The Meta Marriage: Links Between Older Couples’

Relationship Narratives and Marital Satisfaction

ALEXANDRA MCCOY*
AMY RAUER**
ALLEN SABEY†

Drawing upon a relatively understudied population and a unique observational task,

the current study sought to examine how older couples’ interactional behaviors during a
relationship narrative task were associated with marital satisfaction over time. Using
observational data from a sample of 64 older, higher-functioning married couples, we ana-
lyzed a series of Actor–Partner Independence Models (APIM) to explore how couples’ inter-
actional behaviors during a relationship narrative task were associated with spouses’
marital satisfaction both concurrently and one year later. Analyses revealed that spouses’
behaviors (e.g., expressions of positive affect, negative affect, communication skills, engage-
ment) were associated with their self-reported marital satisfaction both at the time of the
narrative and with changes in marital satisfaction. We found particularly robust evidence
for the role of husbands’ negative affect during the narrative task in predicting changes in
both spouses’ marital satisfaction over time. Our results indicate that researchers and clin-
icians should carefully consider the influence of development on the associations between
spouses’ behaviors and marital satisfaction. Further, those seeking to improve marriages
in later life may need to consider the meaningful role that gender appears to play in shap-
ing the marital experiences of older couples.

Keywords: Relationship Narratives; Older Adulthood; Marital Satisfaction;

Observational Research

Fam Proc 56:900–914, 2017

T he benefits of marriage appear to accrue over time, as couples who are married longer
experience greater wealth accumulation, fewer health risks, and even greater longev-
ity than those who are unmarried or married for shorter durations (Dupre, Beck, & Mead-
ows, 2009; Dupre & Meadows, 2007; Zissimopoulos, Karney, & Rauer, 2015). Although
there are clear benefits of being together longer, the nature of this time together varies
greatly across couples, with some maintaining happy marriages throughout (Bachand &
Caron, 2001) and others having less sanguine experiences (Hawkins & Booth, 2005). Even
long-term married couples with relatively similar marital experiences and histories may
reflect together upon this time in ways that are quite different. The question is, are such
differences meaningful?

*Chappell Therapy, San Diego, CA.

**Department of Child and Family Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN.
†
Human Development and Family Studies, Auburn University, Auburn, AL.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amy Rauer, Department of Child and
Family Studies, University of Tennessee, 115 Jessie Harris Building, 1215 W. Cumberland Ave., Knox-
ville, TN 37996. E-mail: alexandra.b.mccoy@gmail.com
The research reported was funded by a grant from the John E. Fetzer Institute to the second author. We
are grateful to the families of the Marriage and Retirement Study for their participation.
900
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doi: 10.1111/famp.12217
MCCOY, RAUER, & SABEY / 901
In fact, capturing how couples think about and remember their lives together adds
unique and valuable information beyond the nature of their experiences (Frye & Karney,
2004), with scholars finding that how couples recall their history together predicts their
marital functioning years later (Holmberg, Orbuch, & Veroff, 2004). For example, Holm-
berg and Holmes (1994) compared the relationship stories of newlywed couples to the
same stories retold three years later and found couples who had experienced a sharp
decline in satisfaction used a more negative tone to retell their stories than did continu-
ously happy couples. What remains to be seen, however, is how couples reflect upon their
relationship after sharing decades of life together.
Although the interactional context of the narrative task is relatively unique, it is likely
that older couples’ relationship narratives may look different than those of younger cou-
ples. Not only do older spouses approach their problems differently (i.e., less hostility,
more affection; Carstensen, Gottman, & Levenson, 1995), but decades of experiences
together may have enabled them to work together more effectively than their younger
counterparts (Peter-Wright & Martin, 2011). The challenges of generalizing from this lit-
erature are that behaviors found to differentiate happy and unhappy couples are largely
based on couples’ conflict experiences and these may be vastly different from those
observed in a relationship narrative task (Fincham, 2004; Gottman, 1999). Accordingly,
the current study examined the behavioral interactions of 64 older couples in a relation-
ship narrative task to uncover how long-lasting couples reflect together upon their marital
histories and how such behaviors are associated with spouses’ marital satisfaction both
concurrently and over time. By observing interactions in a task that may be more salient
for older couples than traditional problem-solving approaches (Rauer & Jensen, 2016), we
can better inform the research and clinical treatment of the ever-increasing population of
later-life couples.

THEORETICAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BACKGROUND OF COUPLES’

INTERACTIONS
Thibault and Kelley’s (1959) behavioral theory posits that the ways spouses interact
determine the quality of their relationships. These interactions, whether positive, nega-
tive, or mixed, have been shown to accumulate over time and influence spouses’ global
judgments of marital quality (Gottman, 1999). From behavioral theory, we would there-
fore expect that happier, more stable relationships are those characterized by a higher
proportion of positive to negative interactions (Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson,
1998). In fact, the most cited difference between couples with happy and unhappy mar-
riages is that satisfied couples utilize more positivity (e.g., laughing, affection) and less
negativity (e.g., anger, withdrawing) during conflict (Rauer & Volling, 2013). Although
these differing communication behaviors were observed between distressed and nondis-
tressed couples regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or occupational status (Krokoff,
Gottman, & Roy, 1988), the behaviors that characterize these couples do in fact appear to
be sensitive to couples’ developmental stage.
As older spouses become increasingly mindful of their mortality (Carstensen, 1992),
their communication begins to change. Older spouses display more affection and are less
negative than their middle-age counterparts (Carstensen et al., 1995) and often use con-
flict strategies that focus more on improving the relationship than on winning the argu-
ment (Birditt & Fingerman, 2005). To note, these differences may reflect not only age-
related differences but also a trajectory of more successful and satisfied couples who
remained married (Smith et al., 2009). Regardless of marital status, however, older adults
have been shown to experience positive emotion just as frequently and intensely as do
younger adults but report much less negative emotion in comparison (Levenson,

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Carstensen, Friesen, & Ekman, 1991; Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998), suggesting the change in
communication behaviors is largely developmentally driven.
Older couples may also be able to collaborate with more expertise than younger couples,
which has bearing on how they might approach a relationship task. Despite well-known
declines in individual cognition in later life, older couples have been shown to outperform
their individual scores and scores of random pairs on a demanding problem-solving task
(Peter-Wright & Martin, 2011) and their younger counterparts in the retelling of complex
stories (Dixon & Gould, 1998). As older spouses reported using more emotional regulation
and collaborative skills when solving relational versus nonrelational problems (Hoppman
& Blanchard-Fields, 2011), older couples may demonstrate unique emotional and collabo-
rative behaviors in a task designed to recall their own relational memories. We know of no
study to date, however, that has explored the effects of such collaborations during a
narrative task on older couples’ marital satisfaction.
Such an exploration is critical to move the literature forward, as Cutrona (1996) sta-
ted that we must observe couples in nonconflict contexts to fully capture their experi-
ences (Julien, Chartrand, Simard, Bouthillier, & Begin, 2003; Pasch & Bradbury, 1998).
Observational work demonstrates that different behaviors can be elicited depending on
the nature of the interaction tasks, with spouses demonstrating warmer and more sup-
portive interactions in a neutral marital discussion task than in a conflict task (Melby,
Ge, Conger, & Warner, 1995). Recalling one’s history not only appears to generate more
positive behaviors for couples (Holmberg & Holmes, 1994), but may also be a more
developmentally appropriate way to capture interactional behaviors of older couples
(Rauer & Jensen, 2016). Given that older couples often engage in reminiscence (Butler,
2002; Erikson & Erikson, 1998), examining how older couples do so together may yield
important and heretofore unexplored insight into how their marital communication
behaviors may influence both current and future evaluations of marriage in the later
years.

WHAT DO COUPLES’ NARRATIVES TELL US?

Providing one such interactional context is the work of Holmberg et al. (2004), which
finds that how younger couples share their relationship histories predicted their current
marital happiness, with more positivity and less negativity linked to greater happiness.
Not only can such narratives provide researchers with a unique lens into current marital
functioning, positive interactions during narratives also appear to be useful for predicting
future marital satisfaction and stability (Buehlman, Gottman, & Katz, 1992; Doohan,
Carrere, & Riggs, 2010). Interestingly, Buehlman et al. (1992) revealed that husbands’
negative behaviors toward their wives while sharing their histories were more strongly
related to whether the couples later separated or divorced than were wives’ behaviors,
suggesting that the narrative task may reveal interesting gender differences in marital
behaviors.
Beyond the use of couples’ narratives as a predictor of concurrent and future marital
satisfaction, couples’ narrative behaviors may also change over time, in effect mirroring
the ways that their relationships develop. Although some aspects of narratives remain rel-
atively constant throughout early marriage (e.g., spouses’ ability to negotiate a joint nar-
rative), changes have been observed in how couples communicated about their marriages
even in the first few years (Holmberg et al., 2004). Given that researchers have been able
to uncover changes in couples’ narratives at the beginning stages of marriage, how might
couples interact when sharing their relationship histories after spending decades
together? As older couples’ communication patterns have developed over the course of
many life transitions (e.g., launch of children, retirement, health changes) and they tend

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to interact differently in other relationship tasks than do younger couples (Carstensen
et al., 1995), older couples’ relationship narratives may elicit different behaviors alto-
gether than young, newlywed couples. Thus, key questions remain to be answered about
the nature and consequences of older couples’ relationship history narratives.

THE CURRENT STUDY

The purpose of the current study is to explore how older couples’ interactional behaviors
observed during a narrative task are related to husbands’ and wives’ current and future
marital satisfaction. In being the first to examine older couples engaging in a relationship
history narrative task, the current study expands the focus on marital communication to a
previously unstudied population in a unique interactional context (Smith et al., 2009).
Consistent with prior narrative studies of younger, newlywed couples (Holmberg et al.,
2004), this type of task should reveal which behaviors are most salient for older spouses’
marital satisfaction, both concurrently and a year later. Given that the narrative task
may be particularly developmentally appropriate (Erikson & Erikson, 1998), examining
the understudied communication behaviors of older couples may provide researchers and
practitioners unique insights into the interactions of couples enjoying long-lasting mar-
riage and reveal behaviors that foster marital satisfaction later in life.

METHOD
Participants
Sixty-four married heterosexual couples were recruited as part of a study investigating
marital relationships and well-being in older adulthood. Participants were recruited
through advertisements in newspapers, churches, and other organizations in a community
in the Southeast United States. To participate, couples had to be: (1) married, (2) at least
partially retired or working less than 40 hours a week, and (3) able to drive to the research
center, which ensured that they were higher functioning. Approximately 1 year
(M = 16.8 months) after the initial data collection, couples were recontacted and asked to
complete another questionnaire.
At Time 1, husbands and wives were, on average, approximately 71 (SD = 7.4) and
70 years of age (SD = 7.0), respectively, and were mostly European American (n = 60 and
n = 61, respectively). In terms of education, 43 husbands and 57 wives had completed col-
lege or postgraduate degrees. The average income for couples was $85,875 (SD = $64,074),
and they had an average total wealth of $1,082,547 (SD = $1,277,611), including couple
assets such as property, pensions, and IRAs. Forty-seven couples (73%) were fully retired,
and 17 couples had one spouse still working for pay. Fifty-one couples (80%) were in their
first marriage and couples had been married for 42 years, on average (SD = 15). The cou-
ples had an average of 2.6 children (SD = 1.3; range = 0–6). Complete data were available
for 62 couples due to video recording errors.
At Time 2, 55 of the 64 original couples (86%) completed follow-up questionnaires. Wives
lost to attrition had poorer communication skills than retained wives (t(60) = 2.45, p < .05),
but husbands did not differ based on any control, individual, or couple-level variables.

Procedure
For the first wave of data collection (Time 1), couples participated in a 2–3 hour, on-
site visit at a research laboratory that included a variety of marital interaction tasks.
The relationship narrative task, the focus of the current study, was based largely on
procedures used in Holmberg et al.’s (2004) Early Years of Marriage (EYM) Project.

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Couples were asked to share the history of their marriage, from how they met, to how
they became a couple, to their wedding, to the newlywed years, to the middle years, to
the present day, and finally to their hopes for the future. The interviewer asked the
couples to tell their stories however they wanted to, as long as both spouses partici-
pated in the telling. At the end of the visit, couples were provided with questionnaires
that asked questions about their individual and marital lives. Upon completing the
questionnaires, couples were given $75 as compensation. For the second wave of data
collection (Time 2), recontacted couples who agreed to participate were sent question-
naires via mail. Couples were compensated $50 once the completed questionnaires were
mailed back.

Measures
Couples narratives
At Time 1, couples’ narrative tasks were video recorded and later coded for individual
and couple interactions using a modified version of the Interactional Dimensions Coding
System (ICDS; Kline et al., 2004). Three individual (positive affect, negative affect, and
communication skills) and two couple (engagement and balance) dimensions were coded
on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (“very low”) to 7 (“very high”). Ratings across 10-minute
intervals were averaged to create a single score for each dimension. For reliability, the
first author trained the coders using a subsample of videotapes until interobserver agree-
ment was 80% or higher using a codebook created for use in training. Reliability was cal-
culated via intraclass correlation on 20% of the taped interactions, and these intraclass
correlations were good (rs = .72–.94).
For the individual codes, positive affect captured an individual’s expression of positivity
toward or in response to the partner’s behavior (i.e., smiling, laughter). Negative affect
captured the spouse’s expression of negativity toward the other or in the narrative telling
(i.e., frowning, rolling eyes). Communication skills assessed the ability to convey thoughts,
feelings, and opinions in a clear, constructive manner (i.e., clarity of speech, eye contact).
For the couple codes, coders observed engagement, which noted the degree to which cou-
ples demonstrated interpersonal involvement and the persistence of partner-directed
behaviors (i.e., maintenance attempts, spouses’ connectedness). Finally, balance assessed
the relative contributions of each partner to the interaction (i.e., turn-taking, equity of
contribution to the narrative).
Marital satisfaction
Participants’ marital satisfaction was measured at both waves using the Marital Satis-
faction Questionnaire for Older Persons (Haynes et al., 1992). This 24-item measure
assesses both general and specific dimensions of marital satisfaction (e.g., overall satisfac-
tion, shared interests), as well as items that assess satisfaction with developmental
aspects of relationships in older adulthood (e.g., spouse’s physical health). Responses were
summed with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction. Reliability for this measure
was excellent at both Time 1 (husbands: a = .93; wives: a = .93) and Time 2 (husbands:
a = .95; wives: a = .90).
Controls
To ensure a conservative estimate of these links, we also controlled for marital duration
(VanLaningham, Johnson, & Amato, 2001) and memory quality (Alea & Vick, 2010). Mem-
ory quality captured the degree to which couples were able to provide detailed memories
in an orderly, logical timeline. A score of 1 (“no memory”) indicated a couple that was
nearly silent during the task, or did not share any part of their story deeply enough to

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characterize their lives. A score of 3 (“partially developed”) was given to couples who
demonstrated some direction and logic in their storytelling and occasionally shared speci-
fic details. A score of 5 (“well developed”) indicated a couple who shared as many details of
their story as possible in a logical and easy to follow manner. Interrater reliability for
memory quality was good (r = .84, p < .01).

Plan of Analysis
We first conducted preliminary analyses to examine potential gender differences
between husbands’ and wives’ observed behaviors and reports of marital satisfaction.
To account for the interdependent nature of the couples, we then used Actor–Partner
Interdependence Models (APIM, Kashy & Kenny, 2000) in MPlus 6.0 to examine the
contributions of the observed behaviors to spouses’ concurrent (Time 1) and prospective
(Time 2) marital satisfaction. Due to our modest sample size and to minimize potential
issues of multicollinearity, we examined four separate models—one for each of the
observed behaviors (positive affect, negative affect, communication skills, couple
engagement). To evaluate the robustness of these links, we also tested separate models
that included controls (marital duration, memory quality). All potential pathways were
allowed to covary in each model. Finally, to explore gender differences in the strength
of these associations, we conducted a series of delta chi-square tests to examine
whether the actor or partner effects were stronger for husbands or for wives across all
four models.

RESULTS
Preliminary Analyses
Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. On average, couples completed the
narrative task in 31 minutes (SD = 13.66; range = 5–68). Means for individual-level
variables indicated that spouses were moderate to high on their positive affect and
communication skills scores and low on their negative affect scores. The means for
the couple-level variables of engagement and balance were also both moderate to
high. Paired t-tests only revealed one gender difference, such that wives demon-
strated significantly more positive affect than did their husbands, t(62) = 2.22,
p < .05. Correlations indicated that self-reported marital satisfaction at both time
points for both husbands and wives was significantly and positively associated with
many of the observed variables, particularly positive affect and the couple-level
variables.
Paired t-tests revealed that husbands’ marital satisfaction did not change from Time 1
to Time 2 (t(54) = 2.97, p = .18), but wives’ marital satisfaction significantly decreased
across this period (t(54) = 5.14, p < .01). Further, bivariate analyses revealed that both
spouses’ reports of marital satisfaction at Time 1 were strongly associated with their mari-
tal satisfaction at Time 2.

Narrative Behaviors and Spouses’ Marital Satisfaction

A series of four models examined the contributions of individual, spousal, and dyadic
behaviors during the narrative task to one’s own and spouses’ marital satisfaction at two
time points. Per recommendations for analyzing APIMs with distinguishable dyads
(Peugh, DiLillo, & Panuzio, 2013), all models were fully saturated and thus demonstrated
perfect fit (v2 = .00, df = 0; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00). For the models including
the controls, there were few, if any differences between the uncontrolled and controlled

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TABLE 1
Correlations and Distributional and Scale Properties of Study Variables (N = 62 Couples)

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Marital duration – .00 .13 .09 .08 .29* .10 .11 .01
2. Memory quality .00 – .21 .09 .51** .59** .35** .16 .18
3. Positive affect .23 .53** .53** .46** .45** .43** .09 .38** .53**
4. Negative affect .09 .11 .32* .35** .03 .04 .07 .06 .10
5. Communication .10 .63** .41** .17 .40** .53** .37** .46** .33*
skills
6. Engagement .29* .59** .68** .19 .45** – .48** .37** .27
7. Balance .10 .35** .35** .10 .32* .48** – .28* .18
8. Marital .02 .34** .26* .23 .26* .39** .27* .57** .61**
satisfaction – Time 1
9. Marital .04 .29* .27* .15 .11 .36** .33* .87** .59**
satisfaction – Time 2
M (SD) Husband 4.40 1.78 5.06 116.36 113.85
Measures
(.90) (.50) (.79) (18.07) (14.57)
M (SD) Wife 4.65 2.10 5.02 117.55 113.52
Measures
(.88) (.62) (.87) (14.57) (15.28)
M (SD) Couple 42.40 3.89 5.27 4.58
Measures
(14.97) (.63) (.87) (.95)

Note. Correlations noted above the diagonal are for husbands and those noted below the diagonal are for
wives. Correlations across spouses are underscored and in the diagonal.
*p < .05.
**p < .01.

models. Per recommendations (Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011), we interpreted the
uncontrolled models below.1
First, husbands’ positive affect was positively related to both spouses’ concurrent and
future marital satisfaction (see Table 2 and Figure 1). Wives’ positive affect was positively
related to husbands’ concurrent satisfaction. A nonsignificant trend emerged whereby
wives’ positive affect was related to changes in their own marital satisfaction, such that
the more positive wives were during the narrative task, the greater the decline in their
marital satisfaction over time. This model explained 35.6% in the variance of husbands’
marital satisfaction at Time 2 and 82.9% in the variance of wives’ marital satisfaction at
Time 2. Delta chi-square tests revealed a significant gender difference only for the actor
effects of positive affect (Δ v² (1) = 9.75, p < .05), such that husbands’ positive affect was
more strongly linked to his later marital satisfaction. There was no difference for partner
effects (Δ v² (1) = .00, p = .95).
Second, husbands’ negative affect was negatively associated with changes in their own
marital satisfaction (see Table 2), whereby the more negative husbands were during the

1
Although there has been some controversy over the use of post hoc power analyses (Hoenig & Heisey,
2001; Nakagawa & Foster, 2004; Yuan & Maxwell, 2005), we conducted post hoc power analyses for each
of the APIMs using software for power analyses for multiple regressions due to the moderate sample size
(Soper, 2015). We conducted a power analysis for husbands’ and wives’ marital satisfaction using the rele-
vant number of predictor variables from each APIM, the observed R2s, the typical probability level (.05),
and sample sizes (n = 55 at Time 2). Results revealed that observed statistical power ranged from .72 to
.99, indicating that we had sufficient power to confidently interpret the results. Given the lowest level of
statistical power across the four models (.72), the number of predictors (4/3), the typical probability level
(.05), and sample size (n = 55 at Time 2), we could detect at least medium effect sizes (Cohen’s f2 = .20).

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TABLE 2
Actor–Partner Interdependence Models Linking Husbands’ and Wives’ Observed Variables with T1 and T2
Marital Satisfaction

T1 Husband T1 Wife Marital T2 Husband T2 Wife Marital

Predictor Marital Satisfaction Satisfaction Marital Satisfaction Satisfaction

Positive Affect
Husband .28* .26* .43** .21**
Wife .35** .17 .15 .14†
R2 35.6% 82.9%
Negative Affect
Husband .11 .12 .68** .13†
Wife .36** .20 .18 .11
R2 50.9% 81.1%
Communication Skills
Husband .43** .53** .05 .06
Wife .10 .27* .26† .00
R2 16.7% 79.5%
Engagement
Couple .28* .30* .30* .00
R2 17.9% 79.1%

Note. Standardized coefficients are provided. All models were fully saturated and demonstrated perfect
fit: v2 = .00, df = 0; CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00.
*p < .05.
**p < .01.
†
p < .10.

narrative task, the greater the decline in their marital satisfaction. Further, a nonsignifi-
cant trend appeared such that husbands’ negative affect was negatively associated with
changes in their wives’ marital satisfaction. Wives’ negative affect was negatively associ-
ated with husbands’ concurrent marital satisfaction only. This model explained 50.9% in
the variance of husbands’ marital satisfaction at Time 2 and 81.1% in the variance of
wives’ marital satisfaction at Time 2. Delta chi-square tests revealed another significant
gender difference for the actor effects of negative affect (Δ v² (1) = 25.85, p < .05), with hus-
bands again having a stronger link between their own expressions of negative affect and
later marital satisfaction. Evidence also emerged of a significant gender difference in the
partner effects (Δ v² (1) = 3.80, p ≤ .05), with stronger links between husbands’ negative
affect and wives’ marital satisfaction than vice versa.
Third, husbands’ communication skills were positively related to both spouses’ concur-
rent marital satisfaction, although not with either spouse’s Time 2 satisfaction (see
Table 2). Wives’ communication skills were positively related to wives’ concurrent marital
satisfaction and marginally related to changes in husbands’ satisfaction, such that wives
who were observed to be more skilled at communicating during the narrative task were
more satisfied at Time 1 and, although a nonsignificant trend, their husbands reported
increased satisfaction a year later. This model explained 16.7% in the variance of hus-
bands’ Time 2 marital satisfaction and 79.5% in the variance of wives’ Time 2 marital sat-
isfaction. No significant gender differences emerged for communication skills
(respectively: Δ v² (1) = .07, p = .80; Δ v² (1) = 1.38, p = .24).
Lastly, couple engagement was positively related to both husbands’ and wives’ concur-
rent marital satisfaction and changes in husbands’ marital satisfaction (see Table 2). Cou-
ples who engaged more in the shared telling of their history were more satisfied at the
time of the narrative, and husbands reported increased satisfaction a year later. This
model explained 17.9% in the variance of husbands’ marital satisfaction at Time 2 and

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Time 1 Time 2

Husband
Positive Affect R2 = 35.6%
10.38** (.43)

4.47* (.28) Husband Marital

Husband Marital 3.87** (.21) Satisfaction
Satisfaction

5.65* (.35) -.13† (-.13) R2 = 82.9%

Wife Positive
Affect -2.54† (-.14) Wife Marital
3.54† (.26) Satisfaction

1.08** (.93)
Wife Marital
Satisfaction

FIGURE 1. Actor–Partner Interdependence Model linking husbands’ and wives’ positive affect with
their concurrent and prospective marital satisfaction. Note. Only significant pathways are shown
with unstandardized path coefficients and standardized coefficients in parentheses. (v2 = .00, df = 0;
CFI = 1.00; TLI = 1.00; RMSEA = .00).

79.1% in the variance of wives’ marital satisfaction at Time 2. A delta chi-square test indi-
cated that the path from couple engagement to husbands’ later marital satisfaction was
significantly stronger than the path from couple engagement to wives’ later marital satis-
faction (Δ v² (1) = 5.68, p < .05).

DISCUSSION
Given that spouses’ interactions are strongly associated with the quality of their rela-
tionships (Woodin, 2011), we observed older adult couples during a relationship narrative
task, as such interactions may more closely approximate those they have during their
daily lives (Butler, 1963, 2002; Driver & Gottman, 2004; Erikson & Erikson, 1998). Find-
ings revealed that spouses’ relationship narrative behaviors were linked with their con-
current marital satisfaction as well as predictive of changes in marital satisfaction a year
later. Husbands’ affectivity appeared to play a particularly powerful role in shaping
spouses’ current and future marital satisfaction. Such findings suggest that researchers
and practitioners may need to consider the intersection of developmental status and gen-
der when evaluating spouses’ interactions in later life. It is important to note, however,
that our sample of older adults was both higher functioning and generally satisfied with
their marriages, so our clinical implications should thus be read with caution until repli-
cated with a clinical sample.

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The Surprising Role of Spouses’ Positive Affect in Marital Satisfaction over Time
Our findings extend the work of Holmberg et al. (2004) to demonstrate that, similar to
previous work on younger couples, how older spouses display emotion in a narrative task
is closely linked with their current and future marital satisfaction in later life. Husbands’
positivity not only was strongly linked to both spouses’ satisfaction at the time of the nar-
rative, but it predicted increases in marital satisfaction for both husbands and wives.
Given that couples’ behaviors seen in collaborative tasks are likely reflective of their daily
interactions (Peter-Wright & Martin, 2011), husbands’ positivity in a narrative task
may reflect the overall positivity they show to their wives. Perhaps, part of the reason
these couples were maritally satisfied was due to an accumulation of husbands’ positive
behaviors over the history of their marriage.
As to why the pathway from husband’s positive affect to his marital satisfaction was
stronger than the pathway from wives’ positive affect to their own marital satisfaction, we
should consider the differing socialization of men and women to express and perceive emo-
tion. Because women are socialized to express and perceive emotions more than men are,
it may be that greater emotional attunement and positivity on the part of husbands may
be particularly influential for their own positive marital experiences (Rauer & Volling,
2005). Further, husbands who are able to collaborate with their wives on the relationship
narrative in a more constructive, positive manner may feel that they are making a more
meaningful contribution. Feeling this increased sense of agency may in turn foster hus-
bands’ marital satisfaction (Jensen & Rauer, 2013). Our findings thus suggest that to cap-
ture the links between positive affect and marital outcomes, researchers may need to not
only consider utilizing different tasks such as relationship narratives, but also consider
the unique role that gender may play in shaping these associations later in life.

The Powerful Role of Husbands’ Negative Affect in Marital Satisfaction Over Time
Consistent with oft-cited associations between couples’ negativity and marital distress
(Gottman, 1999), we found that older spouses’ negative behaviors in a narrative task were
associated with declines in marital satisfaction over time. Husbands’ displays of negativity
during the narrative (e.g., frowning, tears of sadness) emerged as a strong predictor of
declines in their own marital satisfaction. Behavioral theory suggests that spouses may
have unintentionally rewarded negative behaviors throughout the marriage, resulting in
continued, albeit moderate, displays of negativity that may erode spouses’ marital satis-
faction (Patterson & Reid, 1970). Although previous work has suggested that younger hus-
bands’ negativity may not necessarily be harmful to their wives’ marital satisfaction
(Huston & Vangelisti, 1991), older spouses may be particularly sensitive to husbands’ neg-
ativity given their focus on maximizing positive and rewarding interactions during later
life (Carstensen, 1992; Rauer, Williams, & Jensen, 2016).
In fact, husbands’ negativity appears to be especially important for their own experi-
ences in marriage when compared to the effects of wives’ negativity. These findings are
consistent with previous work from Rauer and Volling (2005) that found that middle-aged
husbands’ self-reported negativity was particularly influential for both spouses’ views of
their marriage, more so than was the wives’ negative expressivity. Because men are not
socialized to handle negative emotions from an early age (Garside & Klimes-Dougan,
2002), husbands may be expressing negative emotions in a less skillful manner than their
wives. The result of these potential skill differences in how spouses express their negativ-
ity during a relationship narrative, and likely across other types of interactions, is that
husbands’ negativity, but not wives’, is associated with declines in marital satisfaction
over time. Wives’ greater ability to deal with emotional issues (Eisenberg, Cumberland, &
Spinrad, 1998), on the other hand, may explain why their negativity was only linked to

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lower levels of husbands’ concurrent marital satisfaction, but not wives’ satisfaction at the
time of the narrative or either spouse’s later marital satisfaction. In sum, these findings
suggest that gender differences in emotional behaviors may persist into the later years of
marriage and that practitioners should pay careful attention to how husbands and wives
express negative affect when considering predictors of marital functioning in older
adulthood.

The Role of Spouses’ Communication Skills and Engagement in Later-Life Marriage

Regardless of the affective tone, spouses’ abilities to effectively express their thoughts,
feelings, and opinions, and understand their partners’ views were associated with greater
marital satisfaction for both spouses. Husbands’ communication skills were related to
higher concurrent marital satisfaction for both spouses. Further, wives’ communication
skills predicted their own greater marital satisfaction at the time of the narrative. Suc-
cessful communication, particularly as couples adapt to the stressors of marriage that they
often reported in their narratives (e.g., child rearing, health problems), appears to benefit
the marriage. Given that communication is the most frequently cited relationship problem
for couples seeking professional help to improve their relationships (Broderick, 1981; Fin-
cham, 2004), couples may use the quality of their communication as a barometer for the
overall state of their marriage. Such a finding may also suggest a selection bias as couples
who were less successful at communicating may have ended their marriages. As previous
work has found that happier couples tend to approach discussions in a way that encour-
ages more productive communication (Fincham, 2004; Rauer & Volling, 2013), it may also
be that couples communicate more effectively as a reflection of their satisfaction. In either
case, collaborative communication skills appear to be an important strength for couples in
this developmental stage (Dixon & Gould, 1998), and clinicians may benefit from building
upon these skills in their work with distressed older couples.
Similarly, couples’ engagement in the narrative task was related to both spouses’ marital
satisfaction at the time of the task and predictive of changes for husbands’ satisfaction over
time. Couples who demonstrated high levels of engagement during the narrative task were
able to maintain connectedness (e.g., interest in partner, connectedness), again, regardless of
whether the interaction was positive or negative. Couples’ ability to maintain a connection
regardless of the emotional tenor of the interaction is in line with recent work from Hoppman
and Blanchard-Fields (2011), which found that long-lasting couples often apply well-prac-
ticed emotional regulation and collaborative skills when solving relational problems
together. Relatedly, Gottman and Krokoff (1989) found that engaging in a conflictual discus-
sion predicted better marital satisfaction longitudinally, suggesting that couples’ active
engagement predicts marital success, perhaps even regardless of the content of the discus-
sion.
Interestingly, however, we found that the pathway from couples’ engagement behaviors
to husbands’ later marital satisfaction was stronger than to wives’ later marital satisfac-
tion. It may be that feeling connected to one’s spouse is particularly important for hus-
bands later in life, as their connections to others are pruned (Carstensen, 1992). Such
findings are consistent with recent work on older couples by Jensen and Rauer (2015),
showing that husbands, but not wives, who actively engaged in discussions about their
marriage were more satisfied with their marriage a year later. The authors suggested that
husbands may derive particular benefits from feeling that they are actively participating
in or driving the conversation. Such a conclusion suggests that although we assessed
spouses’ engagement as a couple, husbands’ contributions may be particularly revealing
and important. As to why wives’ communication and engagement behaviors do not appear
to reflect or affect couples’ marital satisfaction as well as husbands’ behaviors, it may be

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that wives’ behaviors are similarly important to both spouses’ marital satisfaction but
may not be especially related in the narrative task conducted for this study. Further, dis-
entangling the relative contributions of each spouse to the quality of the relationship nar-
rative would be an important direction for future research.
These findings highlight the importance of dyadic and longitudinal research for reveal-
ing links between older spouses’ communication behaviors and their marital satisfaction
in later life. Such an approach reveals that the implications of these behaviors may differ
over time. Therapists may therefore benefit from careful attunement to the emotional pat-
terns of older couples when considering how to intervene in these patterns to improve
marital satisfaction, as results suggest that the links between older spouses’ emotional
behaviors and their marital satisfaction may differ from what has been observed for
younger couples. To improve marital satisfaction in later life, practitioners may also want
to consider focusing on and strengthening collaborative behaviors that appear to be salient
to couples in this developmental stage, such as communication skills and engagement.
Beyond the consideration of developmental stage, it appears to be important that thera-
pists observe how husbands and wives manifest these behaviors differently and the result-
ing effects on marital satisfaction, as our findings suggest that gender may operate as a
powerful filter through which these associations are experienced in later life.

CONSIDERATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Despite the strengths of this study (e.g., developmental focus, unique task, observa-
tional approach), there are several limitations that suggest the findings need to be inter-
preted with caution. First, couples were highly educated, financially well-off, and fairly
happily married. More disadvantaged or distressed couples may have developed and thus
displayed very different patterns of communication throughout the course of marriage due
to a number of potential stressors occurring both inside and outside of the relationship
(Karney & Bradbury, 1995). For example, couples that have experienced on-going eco-
nomic hardships (e.g., job loss, seeking public assistance) may have adapted by minimiz-
ing rather than displaying their emotions.
Our focus on couples’ behaviors precluded our ability to determine the extent to which
they were driven by the nature of their stories. Prior narrative work has often given
greater emphasis to the thematic content of couples’ stories and less attention to the
behavioral ways in which couples share this content (Holmberg et al., 2004). Future work
should include coding of both behavioral and thematic content qualities to uncover how
the links between couples’ behaviors and marital satisfaction are affected by the nature of
their stories. Given that the diverse nature of couples’ narratives in our sample (e.g.,
addiction, grief, early poverty) likely influenced the affective behaviors in their interac-
tions, controlling for thematic content may have revealed the importance of couples’ inter-
actional behaviors to an even greater extent.
Future work should attempt to replicate the current study with a sample of clinical
older couples to reveal how distressed couples may communicate differently in a narrative
task. Although our study suggests that the behaviors of older couples are linked with
changes in their marital satisfaction over time, the clinical implications of these findings
should be considered with caution given the constraints and modest size of our sample.
However, it is notable that even within this satisfied sample, important distinctions
emerged in how spouses’ interactional behaviors predicted marital satisfaction. Research-
ers may notice even greater variability in how couples’ interactions relate to their evalua-
tions of marriage when examining clinical samples.
Finally, although our prospective findings suggest spouses’ interactional behaviors at
the time of the relationship narrative predicted change in marital satisfaction, it is equally

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plausible that marital satisfaction influences the nature of narratives. Spouses in happy
marriages may have more positive emotions about their histories, causing them to share
their narratives in more positive ways. Capturing the narrative behaviors over time would
help reveal the direction of effects, although it is likely that these behaviors and marital
satisfaction are reciprocally related. Further, the effects of couple behaviors on marital
satisfaction should be interpreted in the context of the small change in marital satisfaction
that was observed over a one-year period, particularly among our sample of long-lasting
and well-off couples. These behaviors may be even more revealing among couples that
exhibit greater levels of change in their marital satisfaction, such as younger couples or
those experiencing financial difficulties.
In conclusion, this study used a novel relationship narrative task to inform what is cur-
rently known about how older couples’ behaviors predict their marital satisfaction. Find-
ings indicate that older spouses’ affect, communication skills, and engagement do predict
their own and each other’s marital satisfaction and changes therein. As our findings sug-
gest that the associations between couples’ emotional behaviors and marital satisfaction
are sensitive to spouses’ developmental stage, researchers and clinicians should give care-
ful consideration to the sometimes surprising and counterintuitive role of couples’ affect
as they seek to improve marriage in later life (Carstensen, 1992). Further, considering
who is expressing the positive and negative affect appears to be important as well, as the
results of this study suggest that whether it is husbands or wives that are demonstrating
these behaviors can shape older couples’ marital experiences. Although future work is
needed to understand how distressed, clinical couples may communicate differently from
nondistressed couples in a relationship narrative task, we propose that this type of task
may prove useful to therapists to assess and improve marital satisfaction. Given the
robust findings of our narrative study of older couples, researchers should continue to
explore how couples in later life reflect upon their time together and how tapping into
their meta marriage can help to improve the quality of their lives together.

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