Sociology Commons^™

Patterns Of Marital Relationship Change Across The Transition From One Child To Two, Brenda L. Volling, Wonjung Oh, Richard Gonzalez, Patty X. Kuo, Tianyi Yu

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Patterns of marital change after the birth of a second child were explored in a sample of 229 married couples, starting in pregnancy, and at 1, 4, 8 and 12 months postpartum. Five trajectory patterns that reflected sudden, persistent decline (i.e., crisis), sudden, short-term decline (i.e., adjustment and adaptation), sudden, short-term gain (i.e., honeymoon effect), linear change, and no change were examined with dyadic, longitudinal data for husbands and wives. Six distinct latent classes emerged using growth mixture modeling: (a) wife decreasing positivity-husband honeymoon (44%), (b) wife increasing conflict-husband adjustment and adaptation (34.5%), (c) wife honeymoon-discrepant spouse positivity (7.4%), (d) …