Chronic Stress as a Moderator of the Association between Depressive Symptoms and Marital Satisfaction

In a two-year study of 190 newlywed couples, multi-level contemporaneous and time-lagged models indicated that marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms covaried over time, but only marital satisfaction predicted subsequent changes in depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms did not predict subsequent changes in marital satisfaction. Average levels of chronic stress moderated the contemporaneous association between marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms as an outcome; for husbands, higher average non-marital stress (but not marital stress) strengthened the association and for wives, higher marital stress (but not non-marital stress) strengthened the association. The contemporaneous association between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction as an outcome strengthened when marital stress was higher (for wives only), but contrary to prediction, the association weakened for both spouses when non-marital chronic stress was higher. Chronic stress (marital or non-marital) did not moderate time-lagged associations. Results highlight the role of marital and broader social contexts on the reciprocal associations between marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms.