Make up or break up? Charting the well-being of low-income help-seeking couples through the breakup process.

Abstract

Divorce or separation concerns have typically been identified as a common reason why couples seek treatment for their relationship. However, to our knowledge, no study has investigated the breakup process in a help-seeking sample. Using a low-income sample of individuals who broke up with their partner during a large randomized controlled trial investigating the effects of two web-based relationship education programs (N Broke up = 286), and a matched sample of individuals who did not break up (N Matched = 286; N Total = 572), the current study sought to: (a) examine changes in individual functioning and co-parenting among those who broke up; (b) examine post-breakup differences in changes between those who did and did not break up; and (c) identify moderators of any differential post-breakup functioning between those who did and did not break up. Results revealed that web-based relationship education leads to decreases in psychological and perceived stress prior to the breakup. After matching on pre-breakup characteristics, no post-breakup differences in individual functioning or co-parenting were found between those who did and did not break up. Furthermore, few variables moderated individuals' adjustment to breaking up. Therefore, breaking up may not be as detrimental to individual well-being as once anticipated.

Relational concerns and change in relationship satisfaction in a relationship education program

“…Perhaps just as important as being able to capture changes over a longer period of time is recognition that couples' experiences within RE programming may be dictated by their initial relationship functioning (Hawkins & Erickson, 2015). Although non‐experimental studies have illustrated that couples' who begin programming with lower relationship functioning demonstrate larger improvements in functioning (e.g., Coop Gordon et al, 2018; Carlson et al, 2017; Casey et al, 2017), this moderating effect has been inconsistent within RCT studies (Doss et al, 2019, 2020; Hatch et al, 2021; Williamson et al, 2015). Moreover, few studies have explored this moderating effect with longitudinal follow‐ups beyond a year.…”

Optimizing Coaching During Web-Based Relationship Education for Low-Income Couples: Protocol for Precision Medicine Research

“…Individuals with low-income experience, especially high rates of relationship distress and divorce, report significantly lower marital quality, and experience greater fluctuations in marital quality than high-income earners [ 2 - 4 ]. Low-income couples also have higher levels of alcohol use and infidelity and recent analyses indicate that a meaningful percentage break up during federally funded trials [ 4 - 6 ]. Even when low-income couples have access to free relationship education, they are only able to complete between 10% and 60% of the offered classes in nationwide studies [ 3 , 7 ].…”