Dyadic Causal Sequencing of Depressive Symptoms and Relationship Satisfaction in Romantic Partners Across Four Years

Causal sequencing between relationship satisfaction and depressive symptoms has important ramifications for couples therapy. Using dyadic data from the Pairfam study (N = 1,876 German couples), an auto-regressive cross-lagged model was used to test the causal sequencing of these associations annually across four years. Although depressive symptoms had a significant bidirectional association with relationship satisfaction both within and between partners, depressive symptoms tended to serve as a stronger and more consistent predictor of relationship satisfaction than the reverse direction. Thus, clinically focusing on reducing depressive symptoms in couples' therapy may serve to help prevent future deterioration in relationship quality.