As Good as it Gets? A Life Course Perspective on Marital Quality

Marital relationships, like individuals, follow a developmental trajectory over time with ups and downs and gains and losses. We work from a life course perspective and use growth curve analysis to look at trajectories of change in marital quality over time. Although the tendency is for marital quality to decline over time, some groups begin with much higher levels of marital quality than others. Moreover, a number of life course and contextual factors can accelerate or slow this path of change. Our findings point to the importance of considering the multi-dimensionality of time (e.g., age, marital duration, the passage of years) as well as family transitions (e.g., having children, emptying or refilling the nest) in creating the meanings and experiences of marriage over time.