Journal
JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Volume 71, Issue 3, Pages 495-509Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00615.x
Keywords
death; dyadic; couple data; dying; grieving; relationship quality; widowhood
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We use prospective couple-level data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples to assess the extent to which spouses concur in their assessments of marital quality (N = 844) and whether discrepancies in spouses' marital assessments affect the bereaved spouse's psychological adjustment 6 months after loss (n = 105). Spouses' assessments of marital quality are correlated modestly (r = .45), with women offering less positive assessments. Bereaved persons who had rated their marriages more positively than their spouse at the preloss interview reported higher levels of anger 6 months postloss. We conclude that persons who offer more positive appraisals of their marriages than their spouse may view spousal loss as a particularly unjust event. We discuss implications for understanding late life marriage and spousal bereavement.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available