Sanctification of marriage and spiritual intimacy predicting observed marital interactions across the transition to parenthood

Abstract

We examined whether 164 heterosexual, married couples' reports of the sanctification of their marriage and their spiritual intimacy predicted their observed behavior across the transition to parenthood, using highly conservative statistical strategies to control for time-invariant factors and time-varying factors (marital love, collaborative communication skills) that could explain away these links. Spouses provided self-reports of marital sanctification and love, and joint reports of spiritual intimacy and collaboration by each partner. Criterion variables were positive and negative behaviors that spouses exhibited during dyadic discussions of marital conflicts, videotaped during pregnancy and when the couple's first infant was 3, 6, and 12 months old. Using bivariate fixed-effects regression models to control unmeasured time-invariant predictors (e.g., stable traits), his and her sanctification of marriage predicted more observed positivity by 1 or both spouses, and his and her spiritual intimacy predicted more positivity and less negativity by both spouses. Using multivariate regression analyses that controlled for demographic factors, the interdependency of spouses' responses, and salient time-varying marital (spouses' love and collaborative skills), her spiritual intimacy predicted more positivity by both spouses and less negativity by him, and his sanctification marginally predicted more positivity and less negativity by him. Findings offer rigorous causal modeling that spousal reports about marital spirituality influence observed spousal behavior by using longitudinal data to rule out unmeasured and measured third-variable confounds, multiple reporters (husbands, wives), multiple methods (self and joint reports, direct observation), and cross-informant data (spousal reports about him predicting her behavior, and vice versa).