Assessed marital relationship quality of newlyweds: first-married husbands (N=308), first-married wives (N=290), remarried husbands (N=150), and remarried wives (N=168). Examined liking of partner, trustworthiness of partner, intrinsic reasons for relationship, shared decision making, and global appraisal of relationship. Found no evidence that…

This study examined the link between conflict resolution styles (conflict engagement, withdrawal, and compliance) and each spouse's marital satisfaction for 155 couples. Overall, husbands' marital satisfaction was more frequently affected by how their wives resolved conflicts than wives' marital satisfaction was affected by how their husbands…

The purpose of this study is to assess differences between husbands and wives (N= 526 couples at the first assessment) on (a) growth curves over the first 4 years of marriage for psychological distress, marriage-specific appraisals, spousal interactions, social support, and marital satisfaction; (b) the strength of intraspouse links and…

Examined data on frequency with which relationship conflict is experienced in specific content areas and relationship satisfaction for both partners of 75 gay, 51 lesbian, and 108 heterosexual couples who lived together without children. Couple scores fell into six clusters that represented areas of conflict regarding power, social issues,…

Predictors of increases in marital distress in the first 3 years of marriage were identified for 310 couples. Predictors for wives were low income, living with stepchildren, many rewards, few costs, and high emotional investment. Predictors for husbands were few months of living together. For both husbands and wives, few years of education and not…

Partners from four types of couples without children (gay unmarried, lesbian unmarried, heterosexual unmarried, and heterosexual married, Ns=1,412, 1,310, 1,036, and 1,728, respectively) were compared to partners from heterosexual married couples with children ("N"= 3,116) on mean levels of variables from a model of relationship adjustment as well…

Estimated parameters of the trajectory of change in marital quality over first 10 years of marriage. Found that both spouses started trajectories of change at fairly high levels of marital quality, with quality declining rapidly in the early years, stabilizing, and then declining again. Individual-differences variables predicted initial status of…

Studied relationship between social support and psychological distress in first-married and remarried newlyweds (N=427). Identified social support providers to husbands and wives who were (l) both first time marrieds; (2) one was first time married and other remarried; (3) both remarrieds. Found variation by group on those named as support…

Examined nature and correlates of self-reported relationship quality for husband/wife pairs (N=458) in six types of newlywed couples. Classified couples' according to marital history and presence/absence of stepchildren. Found demographic, marital history, and presence/absence of stepchildren variables weak when compared to individual-differences…

Related cognitions (ambiguity of stepfather role, optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, and myths about stepfamilies) to satisfaction with (step)parent-child relationships and family/marital/personal life in 27 mother/stepfather pairs. Compared to stepfathers, mothers had more optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, were less likely to endorse…

Examined relation between divorce history and psychological distress for newlywed couples (N=459). Results indicated husbands' distress was related to low marital satisfaction and dissatisfaction with social support; wives' distress was related to history of multiple divorces, few years of education, low occupational prestige, low marital…