“His” and “her” marriage expectations: Determinants and consequences

This article uses couple‐level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents’ expectations about marriage and the association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.     

Multiple Partner Maternity Versus Multiple Partner Paternity: What Matters for Family Trajectories

In this analysis the ramifications of parents' multiple partner fertility for the trajectories of both married and unmarried stepfamilies are examined. Using a nationally representative sample of births to parents living in large cities, it was found that mother's children by prior partners are unrelated to subsequent relationship transitions within 5 years of a shared birth. However, men's other children are associated with an increase in the odds of dissolution among all couples and decrease the odds of marriage among the unmarried.     

Transitions Within and From First Unions: Educational Effects in an Extended Winnowing Model

In this article, we study how different transitional phases from childless cohabitation relate to education and educational resemblance of the partners. Using longitudinal population register data from Finland, we extend analyses of previous research to suit the conditions in societies where almost all unions begin before marriage and much childbearing takes place outside marriage. Educationally heterogamous couples are found to have higher separation risks than homogamous ones and a somewhat smaller tendency to marry or become parents. Winnowing consequently takes place also after parenthood, but the strongest effect is recently after couples have entered a cohabiting union. Traditional family formation behavior in terms of marriage before children is nevertheless much more common among higher-educated people. The share of unmarried parents is notably higher among lower educated, and they are much more likely to remain as unmarried parents. Hence, if parenthood is taken into account, marital status remains an important device for categorizing couples.     

Vulnerable Emotional Expression In Emotion Focused Couples Therapy: Relating Interactional Processes To Outcome

This study examined whether interactions characterized by high expression of emotional vulnerability in one partner followed by a highly supportive response style by the other partner predicted greater improvement on domains of forgiveness, unfinished business, trust, and relationship satisfaction in a sample of 32 couples presenting for Emotion Focused Couples Therapy with unresolved emotional injuries. For each outcome measure, two separate hierarchical regression models were tested (injured partner vulnerability and offending partner supportiveness; offending partner vulnerability and injured partner supportiveness). Both models significantly predicted improvement on the majority of outcome measures. Practice suggestions for working with emotionally injured couples are provided in light of the findings.     

Union Transitions Among Cohabitors: The Significance of Relationship Assessments and Expectations

Data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to estimate the effects of couple‐level measures of cohabitors' relationship assessments and expectations on their union transitions. Although positive relationship assessments deterred separation, they did not hasten entry into marriage. Female partners' negative assessments of the relationship increased the odds of separation, whereas such reports among male partners weakened the odds of marriage. Plans to marry were positively associated with marriage entry, but this effect was considerably larger for White couples than it was for Black couples. Cohabitors' expectations that their union would dissolve were also associated with union transitions. When both partners reported an even to high chance of dissolution, the odds of marriage were low, and the odds of separation were high. Cohabitors' own relationship assessments and expectations are significant predictors of their union outcomes.     

Marriage Expectations Among African American Couples in Early Adulthood: A Dyadic Analysis

Using Family and Community Health Study data consisting of 168 unmarried, primarily African American couples, the current study sought to understand the dyadic interplay among school, work, and partner-specific marriage expectations in early adulthood. Drawing on the economic prospects, adult transitions, and work - family literatures, the authors hypothesized and found ample support that expectations to marry a romantic partner were linked not only to one's own school and work-related experiences but also to those of a partner. These associations held while controlling for relationship satisfaction, general views of marriage, and other covariates that have been posited to explain racial inequalities in relationship and marriage patterns. Furthermore, the authors found that actor covariates of marital expectations differed from partner covariates, a finding that highlights the advantages of dyadic analyses in helping researchers understand marriage as both a developmental and interpersonal process.     

The Dyadic Effects of Supportive Coparenting and Parental Stress on Relationship Quality Across the Transition to Parenthood

The transition to first‐time parenthood can be challenging for couples. Using a sample of 848 ethnically diverse couples from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study across the first 3 years of parenthood, we investigated the longitudinal and dyadic associations of each parents’ parental stress, supportive coparenting, and relationship quality. Results from an actor–partner interdependence model indicated that supportive coparenting significantly predicted higher relationship quality for both mothers and fathers. Fathers’ supportive coparenting significantly buffered the effects of mothers’ parental stress on relationship quality. Also, the unique dyadic contexts of each parents’ supportive coparenting, and also both partners’ parental stress were significantly associated with relationship quality. Clinical implications from these findings are discussed through commonly used clinical theories.     

High hopes: unwed parents' expectations about marriage

PRWORA attempts to limit welfare use and encourage self-sufficiency in families headed by unmarried parents by promoting the goal of marriage. This paper addresses some important issues that underlie policy discussions of encouraging marriage and strengthening fragile families. In particular, the paper analyzes data from the first seven cites of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey to investigate how economic factors, cultural and gender beliefs, and relationship characteristics shape unmarried mothers' and fathers' expectations about marrying their child's other parent. The results show that unmarried parents, and cohabiting parents in particular, have high hopes about marriage at the time of their child's birth. The analysis also finds that reporting drug or alcohol problems, frequent conflict, physical violence, and gender distrust are associated with lower marriage expectations, while perceiving benefits to marriage and living with the other parent are associated with higher expectations. Mothers with employed partners also hold higher expectations for marriage before controlling for cohabitation. For parents who desire marriage, it might be possible to support them in this transition, particularly through policies that help families overcome economic and structural barriers to their stability. At the same time, it is important to recognize the reasons unmarried parents have low expectations about marriage, such as drug or alcohol problems, conflict, distrust, and perceiving little benefit to marriage. Encourage marriage for parents in these circumstances might not only be inappropriate but deterimental to families.     

Characterizing Emotional Support Development: From Adolescent Best Friendships to Young Adult Romantic Relationships

This study examined development of emotional support competence within close friendships across adolescence. A sample of 184 adolescents (53% girls, 47% boys; 58% White, 29% Black, 14% other identity groups) participated in seven waves of multimethod assessments with their best friends and romantic partners from age 13 to 24. Latent change score models identified coupled predictions over time from emotional support competence to increasing friendship quality and decreasing support received from friends. Friend-rated emotional support competence in adolescence predicted supportiveness in adult romantic relationships, over and above supportiveness in adolescent romantic relationships. Teen friendships may set the stage for developing emotional support capacities that progress across time and relationships into adulthood.     

Strengthening Fragile Families Through Research and Practice

Almost one third of all children in the United States are born to unmarried parents. This figure is even higher among poor and minority populations. Because of their heightened risk for economic and social problems and family dissolution, disadvantaged, unmarried parents have been called “fragile families.” In 2002 the Bush administration announced its Healthy Marriage Initiative. Its purpose was to promote marriage, especially among low-income couples. In 2006 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) allocated $150 million a year to marriage and fatherhood programs. However, the marriage education and research communities have paid little attention to fragile families. This article examines the findings from a groundbreaking new source of data called The Fragile Families and Child Well Being Study and the various programs now serving these families. The article concludes by suggesting empirically based interventions for assisting fragile families.     

People who live apart together (LATs): new family form or just a stage?

‘Living apart together’ – that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else (LAT) – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where partners can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both couple intimacy, but at the same time maintain personal autonomy and pre-existing commitments. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? We take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey and from in-depth interviews with LAT partners. We find that LATs do resemble cohabitating (unmarried) couples in demographic and social terms, but also display quite diverse origins and motivations. One group of LATs do not see themselves as couple partners at all, but more as special boy/girlfriends. Others live apart mainly in response to external circumstances. But some LATs do seem to be developing a new way of living in their relationships, as a means of balancing both couple intimacy and personal autonomy over the longer term.     

Shared Beliefs and the Union Stability of Married and Cohabiting Couples

Cohabiting couples and couples who cohabit prior to marriage have less stable relationships than married couples who did not cohabit, and these differences in stability may be linked to different processes within the relationships. This research examines the similarity of partners’ beliefs about the division of household labor using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,039), finding that couples who do not share beliefs about the division of household labor are more likely to end their union. Cohabiting couples have a particularly high likelihood of ending the union when the two partners hold widely divergent views about whether housework should be shared, suggesting that cohabiting and married couples may have different responses to dissimilarity between the partners.     

“First Train Out”: Marriage and Cohabitation in the Context of Poverty,Deprivation, and Trauma

There has been a steep rise in the proportion of children born to and living with unmarried parents. Unmarried parents are increasingly likely to cohabitate, especially low-income couples, placing their children at elevated psychosocial risk. This life history study of poor, White single mothers suggests that the current focus on differences between married and cohabiting poor women may overstate underlying similarities in factors associated with their partner formation and dissolution and that poor women's decisions about marriage and cohabitation must be understood in a developmental context that reflects the stacking, over time, of multiple forms of vulnerability to unstable partnerships, single motherhood, and continuing poverty into adulthood.     

The risk of Telling: A Dyadic Perspective on Romantic Partners’ Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure and Their Associations with Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction

Among 70 community couples who reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and disclosure to their partner, this study examined associations between survivors’ perception of partner responses to their disclosure, and both partners’ sexual and relationship satisfaction. Participants completed self‐report questionnaires online. Results of path analyses within an actor–partner interdependence model indicated that survivors’ perceived partner responses of emotional support to disclosure were associated with their own and their partners’ higher sexual satisfaction. Survivors’ perceived responses of being stigmatized/treated differently by the partner were associated with their own and their partners’ poorer relationship satisfaction. Findings suggest that survivor‐perceived partner responses to the disclosure of CSA can have a positive and a negative impact on the sexual and relationship satisfaction of both partners.     

Childhood Living Arrangements and the Formation of Coresidential Unions

The relationship between multiple dimensions of childhood living arrangements and the formation of subsequent unions is investigated. Using the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, both statuses and transitions associated with childhood living arrangements at three different stages of childhood are considered. It was found that both statuses and transitions, but not the ages at which they occur, are related to the risk of union formation. Women who experienced more transitions in childhood living arrangements and who lived with other than married, biological parents form premarital cohabiting unions faster than other women. Rates of first marriage are higher among women who lived with a stepparent, and they are lower among women who lived with a parent and that parent's cohabiting partner.     

“No Matter What,Good or Bad,Love is Still There”: Motivations for Romantic Commitment Among Black Cohabiting Couples

Given the increasing number of couples that use cohabitation as a pathway or alternative to marriage, few studies to date have examined the factors that facilitate relationship entry and commitment. Recent study findings reveal children born to Black mothers as compared with White mothers have a 72% higher risk of experiencing their parents’ separation by year 3 and Black married parents have 5.33 times the risk of separating within 3 years after their child's birth relative to White married parents. However, few studies to date have examined the factors that increase the likelihood that cohabiting Black couples will enter and remain in a committed relationship. To fill the current void that exists in the literature and through the use of phenomenology as the foundation, I asked 30 low-income cohabiting Black couples the following question: “What do you think motivated your partner to commit to you?” Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed the following six themes: (1) no response/unsure, (2) physical appearance, (3) emotional and tangible support, (4) honesty and friendship, (5) love and commitment, and (6) personality and treatment. Implications for practitioners, policy, and research are also provided.     

Improving the well-being of couples facing cancer: a review of couples-based psychosocial interventions

The purpose of this review article is to assess the available scientific evidence on the effects of couples-based psychosocial interventions for couples when one spouse faces cancer. For the present study, we conducted an extensive search of three electronic databases using a comprehensive search strategy. The literature search identified 14 studies evaluating couples intervention where one partner is facing cancer. Among them, eight studies concluded there was overall improvement for patients and eight studies reported overall improvement for partners, whereas an additional five studies showed partial improvement for patients and three demonstrated partial improvements for partners. Taken in the aggregate, these studies illustrated partial effectiveness--most had some positive results--but with clear limitations in terms of how many aspects of psychosocial well-being changed, lack of equal effectiveness for both patients and their partners, or limited maintenance of improvements over time, a common concern with brief psychosocial interventions. Although couples-based interventions may facilitate emotional support and dyadic coping, how these psychosocial interventions should be delivered, at what point in the illness and treatment they should be delivered, and how long they should continue remain as future challenges.     

Freud,Grafenberg, and the neglected vagina: Thoughts concerning an historical omission in sexology

Because similarity between partners has been thought to be related to relationship quality, this study assessed similarities between partners in 44 married, 35 heterosexual cohabiting, 50 gay, and 56 lesbian couples on demographic characteristics, appraisals of relationship quality, and factors predictive of relationship quality. With regard to demographic characteristics: Partners' age was correlated for each type of couple; partners' income, education, and job prestige were correlated only for heterosexual cohabiting couples; and gay partners had the largest discrepancies in age, income, and education. With regard to appraisals of relationship quality: Partners' scores were correlated for each type of couple on relationship satisfaction but for only gay and lesbian couples on love for partner; partners across all couples differed in their assessments of relationship quality. With regard to the predictors of relationship quality: Partner scores were correlated for each type of couple only on shared decision making; these predictor scores were most frequently correlated for lesbian partners; differences between partners were least for lesbian couples on attractions to the relationship and perceived family support and greatest for cohabiting couples on dyadic attachment. Relationship quality was not related to discrepancies between partners' demographic variables but was negatively related to discrepancies in partners' dyadic attachment. In conclusion, partner homogamy was most pervasive in lesbian couples, and for all couples homogamy on dyadic attachment was related to relationship quality.     

Intergenerational solidarity between parents and adult children: a qualitative research among cohabiting and married children in Italy

The objective of this article is to compare the patterns of intergenerational solidarity between adult children who cohabit or are married and their own parents or their partner's parents through the analysis of 50 in-depth interviews. The research did not reveal any different behavioural patterns between cohabiting and married couples. Financial support provided by own parents or partner's parents and the presence of small children constituted positive factors which intensified the frequency of contacts and improved the quality of the relationship. In the event of illness of a parent, both the married and cohabiting couples provided assistance, especially when the illness was not disabling and there were no other kin relatives. When this was not possible, a private caregiver was hired or close family members provided assistance. Only those respondents who cohabited with a partner awaiting divorce were less willing to maintain contacts with their partner's parents. The presence of a family formed by previously married partners and the old age of the parents of the latter compromised the quality of the relationship and the willingness to provide assistance.