Intimate Pathways: Changing Patterns in Close Personal Relationships Across Time* E. Mavis Hetherington** ‘This paper presents flings from she Virginia Longitudinal Study of Divorce and Remarriage (VESDR) describing diverse patterns of inmate relationships and personal adjusiment in marviage and following divorce. Both a conficual, unsatisfying marriage and a divorce were associated with diminished psychological, social, ane physical wellbeing. However, it was the diversity rather thar the inevitability of outcomes following divorce that was strike, with most people able to adapt constructively to their new life situation within 2-3 years following divorce, a minority being defeated by dhe marital breakup, and a substantia group of women being enhanced. Alowgh both marital conflict and divorce in te family of origin elevated he risk of marital instability in young adult offspring, the ‘effect was greater for divorce, Marriage toa supportv , well-adjusted partner by youths from divorced families eliminated the difference in marital instability found for these youths and those fram nondivorced families in human development. Throughout the life course the qual- ty of close personal relationships can promote or undermine ‘our psychological and physical health; our security, well-being. and competencies; and the way we view ourselves—whether we sce ourselves as Valued and worthwhile or as deficient and un- ‘worthy. The family plays a unique role in forming and s intimate relationships; however, there have been notable changes in the family in the past 50 years. AS marriages are being de layed, birth rates are decreasing, and maternal employment, vorce, cohabitation, and births to single mothers are increasing, the course of intimate relationships is becoming more diverse and less stable and predictable (Teachman, Tedrow, & Crowder 2000; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998). This paper describes intimate pathways through marriage and divorce and its aftermath and how some of these pathways lead to unhappiness and despair and others to fulfillment and often enhancement. It also will describe how marital transitions in the parents” generation effect the intimate relations of their ‘offspring when they become young adults and marry, The focus will be on adult couple relationships and the factors that con- tribute to their success or failure. In this paper [address four general questions 1. What types of marriage are at greatest or least risk for ‘marital instability’? 2. What are the responses of men and women to divorve and how do their adaptive patterns shift over time? 3. What are the major factors that contribute to marital in- stability? 4. What factors contribute to or protect against the inter ‘generational transmission of divorce? Virginia Longitudinal Study of Divorce and Remarriage Because this paper was originally presented as the 2001 Bur- gess Award Address, it summarizes a wide array of findings and [em relationships are the most important guiding forces Pres he Burgess Ava as the mings of he National Cov Fmity Relaons in Roches, New York, November 20 Dspanmeat of phuley, Univeriy of Vira 102 Gime Hal, PO. Box so, Chev, VA 22908 nate mal gina) Sey Wer lirmen ilo, vers, ody, reemrae 318 does not present the methodological detail customary in a re- search paper. All findings, unless otherwise noted, were signfi- cant at p< 05, and publications with more methodological de- tail are referenced throughout ‘The content is based on data from the Virginia Longitudinal ‘Study of Divorce and Remarriage (VLSDR; Hetherington, 1993; 19992, 1999; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). The VLSDR was initially designed as a 2-year study of divorce during which the families would be seen three times, because 2-3 years was viewed as the period required for parents and children to adjust to divoree. However, 2 years after divorce many divoree-related ‘changes were still occurring in our families, and family members were showing diverse patterns in coping with divorce. To ex- amine these postdivorce pathways, it became obvious that our rescutch efforts needed to follow the families for a longer period, and to enlarge our sample. ‘The original sample of the VLSDR included 144 families, half nondivorced and half divorced with custodial mothers and target child 4 years of age. Families were identified and re. cruited through court records of marriage and divorce and through schools. Eighty-six percent of families contacted agreed to participate in the study. The attrition rate in the study was, modest, with only 9% of families who ever began to participate in the study eventually dropping out. Dropout rates were slightly higher for noncustodial fathers (15%) than for custodial parents and chikiren or for nondivorced parents. Families were White ‘and middle class, with parents slightly above national norms in education and income. Families were studied at 2 months and 1, 6, L1, and 20 years following divorce, when the target children were aged 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, and 24 years old successively. Non- divorced families were studied at equi sample of 144 was expanded in sueceeding waves to 180 at wave 4, 300 at wave 5, and 450 at wave 6, equally distributed among nondivorced, divorced, and remarried fa id by gender of the offspring. In addition, from wave 4 on, when the target chil- dren were 10, if there were two or more children in the family. the sibling closest in age 10 the target child also was studied. In this paper, only data from the target offypring and not the siblings ave presented. When the offspring or sibling married, eohabited ore than 6 months, divorced, oF had a child, additional assess- ‘ments focusing on the couple and parent-child relationships were nade within 6 months. An additional wave of assessments of family relations and adjustment is being made when the first child of the offspring turns 4, the age at which the offspring’s parents were when the study began. Brief annval telephone in Family Relationsterviews also were conducted, and biannual family status forms were mailed in by parents and youths. Tt should be noted that by 2002, when the target offspring were an average of M years of age, there was considerable iation in the timing of divorce, repartnering, and rem: be cause as the study proceeded many couples in both generations of the sample changed their relationship status through cohabi- tation, divorce, and remarriage, sometimes several times. The most extreme case was one of the mothers who had divorced five times over the course of the study and had had 14 cohabiting relationships. She described herself as being “just a marrying kind of gal.” Mothers, fathers, and children continued to be fol- owed in their new status afier a marital transition These shifis in marital status presented some problems in expanding the samples in waves 4, 5, and 6, For example, the divorced group now contained families who had initially heen in the nondivoreed group and who had divorced after the chil- dren were 4 years of age. The additional children in the expand- ed sample were matched on age at time of divorce with the transformed sample, yielding a more heterogeneous sample on that variable than was present in the initial sample. Thus, in wave 4, children in the divorced sample did not all have parents who had divorced when the child was 4 years old, although all chil- dren in this wave were 10 yeats of age. In all analyses, age at the time of & marital transition and time since the transition were examined. Few effects for age at the time of divorce on the adjustment of children were obtained: however, older parents showed more difficulty in adjusting to divorce than did younger parents. In addition, both parents and children showed mote distress and problems in adjustment in the ‘early years following divorce. Although shifts in relationships over the course of the study were problematic in sample expan- sion in waves 4, 5, and 6, they did permit an examination of the antecedents and sequelae of marital transitions without relying ‘on retrospective reports for a substantial subset of our couples. ‘Throughout the study, detailed multimeasure, multimethod assessments were made of parent and offspring personality and adjustment; relationships outside of and within the family, i cluding the marital relationship; and (in wave 6) of character tics of and relationship with the partner in the cohabiting and marital relationship. Interviews, standardized personality and marital relationship tests, behavior event checklists involving 10 telephone interviews, and diary records were conducted at each ‘wave, Observations of couple behaviors in family problem-solv- ing sessions and at the dinner table, as well as standardized tests and interviews of the partner, were integral parts of the assess- ‘ment of the parents’ marital relationship and the offspring couple relationship. Each wave of data collection usually involved two to three sessions with two interviewers in the home and a large take-home battery of tests 10 be completed between the frst and second session. At the end of each assessment wave, interview- er completed a set of ratings of family functioning and the ad- Justment of family members (more details on measures are avail- ‘able in Hetherington, 1993; 1999a; Hetherington & Elmore, in press; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002), Because we were interested in the intergenerational trans- mission of divorce and relationship instability in our second gen- eration, we were also concerned about the family history and family relationships of the partner they selected. For this, we had to rely on the partners” reports supplemented by their parents’ reports in telephone interviews in about 90% of the eases For most of the constructs examined here, such as socio- 2003, Vol. 52, No. 4 economicflife course risk and personality problems and positive adjustment in parents, youths, and spouses: authoritative parent- ing and negative/coercive parenting; problem-solving skills, neg- ativity, and positivity in couple interactions; commitment: and ‘mate selection risk, composite multimethod, multi-informant measures were derived. Scores on each variable were converted to z scores, and factor analytic techniques and image analyses were used to derive the composite measures (see Hetherington & Clingempee!, 1992, for a description of methods of compos- iting), Cronbach's e for the various composites ranged from .72 to .89, Cluster analyses using the K-Means program of BMDP (Dixon & Brown, 1979) were used to establish typologies or profiles of such things as types of relationships or patterns of ‘coping, Cluster analyses were done at each wave of data collee- tion to permit a migration analyses using x? to show how rela- onships and adjustment styles change over time: Marital Typologies By the time they were 32 years of age, over half of our target youths had cohabited, 76% had married, and of those, over ‘one quarter were now separated or divorced. By age 32. only 14% of our men and 18% of our women had not been in a cohabiting or marital relationship. However, by assessing only relationships of 6 months’ duration, we lost 5% of cohabitors but ess than 1% of married couples. Relationship quality and ity in youths was assessed 6 months after a cohabiting relationship or marriage occurred. In parents it was assessed in every wave. ‘Through cluster analyses of composites of 12 dimensions of couple functioning, we identified five configurations of couple relationships in our parents and the same set of marital typolo- siies emerged in our 342 youths who had married. We labeled these as pursuer-distancer, disengaged, operatic, cohesive indi- viduated, and traditional marriages. The percentages of parents i youths in the different categories varied, with modern youths having fewer traditional marriages and more cohesive individu- ated marriages than their parents had in any wave of data col- lection. Moreover, in parents the percentage of traditional mar- riages had decteased and of cohesive individuated marriages had increased over time. In the following discussion, the percentage ‘of youths in different marital typologies was assessed at 6 ‘months after marriage, and the percentage of parents in different typologies was averaged across all waves of assessment. Thus, youths were in the early stage of a marriage, and parents were assessed across time in longer-established marriages, ‘We used x° analyses to examine whether youths in the dif- fering marital typologies were more likely to have come from high- or low-conflict intact or divorced families. We also were interested in the risk of marital instability for our five types of bility was measured with a modification cale developed by Booth, Johnson, and combination of the husbands” and stability scores. This scale has good demonstrated va- lidity and reliability in predicting marital breakdown (Booth, Amato, Johnson, & Edwards, 1993; Wolfinger, 2000). In the pare ents’ generation of the VLSDR, it predicted divorce with 92% accuracy. However, itis not possible to estimate how accurately it will predict for their offspring, because many of the youths hhad been married for only a short time Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) were run with marital type predicting marital instability. The ordering of 319 of a Marital Instability Edwards (1983) and128 WNEG WITH WPOS—-MNEGNWITHH MOS a chuster + Cluster? che Cluster3 Figure 1. Marital typologies CONF SEXSAT MALT WAUT SHARE TRAD. ‘Note: Cluster 1 is a poruerdistancer duster) Guster 2, a di withdrawal; WROS ~ woman warmtvSupport; MNEG = sexual satisfction: MAUT = man autonomy: WAUT the risk of marital instability across generations was similar, ranging from pursuer-distancer marriages with the greatest and traditional marriages with the least marital instability Figures 1 and 2 present the cluster profiles for youths 6 months after marriage (n = 342), (Clusters were divided into two figures for legibility.) Cluster 1 was the familiar pursuer-distancer cluster (Gott- man & Notarious, 2001). It was one of the largest clusters iden- tified for youths and for parents across all waves. This cluster was characterized by high nagging, hostile criticism, and con- tempt on the part of wives; withdrawal and denial by husbands: frequent intense conflict; and the highest rate of masital insta- bility of any group in the study. The pursuer-distancer combi nation can be thought of as a misfit. If both wanted to talk about their problems or if both wanted to avoid conflict, their marriages might be more successful. Twenty-five percent of our youths, slightly more than in their parents’ marriages, were in pursuer- distancer marriages. Youths from families in which there had been high interparental conflict whether in a divorced or non- divorced family, in contrast to those from low-conflict families ‘of origin, were overrepresenied in this cluster. Cluster 2 was a disengaged cluster, characterized by hus- bands and wives who led largely parallel lives. They had few shared interests, activities, or friends. Even their sexual relations were infrequent and unsatisfying. Disengaged couples rarely fought, because they expressed litle extreme positive or negative emotion in their interactions and they withdrew from most dis- agreements. These were affectively bland unions. Our interviews indicated that some disengaged marriages are marriages of con- venience. The couple did not want intimacy or companionship, but they did want children or the security, status, and services a marriage can provide, Others were based on a romantic or sexual attraction, but once the attraction faded, there was litle to hold the couple together. Disengaged couples had the second highest 320. jgged closer, and Cluster 3, an oper casiez WNEG = woman negativiy ‘man negativity: MWITH = man wit voman autonomy; SHARE = shared interests and activities; TRAD WWITH = woman ‘confit; SEX SAT al; MPOS ~ mun warmihsuppart: CONF cational rate of marital instability as assessed through husbands and wives’ reports on the Marital Instability Scale, In the parents’ generation, where we followed couples over a long period of time, we found that pursuer-distancer marriages broke up earlier, often with considerable acrimony, whereas disengaged marriages lasted longer and ended not with a bang but with a. whimper. ‘The couple drified along in their separate lives. Then, often in their late 30s or early 40s, one spouse would look at his or her life and marriage and think, “Is this as good as it gets?” and bail out, Sixteen percent of our youths, almost the same as in their parents’ marriages, were in disengaged marriages, and it was not related to whether they came from a divorced or non- divorced family. ur third cluster involved operatic marriages. Fourteen per- cent of our youths and an average of 10% of parents across time were in operatic marriages. Operatic men and women were emo- tionally volatile sensation seekers. A harmonious, placid envi- ronment bored operatics, who took everything to extremes, in- cluding fighting and making love. They liked to funetion at a level of intense emotional arousal. For operaties, quarreling was often a trigger for sex, and operatics had the highest level of sexual satisfaction in our studies. Following the parents’ operatic marriages across time suggested that at fist the fighting-sex cy- cle was almost a game, but that a danger lies in wait for operatic ccouples. Angry people often say hurtful, sometimes unforgivable things; moreover, anger can easily erupt into violence, Operatic marriages in the parents’ generation had the third highest divorce rate, and in youths had the third highest level of reported marital instability. These marriages usually ended when one partner, zen crally the man, decided that sex was no longer exciting enough to balance constant conflict, but clean breaks were fairly uncom- mon. Often, operatics would reconcile, break up, reconcile, and break up again, Lingering attachments were common, and op- eratics often reported less tumultuous relationships (0 be bland Family Relations