The dynamics of marital relationship during the transition to parenthood: Analysis of foreign studies

Abstract

The paper presents the analysis of contemporary international research devoted to the study of marital relations, marriage satisfaction in the period of transition to parenthood. Analysis of studies revealed three main approaches to the study of the transition to parenthood: 1) comparison of marriage satisfaction in married couples with and without children; 2) longitudinal studies of the dynamics of satisfaction from the pregnancy (or wedding) to birth and following period; 3) comparative longitudinal studies of couples at the beginning of the study with no children, with a further comparison of couples become parents and married couples without children. All three approaches have identified significantly lower levels of quality of the marital relationship, marriage satisfaction in married couples with children, with the most dramatic decrease was observed a year after birth. However, some researchers point to the absence of differences in the dynamics of relations in married couples with or without children. Another important aspect, which is noticed by many researchers, is the high individual variability in the dynamics of the marital relationship, which entails the need to study the determinants of the dynamics of marital relations in the transition to parenthood.