Marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to discriminate between the 2 dominant perspectives governing research on the nature of marital change over the transition to parenthood. Progress can be made in understanding this transition by recognizing the role of uncontrolled sources of variability in research designs, defining and using control groups, and timing of data collection around the child's arrival, and the authors conducted a study incorporating these methodological refinements. Growth curve analyses were conducted on marital satisfaction data collected twice before and twice after the birth of the 1st child and at corresponding points for voluntarily childless couples (N = 156 couples). Spouses who were more satisfied prior to pregnancy had children relatively early in marriage, and parents experienced greater declines in marital satisfaction compared to nonparents. Couples with planned pregnancies had higher prepregnancy satisfaction scores, and planning slowed husbands' (but not wives') postpartum declines. In sum, parenthood hastens marital decline--even among relatively satisfied couples who select themselves into this transition--but planning status and prepregnancy marital satisfaction generally protect marriages from these declines.

The pains and pleasures of parenting: When, why, and how is parenthood associated with more or less well-being?

“…Researchers could also take a mixed methodological approach by combining the designs described above in a single study-for example, by comparing changes in well-being among a group of parents across the transition to parenthood to the changes in well-being among a group of nonparents over the same period of time (cf. Lawrence, Rothman, Cobb, Rothman, & Bradbury, 2008;Wolfson Sirignano & Lachman, 1985). These two designs together should provide stronger and clearer evidence for the effect of children on parents' well-being than either methodology alone.…”

“…The stress and strain of parenthood also extend to the marital relationship. A multitude of studies indicate that marital satisfaction declines after the birth of a child (e.g., Belsky & Pensky, 1988;Lawrence et al, 2008), with a meta-analysis of the literature revealing a small but reliable negative association between children and marital happiness (r ϭ Ϫ.10; Twenge et al, 2003). Some factors that may contribute to reduced marital happiness are the declines in spousal support and quality time spent together (L. K. White, Booth, & Edwards, 1986) and more frequent conflict (Papp, Cummings, & GoekeMorey, 2002) after having children.…”

Postpartum Sleep in New Mothers and Fathers

“…Slightly less dramatically, Shapiro and colleagues [91] describe the transition to parenthood as having at least a temporary impact on relationship satisfaction [92]. The differences in relationship satisfaction trajectories are strikingly different between postpartum and childless couples.…”

“…From a systems perspective, the implications of marital relationship satisfaction on infant well-being [92] is also tied up with the influence of the infant on the parents' sleep. Nystrom and Ohrling [103] describe new mothers' and fathers' experience as, "living in a new and overwhelming world" (p. 319).…”

Relationship Quality Among Young Couples from an Economic and Gender Perspective

“…In terms of relationship quality, the literature is mixed. Some research suggests that children increases relationship quality (Cowan and Cowan 2000), while some research suggests there is a negative (Lawrence et al 2008;Shapiro et al 2000) or curvilinear (Rollins and Feldman 1970) association between children and relationship quality. The negative effects of children on relationships have been found across a wide range of ethnicities, including both Caucasian and African-American couples within the United States (Crohan 1996) and continents such as Asia (Lu 2006) and Europe (Lorensen et al 2004;Salmela-Aro et al 2006).…”