The Effects of Lack of Joint Goal Planning on Divorce over 10 Years.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27668863.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0163543 and PMC identifier 5036814.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Given the negative consequences of divorce on health and well-being, it is important to try to identify its predictors. In the current study we used data from the National Survey of Midlife Development (N = 2801) to examine the longitudinal effects of lack of joint goal planning with a romantic relationship partner on divorce over a 10-year period. Multilevel regression analyses showed that lack of joint planning with the relationship partner was associated with a 19% increase in the odds of divorce, even when controlling for various demographic (i.e., age, gender, relationship length, number of children in the household), individual (i.e., neuroticism, positive affect, negative affect, physical symptoms, planning), and relationship (i.e., marital empathy, partner strain, partner disagreement, marital satisfaction, commitment). These results demonstrate the importance of considering one's partner when making decisions and plans for the future, given that it has clear implications for relationship dissolution.