The Premarital Communication Roots of Marital Distress and Divorce: The First Five Years of Marriage

• Published in: Journal of family psychology 2010-06, Vol.24 (3), p.289-298
• Main Authors: Markman, Howard J, Rhoades, Galena K, Stanley, Scott M, Ragan, Erica P, Whitton, Sarah W
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Communication; Couple and family; Couples; Distress; Divorce; Divorce - psychology; Emotional disorders; Family Conflict - psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Interpersonal Communication; Interpersonal Relations; Intervention; Interventions; Knowledge; Male; Marital Adjustment; Marital Relations; Marriage; Marriage - psychology; Marriage counseling; Models, Psychological; Negative emotions; Premarital; Psychological Distress; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Research and Development; Social psychology; Stress, Psychological - etiology; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Studies; Time Factors
• ISSN: 0893-3200; 1939-1293
• DOI: 10.1037/a0019481

Using data from 210 couples who provided data across the first 5 years of marriage, we examined how premarital communication quality was related to divorce and later distress. The results showed that premarital observed negative and positive communication nearly reached significance as predictors of divorce, while self-reported negative communication was significantly associated with divorce. In terms of marital adjustment, we found that both premarital observed and self-reported negative premarital communication (but not observed positive communication) were associated with lower adjustment during the first 5 years of marriage. The most important questions addressed in this study pertain to how positive and negative dimensions of communication change over time and how these changes are related to being distressed or nondistressed after 5 years of marriage. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to examine the changes in communication over time that are so central to theories of the development of marital distress and for research-based interventions. We found that all couples showed decreases in negative communication over time, but the nondistressed group declined significantly more than the distressed group in negative communication, suggesting they are handling negative emotions better. Implications for future research on the development of relationship distress and for enhancing research-based couples' intervention programs are provided.