Contemporary research has used group-based trajectory modeling to uncover distinct trajectories of marital conflict behaviors after childbirth. However, most studies have focused on conflict frequency, not characteristics of conflict; used stringent sample inclusion criteria, which might not capture contemporary family complexity; and have not treated the dyad as the unit of analysis. Using six waves of data from 807 married couples in the Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing (FFCWB) study, and simultaneously modeling the development of spouses’ willingness to compromise and critical marital conflict behaviors over the first nine years of the target child’s life, we identified two classes of couples. Marital conflict frequency, marital duration, race, immigration status, and the child’s birthweight differentiated between classes. Classes were also distinguished by adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ relationship 15 years after the baseline assessment. We conclude by providing both theoretical and practical implications for changes and stability in conflict tactics.
AcockA. C. (2005). Working with missing values. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 1012–1028. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00191.x
2.
AmatoP. R.BoothA. (2001). The legacy of parents’ marital discord. Consequences for children’s marital quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 627–638. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.4.627.
3.
BelskyJ.RovineM. (1990). Patterns of marital change across the transition to parenthood: Pregnancy to three years postpartum. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1, 5–19.
4.
BergmanK. N.CummingsE. M.WarmuthK. A. (2016). The benefits of marital conflict. In NarvaezD.Braungart-RiekerJ. M.Miller-GraffL. E. (Eds.), Context for young child flourishing (pp. 233–246). New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
BradburyT. N.KarneyB. R. (2004). Understanding and altering the longitudinal course of marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 862–879. doi:10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00059.x
6.
BryantC. M.WickramaK. A. S.BollandJ.BryantB. M.CutronaC. E.StanikC. E. (2010). Race matters, even in marriage: Identifying factors linked to marital outcomes for African Americans. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 2, 157–174. doi:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00051.x
7.
CarlsonM. J.VanOrmanA. G. (2017). Trajectories of relationship supportiveness after childbirth: Does marriage matter?Social Science Research. 66, 102–117. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.01.007
CowanC. P.CowanP. A. (2000). When partners become parents: The big life change for couples. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
10.
DewJ.WilcoxW. B. (2011). If Momma ain’t happy: Explaining declines in marital satisfaction among new mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 1–12. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00782.x
11.
DionM. R. (2005). Healthy marriage programs: Learning what works. The Future of Children, 15, 139–156.
12.
DonB. P.MickelsonK. D. (2014). Relationship satisfaction trajectories across the transition to parenthood among low-risk parents. Journal of Marriage & Family, 76, 677–692. doi:10.1111/jomf.12111
13.
DossB. D.RhoadesG. K.StanleyS. M.MarkmanH. J. (2009). The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality: an 8-year prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 601–619. doi:10.1037/a0013969.
14.
FinchamF. D.RoggeR. (2010). Understanding relationship quality: Theoretical challenges and new tools for assessment. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 2, 227–242. doi:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00059.x
15.
GerardJ. M.KrishnakumarA.BuehlerC. (2006). Marital conflict, parent-child relations, and youth maladjustment a longitudinal investigation of spillover effects. Journal of Family Issues, 27, 951–975. doi:10.1177/0192513X05286020
16.
GottmanJ. M. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically-based marital therapy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
17.
HelmsH. M.SuppleA. J.ProulxC. M. (2011). Mexican-origin couples in the early years of parenthood: Marital well-being in ecological context. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 3, 67–95. doi:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2011.00085.x
18.
HofferthS. L. (2003). Race/ethnic differences in father involvement in two-parent families: Culture, context, or economy?Journal of Family Issues, 24, 185–216. doi:10.1177/0192513X02250087
19.
JacksonG. L.KrullJ. L.BradburyT. N.KarneyB. R. (2017). Household income and trajectories of marital satisfaction in early marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79, 690–704. doi:10.1111/jomf.12394
20.
Kamp DushC. M.TaylorM. G. (2012). Trajectories of marital conflict across the life course: Predictors and interactions with marital happiness trajectories. Journal of Family Issues, 33, 341–368. doi:10.1177/0192513X11409684
21.
KanterJ. B.ProulxC. M., (2019). The longitudinal association between maternal parenting stress and spousal supportiveness. Journal of Family Psychology, 33, 121. doi:10.1037/fam0000478
22.
KanterJ. B.ProulxC. M.MonkJ. K., (2019). Accounting for divorce in marital research: An application to growth mixture modeling. Journal of Marriage and Family, 81, 520–530. doi:10.1111/jomf.12547
23.
KarneyB. R.BradburyT. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, methods, and research. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 3–34.
24.
KarneyB.NeffL. A. (2013). Couples and stress: How demands outside a relationship affect intimacy within the relationship. In SimpsonJ.CampbellL. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of close relationships (pp. 664–684). New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
KennyD. A.KashyD. A.CookW. L. (2006). The analysis of dyadic data. New York: Guilford.
26.
KluwerE. S. (2010). From partnership to parenthood: A review of marital change across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 2, 105–125. doi:10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00045.x
27.
LetiecqB. L.KoblinskyS. A. (2004). Parenting in violent neighborhoods: African American fathers share strategies for keeping children safe. Journal of Family Issues, 25, 715–734. doi:10.1177/0192513X03259143
28.
LoY.MendellN. R.RubinD. B. (2001). Testing the number of components in a normal mixture. Biometrika, 88, 767–778. doi:10.1093/biomet/88.3.767
29.
MadiganS.PlamondonA.JenkinsJ. M. (2016). Marital conflict trajectories and associations with children’s disruptive behavior. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79, 437–450. doi:10.1111/jomf.12356
30.
McLachlanG.PeelD. (2000). Finite mixture modeling. New York: Wiley.
31.
MuthénL. K.MuthénB. O. (1998-2012). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles: Muthén & Muthén.
32.
NeffL. A.BroadyE. F. (2011). Stress resilience in early marriage: Can practice make perfect?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1050–1067. doi:10.1037/a0023809
33.
NylundK. L.AsparouhovT.MuthénB. O. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Mdeling, 14, 535–569.
34.
OgolskyB. G.BowersJ. R. (2013). A meta-analytic review of relationship maintenance and its correlates. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30, 343–367. doi:10.1177/0265407512463338
35.
OgolskyB. G.MonkJ. K.RiceT. M.TheisenJ. C.ManiotesC. R. (2017). Relationship maintenance: A review of research on romantic relationships. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9, 275–306. doi:10.1111/jftr.12205
36.
PearlinL. I.SchiemanS.FazioE. M.MeersmanS. C. (2005). Stress, health, and the life course: Some conceptual perspectives. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46, 205–219. doi:10.1177/002214650504600206
37.
ProulxC. M.ErmerA. E.KanterJ. B., (2017). Group-based trajectory modeling of marital quality: A critical review. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9, 307–327. doi:10.1111/jftr.12201
38.
ProulxC. M.HelmsH. M.BuehlerC. (2007). Marital quality and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and family, 69, 576–593. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00393.x
39.
ReichmanN. E.TeitlerJ. O.GarfinkelI.McLanahanS. S. (2001). Fragile families: Sample and design. Children and Youth Services Review, 23, 303–326. doi:10.1016/S0190-7409(01)00141-4
40.
SchneiderD. (2017). The effects of the Great Recession on American families. Sociology Compass, 11, 1–11.
41.
Slonim-NevoV.MirskyJ.RubinsteinL.NauckB. (2009). The impact of familial and environmental factors on the adjustment of immigrants: A longitudinal study. Journal of Family Issues, 30, 92–123. doi:10.1177/0192513X08324575
42.
SilvaC. S.CalheirosM. M. (2018). Stop yelling: Interparental conflict and adolescents’ self-representations as mediated by their perceived relationships with parents. Journal of Family Issues, 39, 2174–2204. doi:10.1177/0192513X17741176
43.
SingerL. T.FultonS.KirchnerH. L.EisengartS.LewisB.ShortE.MinM. O.BaleyJ. E. (2007). Parenting very low birth weight children at school age: maternal stress and coping. The Journal of Pediatrics, 151, 463–469. doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2007.04.012
44.
TanK.JarneckeA. M.SouthS. (2017). Impulsivity, communication, and marital satisfaction in newlywed couples. Personal Relationships, 24, 423–439. doi:10.1111/pere.12190
45.
ThompsonL.WalkerA. J. (1989). Gender in families: Women and men in marriage, work, and parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 845–871.
VollingB. L.OhW.GonzalezR.KuoP. X.YuT. (2015). Patterns of marital relationship change across the transition from one child to two. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 4, 177–197. doi:10.1037/cfp0000046
48.
WhisemanM. A.GilmourA. L.SalingerJ. M. (2018). Marital satisfaction and mortality in the United Stated adult population. Health Psychology, 11, 1041–1044.
49.
WickramaK. K.LeeT. K.O’NealC. W.LorenzF. O. (2016). Higher-order growth curves and mixture modeling with Mplus: A practical guide. Routledge.
50.
WickramaK. A.O’NealC. W.NepplT. K. (2018). Midlife family economic hardship and later life cardiometabolic health: The protective role of marital integration. The Gerontologist.
51.
WilliamsonH. C.KarneyB. R.BradburyT. N. (2013). Financial strain and stressful events predict newlyweds’ negative communication independent of relationship satisfaction. Journal of Family Psychology, 27, 65–75. doi:10.1037/a0031104
52.
WoodR. G.MooreQ.ClarkwestA.KillewaldA. (2014). The long-term effects of building strong families: A program for unmarried parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 446–463. doi:10.1111/jomf.12094
53.
WoodP. K.SteinleyD.JacksonK. M. (2015). Right-sizing statistical models for longitudinal data. Psychological Methods, 20, 470–488. doi:10.1037/met0000037
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
