Wang Jing, Natsuaki Misaki N, Neiderhiser Jenae M, Shaw Daniel S, Ganiban Jody, Leve Leslie D
Department of Psychology, Central China Normal University.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside.
Dev Psychol. 2025 Jul;61(7):1275-1291. doi: 10.1037/dev0001925. Epub 2025 Feb 3.
Parents bring their preparenthood experiences into their family relationships, which may have a persistent impact on family dynamics. One such significant experience is infertility, often shared by both partners but differentially experienced by women and men. Using a prospective longitudinal study of adoptive parents with a history of infertility challenges who later adopted a child ( = 461, 91% White), we aimed to (a) examine the impact of preparenthood infertility distress on heterosexual couples' perceived marital instability trajectories in the 11 years of parenthood and (b) test whether social support from their partner and other sources would moderate the impact of infertility distress. Results revealed cubic curves of marital instability for mothers and fathers during parenthood, where marital instability increased from the child age of 9 months to 4-5 years, then decreased till 8-9 years, followed by another increase to 11 years. Mothers' preparenthood infertility distress predicted higher marital instability after child age of 4.5 years, and their satisfaction with partner support mitigated this association. No such effect was identified for fathers. Overall, results indicated that mothers' infertility distress experienced before becoming a parent of their adopted child serves as a risk factor for marital instability in the long term. Moreover, partner support is an important buffer against this risk. This study underscores the importance of considering parents' preparenthood personal history in later family functioning. Discussion elaborates on the differing results for women and men and the implications for future research and intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
父母将他们为人父母之前的经历带入家庭关系中，这可能会对家庭动态产生持久影响。其中一个重要经历就是不孕不育，夫妻双方通常都会经历，但女性和男性的感受有所不同。我们对有不孕不育挑战经历且后来收养了孩子的养父母进行了一项前瞻性纵向研究（ = 461，91%为白人），旨在：(a) 研究为人父母前的不孕不育困扰对异性恋夫妻在为人父母的11年中所感知到的婚姻不稳定轨迹的影响；(b) 测试来自伴侣和其他来源的社会支持是否会缓和不孕不育困扰的影响。结果显示，在为人父母期间，母亲和父亲的婚姻不稳定呈现出三次曲线，婚姻不稳定从孩子9个月大时开始上升，到4 - 5岁时达到顶峰，然后下降直到8 - 9岁，之后又上升到11岁。母亲为人父母前的不孕不育困扰预示着孩子4.5岁后婚姻不稳定程度会更高，而她们对伴侣支持的满意度减轻了这种关联。在父亲身上未发现此类影响。总体而言，结果表明，母亲在成为收养孩子的父母之前经历的不孕不育困扰是长期婚姻不稳定的一个风险因素。此外，伴侣支持是抵御这种风险的重要缓冲。这项研究强调了在后续家庭功能中考虑父母为人父母前个人经历的重要性。讨论阐述了男女结果的差异以及对未来研究和干预的启示。（PsycInfo数据库记录 (c) 2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
