COUPLES COCONSTRUCTION OF THE STORY OF THEIR CHILDS BIRTH - ASSOCIATIONS WITH MARITAL ADAPTATION

Recent research showing links between family narratives and emotional adaptation has raised questions regarding the significance of the cohe rence of marital narratives for couple adaptation, the important disti nction between the narratives couples co-construct and the dyadic proc ess during the co-construction, and the roles of individual psychologi cal functioning and marital functioning in co-constructed narratives. In order to address these questions, we investigated the associations between couples' narratives about the birth of their child and their m arital satisfaction and individual psychological wellbeing at the time the narrative was constructed as well as 1 and 2 years later. Results show that the emotional coherence of couples' narratives was associat ed with their marital satisfaction at the time the narrative was const ructed as well as 1 and 2 years later, and similar results were found regarding the emotional expressiveness of the narratives. These associ ations remained significant when the individual psychological distress of marital partners was held constant and suggest that co-constructed marital narratives are important windows into marital relationships.