characterizations of the marriage as a romance would decrease while their characterizations of the marriage as a partnership would increase. At the time of the interview couples had been married an average of 4.2 years. Fathers and mothers mean ages were 28 and 26.5 years respectively; and the 2 parents averaged 15.8 and 14.4 years of education. For 2 of every 3 couples the 1st birth was planned. Each family was studied at several points in time beginning in the last trimester of pregnancy via interviews observations and questionnaires through the 9th postpartum month. In addition at 1 3 and 9 months postpartum each family was observed at a time when both parents were home in order to assess family interaction. Across the 1-year period of study both sets of spouses became increasingly dissatisfied with the positive behaviors of their partners wishing that they were displayed more often. Spouses reported change in feelings of love satisfaction and ambivalence also reflected behavioral changes. For husbands and wives alike satisfaction and love declined linearly over time. This decline was most evident in the case of wives. Follow-up testing of the main effect for time revealed that while sense of friendship declined in a linear fashion over time sense of romance significantly decreased and sense of partnership significantly increased between the last trimester of pregnancy and the 3rd postpartum month. The naturalistic observations of marital interaction chronicled significant changes in overall engagement baby-related communication and the display of positive affection across the babys 1st 9 months of life. Husband-wife correspondence analysis reveals a consistent pattern of statistically reliable convergence between reports within a family. Discussion of these results focuses on the repeatedly found patterns of change in the marital relationship experienced by the average couple and spouse as well as the stability of individual differences. Scales such as those used in this study provide a better basis for examining the interrelations of patterns of behavior and subjective feelings over time. Yet it must be concluded that there is little difference between the picture painted using the oft-criticized DAS approach to assessing marriage and a more conceptually differentiated approach when it comes to evaluating stability and change over time.