Relationships with Aging Parents: Implications for Well-being in Middle-aged Couples
Open Access
- Author:
- Polenick, Courtney Allyn
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 04, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Steven Howard Zarit, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Eggebeen, Committee Member
Steffany Jane Fredman, Committee Member
Lynn Margaret Martire, Committee Member
Jon F Nussbaum, Committee Member - Keywords:
- marriage
couples
intergenerational relationships
parent-child relationships
relationship quality - Abstract:
- Relationships with parents influence well-being across the life course. At midlife, these ties most often intersect with the offspring's marriage. Consequently, relationships with parents are likely to be a salient aspect of married life that affects each spouse's well-being and marital satisfaction. Such linkages, however, are not yet well understood. This dissertation includes two studies that utilize a sample of 132 middle-aged married couples from Wave 1 of the Family Exchanges Study. Study 1 examined how wives' and husbands' reports of relationship quality with their own parents are linked to their own and their partners' well-being. Study 2 considered how each spouse's views of relationship quality with their own parents influence the associations between support exchanges with parents and reports of well-being and marital satisfaction within couples. Study 1 shows that wives’ and husbands’ reports of positive and negative relationship qualities with their own parents are associated with well-being. Husbands reported better well-being when wives had more positive qualities in the relationships with their own parents. In Study 2, wives reported greater life satisfaction when they gave more support to their parents and had less ambivalent feelings about these ties. Wives were less satisfied with their marriages, however, when they gave more support to their parents and their husbands reported less positive relationships with their own parents. Husbands were more satisfied with their marriages when they or their wives received more support from parents and had less ambivalence toward the parents; or when husbands received more support from parents and wives had more ambivalence toward their own parents. Finally, husbands reported lower depressive symptoms when wives received more support from their parents and husbands had less positive or more ambivalent ties with their own parents. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that wives' and husbands' affective evaluations of their own parent-child ties shape how their own and their partners' relationships with parents contribute to well-being and marital satisfaction. Findings underscore the mutual influences within couples and highlight the need for future work to gain a more nuanced understanding of how ties with parents affect individual and couple processes at midlife.