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. 2017 Jul 12;58(4):663–673. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnx021

Parental Support of Adult Children and Middle-Aged Couples’ Marital Satisfaction

Courtney A Polenick 1,✉, Kira S Birditt 2, Steven H Zarit 3
PMCID: PMC6044335  PMID: 28977368

Abstract

Background and Objectives

Middle-aged adults commonly provide support to grown offspring. Yet little is known about how parental support may be related to parents’ marital quality at midlife. This study explored couple patterns of support given to adult children and their implications for marital satisfaction.

Research Design and Methods

In a sample of 197 middle-aged couples from Wave 2 of the Family Exchanges Study, we estimated actor–partner interdependence models to evaluate the links between each spouse’s reports of tangible and nontangible support given to adult children and their marital satisfaction.

Results

Wives and husbands were more satisfied with their marriage when they and their partner gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children. By contrast, wives and husbands were less satisfied with their marriage when they gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children and their partner gave low levels of this support.

Discussion and Implications

Findings shed light on the conditions under which support given to adult offspring may enhance or undermine marital quality. This study highlights the value of considering both individual and couple-level characteristics of parent–child relationships and their potential consequences for midlife couples.

Keywords: Parent/child relationships, Intergenerational relationships, Marriage, Family issues

Parents maintain strong bonds with their children throughout the life course and often continue to support grown offspring through emotional aid, practical help, and financial assistance (Fingerman et al., 2011). The parental support role commonly intersects with parents’ marital relationship (e.g., Carlson, Pilkauskas, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2011; Lee, Zarit, Rovine, Birditt, & Fingerman, 2016), and so the help wives and husbands give to adult children may be linked to both spouses’ marital satisfaction. Helping adult children is often highly rewarding (Fingerman, Kim, Tennant, Birditt, & Zarit, 2015; Fingerman et al., 2011), but may also contribute to marital strain. Research on marriage and parental support to young children, for instance, shows that couples who work together as parents have better marital relationships, whereas couples who lack a cohesive approach to parenting report more tension and hostility within the marriage (Feinberg, 2003). To date, however, the implications of parental support for marital quality during midlife remain virtually unexplored. Given the lifelong importance of the parent–child tie for middle-aged couples’ well-being and functioning (Davis, Kim, & Fingerman, 2016; Lee et al., 2016), it is critical to shed light on the broader implications of parental support within aging families.

Guided by family systems and interdependence perspectives, this study explored dyadic associations between middle-aged wives’ and husbands’ provision of tangible and nontangible support to adult children and their marital satisfaction. We also considered whether the frequency of support one’s partner gave to grown offspring moderated the link between one’s own parental support and marital satisfaction.

Parental Support and Marital Satisfaction

According to family systems theory, wives’ and husbands’ interactions with their children often contribute to tension within their marriage (Bowen, 1978). Parent–child relationships and marital relationships are interrelated and interdependent; thus, there are reciprocal associations between each spouse’s parental engagement and marital quality (e.g., Erel & Burman, 1995). Spouses may be discordant in how they parent their young children, for example, which is bidirectionally linked to lower marital satisfaction (Kolak & Volling, 2007; Morrill, Hines, Mahmood, & Cordova, 2010).

Furthermore, interdependence theory implies that spouses affect and are affected by one another’s intergenerational experiences (Rusbult & Van Lange, 2008). Supporting this view, previous work has shown that wives’ and husbands’ normative and motivational beliefs about helping aging parents (Polenick, Seidel, Birditt, Zarit, & Fingerman, 2015; Polenick et al., 2017) and perceptions of relationship quality with adult children (Lee et al., 2016) have implications for both spouses’ marital satisfaction. As such, the frequency of support that spouses give to grown offspring may be linked to satisfaction within the marriage. Couple-level patterns (i.e., similarity vs discrepancies) of parental support may also be consequential for marital quality.

Help Given to Adult Children at Midlife

Prior research has emphasized the implications of supporting young children for parents’ marital satisfaction. We propose that extending this line of inquiry to midlife couples’ support of grown offspring is timely and important for at least four reasons. First, research indicates that parental support of grown offspring has increased over the past decade (Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe, Birditt, & Zarit, 2012). One study found, for example, that middle-aged parents give weekly support to adult children on average (Fingerman et al., 2015). The provision of this support is therefore likely to be a salient and enduring aspect of marriage for midlife couples. Second, middle-aged couples also encounter the normative need to help aging parents due to declines in parents’ health and functioning (Fingerman et al., 2011). Support given to grown offspring may in turn place a strain on resources that leads to marital tension. Moreover, spouses may disagree on when and how often adult children should receive support, which may further contribute to discord in the marriage. Third, although wives typically give more frequent family support than husbands, wives and husbands give a similar amount of help to adult children during middle and later life (Kahn, McGill, & Bianchi, 2011). Consequently, it is critical to consider how the help that each spouse gives to grown offspring may be linked to marital quality. Fourth, in addition to responding to the support needs of both older and younger generations, middle-aged individuals and couples manage other social roles (e.g., employee, spouse). They also face significant life course transitions such as becoming ‘empty nesters,’ having grandchildren, and preparing for retirement (Lachman, 2004). Furthermore, middle-aged adults cope with physical and psychological challenges associated with aging such as the development of chronic conditions that may increase their own need for family support and compromise their ability to give intergenerational assistance (Lachman, 2004). Taken together, midlife couples experience a multitude of life course changes and competing demands that may complicate the provision of support to grown offspring and intensify its consequences for their marriage and well-being as they grow older.

Theoretical and empirical work generally suggests that spouses may be less satisfied with their marriage when they or their partner provide frequent family support because this support detracts time and energy from the couple’s relationship (e.g., Bowen, 1978; Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003; Polenick et al., 2017). Spouses may also be more involved with these family members in part to obtain affection that compensates for an unsatisfying marriage (Rusbult & Buunk, 1993). It is plausible, however, that one’s partner’s patterns of family support may buffer or exacerbate these processes. When a husband or wife gives frequent support to adult children, for instance, marital strain may be attenuated when his or her partner also gives high levels of parental support because this likely reflects spouses’ shared investment in helping grown offspring. By contrast, giving frequent support to adult children may be especially detrimental to marital quality when one’s partner gives infrequent parental support because this implies an imbalanced commitment to helping offspring that may be a source of tension. Indeed, prior work has demonstrated that middle-aged wives and husbands report less marital satisfaction when they give more support to their own parents than their partner gives to his or her own parents (Lee, Zarit, Rovine, Birditt, & Fingerman, 2012). Hence, taking a couple-level approach facilitates a deeper understanding of how parental support is linked to marital satisfaction.

Implications of Tangible and Nontangible Support for Marital Satisfaction

Scholars have argued that instrumental and emotional types of social support are distinct and should be examined separately when considering their implications for families (e.g., Antonucci, Birditt, Sherman, & Trinh, 2011; House, Umberson, & Landis, 1988). Thus, we considered two types of parental support. Tangible support includes the provision of material support (e.g., preparing meals, giving or loaning money). By contrast, nontangible support involves giving advice, emotional aid, and companionship.

In line with family systems perspectives, we propose that more frequent provision of tangible and nontangible support to adult children may be linked to less satisfaction with marriage. We are not aware of any previous research comparing the associations between each type of parental support and marital quality. We suggest, however, that giving nontangible parental support may be particularly consequential for marital satisfaction. Frequent provision of nontangible support to adult children suggests parents’ feelings of intergenerational affection and closeness, which is related to greater contact and high levels of investment within these ties (Fingerman, Sechrist, & Birditt, 2013). Such emotional investment may render this type of support especially likely to compete with time and energy directed toward the marriage.

Potential Differences Between Wives and Husbands

Compared with men, women encounter more societal expectation to provide family support and experience more strain in managing their numerous family roles (Stephens, Franks, Martire, Norton, & Atienza, 2009). These feelings of strain may spill over to adversely affect marital quality. In accord with this possibility, research indicates that wives who feel higher obligation to help aging parents report lower marital satisfaction, whereas this association is not present for husbands (Polenick et al., 2015). Furthermore, relative to women, men depend more on their partner to satisfy their social support needs (Antonucci, 2001). Husbands may therefore be less satisfied with their marriage when wives give more frequent parental support because this support interferes with the time wives devote to the marriage. Collectively, the literature implies that the support wives give to adult children may especially undermine both spouses’ marital satisfaction. But given the greater centrality of intergenerational support roles for women, within-couple patterns of parental support may be more salient to marital satisfaction for wives than for husbands.

The Present Study

In this study, we examined associations between the tangible and nontangible support that middle-aged couples gave to adult children and their marital satisfaction. We used dyadic data analysis to simultaneously explore the implications of individual and partner patterns of parental support for marital satisfaction. We focused on two main questions:

  • 1) Is the everyday support that wives’ and husbands’ give to adult children linked to their own and their partner’s marital satisfaction?

We predicted that more frequent parental support would be associated with lower marital satisfaction reported by individuals and partners.

  • 2) Does the parental support provided by one’s partner moderate the links between one’s own support given to adult children and marital satisfaction?

We predicted that the associations between one’s own more frequent parental support and marital satisfaction would be buffered when one’s partner gave high levels of support but exacerbated when one’s partner gave low levels of support.

With regard to potential differences in the pattern of findings, we predicted that the provision of nontangible support would be more salient to marital satisfaction than tangible support. We also predicted that wives’ provision of parental support would be more strongly linked to their own and their husband’s marital satisfaction than husbands’ provision of parental support. Finally, we predicted that the moderating effects of one’s partner’s parental support would be significantly stronger for wives than for husbands.

Method

Participants

The sample included heterosexual married couples drawn from Wave 2 of the Family Exchanges Study (Fingerman et al., 2011). In Wave 1 (2008), couples were recruited from the Philadelphia Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area in two steps. First, an eligible target participant was identified within each household and contacted via telephone using lists purchased from Genesys Corporation and random digit dialing in regional area codes. Individuals were eligible if they were aged 40–60 years, had at least one living parent, and had at least one child aged 18 or older. Of 845 eligible target participants, 633 (75%) completed an interview. Next, target participants were asked to provide contact information for their spouse if they were married, and spouses shared parenthood of adult offspring. Of the 633 participants, 335 (51%) were married and 287 (86%) agreed for their spouse to be contacted. Of these spouses, 197 (71%) completed interviews. Thus, 197 couples participated in Wave 1.

Of the 197 couples who participated in Wave 1, 163 were interviewed in Wave 2 (2013). Additionally, 127 spouses of target participants from Wave 1 were identified at Wave 2 who were either new partners or had not been interviewed during Wave 1. Of these spouses, 72 (57%) agreed to participate. In total, 219 couples were interviewed at Wave 2. Of these couples, 11 were divorced, 2 were separated, 4 had never married, and 2 were cohabiting. Hence, 200 married couples participated at Wave 2. In three couples, partners had missing data on key study variables. Our analyses therefore focused on 197 married couples from Wave 2. Table 1 presents background characteristics for these couples, along with means and standard deviations for major variables. Of the 160 couples for whom data on marital duration were available, couples had been married for 27.87 years (SD = 9.20, range = 2–47) on average. Marital duration and marital satisfaction were positively correlated for these couples (r = .14, p = .01).

Table 1.

Background Characteristics and Scores on Key Variables for Wives and Husbands

Wives Husbands
Characteristic M SD M SD
 Age in years 55.59*** 4.69 57.68 5.70
 Education in years 14.53 2.21 14.72 1.96
 Positive relationship quality with childrena 4.08 0.70 4.09 0.69
 Negative relationship quality with childrenb 2.06 0.67 2.05 0.73
 Depressive symptomsc 1.41 0.60 1.40 0.58
 Tangible parental supportd 3.52 1.32 3.63 1.37
 Nontangible parental supporte 5.16*** 1.29 4.86 1.26
 Marital satisfactionf 3.99** 1.02 4.20 0.79
Proportions
Minority statusg 0.22 0.22
Self-reported ethnicity
 Non-Hispanic White 0.77 0.77
 African American 0.18 0.19
 Hispanic 0.02 0.01
Work status
 Full-time 0.55 0.70
 Part-time 0.18 0.06
 Homemaker 0.07 0.00
 Retired 0.07 0.13
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Note: N = 197 married couples.

aMean of two items rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). bMean of two items rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). cMean of five items rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). dMean frequency of two types of tangible support given to adult children from 1 (less than once a year or not at all) to 8 (daily). eMean frequency of four types of nontangible support given to adult children from 1 (less than once a year or not at all) to 8 (daily). fOne item rated from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). g1 = racial/ethnic minority, −1 = non-Hispanic White.

*A significant difference between wives and husbands at p ≤ .05. **A significant difference between wives and husbands at p ≤ .01. ***A significant difference between wives and husbands at p ≤ .001.

Target participants reported on up to four focal children aged 18 and older about whom they and their spouse answered a series of questions. At Wave 1, target participants reported on up to three children aged 18 and older. Most participants (88%) had three or fewer adult children, and so they provided information on all of them. Participants with more than three adult children (12%) reported on the child to whom they provided the most support, the child to whom they provided the least support, and a randomly selected child. At Wave 2, participants reported on these children along with any new children who were too young to participate at Wave 1. Participants could report on up to four adult children at Wave 2. In this study, couples reported on a mean of 2.32 focal adult children (SD = 0.88, range = 1–4).

Measures

Support Given to Adult Children

Six types of tangible and nontangible support given to adult children were assessed using the Intergenerational Support Index (Fingerman et al., 2011). Tangible support included practical help and financial assistance, whereas nontangible support included emotional aid, socializing, giving advice, and listening to the child talk about daily events. Participants reported how often they gave each type of support from 1 (less than once a year or not at all) to 8 (daily). Scores represented the mean of separate reports for each adult focal child. Alpha reliabilities for nontangible support were .86 and .84 for wives and husbands, respectively. The Spearman–Brown estimate is recommended as the appropriate reliability coefficient for two-item scales (Eisinga, Grotenhuis, & Pelzer, 2013). Tangible support items showed acceptable reliability for wives (.66) and husbands (.63).

Marital Satisfaction

Consistent with items commonly used in prior research to assess global marital satisfaction (Fincham & Bradbury, 1987; Funk & Rogge, 2007), participants rated how satisfied they were with their marriage from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). Although single-item measures are not ideal, scholars have argued that marital satisfaction is best measured as an overall evaluation of the quality of one’s marriage (Fincham & Bradbury, 1987).

Control Variables

On the basis of research demonstrating a significant association between psychological well-being and marital satisfaction (Proulx, Helms, & Buehler, 2007), we controlled for own and partner depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were assessed with five items from the Brief Symptom Inventory (Derogatis & Melisarator, 1983). Participants reported how distressed or bothered they were over the past week by symptoms of depression (e.g., feeling lonely, feeling no interest in things) from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). Alpha reliabilities were .84 for wives and .82 for husbands.

We took into account additional variables to contextualize couples’ relationships with adult children, including the mean age of adult focal children (M = 27.83, SD = 5.15, range = 20.50–44.00). Positive and negative relationship quality was assessed separately with four widely used items in the literature on aging families (Birditt, Tighe, Fingerman, & Zarit, 2012). For positive qualities, participants rated (a) how much they felt loved and cared for by each child and (b) how much they felt understood by each child. For negative qualities, participants rated (a) how much criticism they receive from each child and (b) how much demands each child makes on them. Items were rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). Mean positive and negative quality scores were created and then averaged across all focal children. Spearman–Brown estimates were acceptable for positive (wives = .69, husbands = .72) and negative (wives = .50, husbands = .69) qualities (see Table 1). Some of the coefficients appear low; but two-item scales often have lower reliability (Eisinga et al., 2013), and the estimates in this study are similar to those reported in other research using these scales (e.g., Birditt et al., 2012). We also considered whether couples had an adult stepchild (1 = one or more adult stepchildren, −1 = no adult stepchildren) and whether they had an adult child residing in their household (1 = one or more adult children coresiding, −1 = no adult children coresiding). On average, 22% of couples had one or more stepchildren. A total of 43% had one or more adult children living at home.

Analytic Strategy

To control for the nonindependence within couples, actor–partner interdependence models (APIM; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006) were estimated with the MIXED procedure in SPSS Version 22. The APIM combines a conceptual model of relational interdependence with statistical procedures that facilitate the simultaneous evaluation of own and partner influences. In this study, actor effects refer to the extent to which the frequency of support given to adult children is associated with own marital satisfaction (e.g., wives’ support predicting wives’ satisfaction). By contrast, partner effects refer to the extent to which the support partners provide to adult children is associated with own marital satisfaction (e.g., wives’ support predicting husbands’ satisfaction).

APIM Analyses

Separate hierarchical models were estimated for tangible parental support and nontangible parental support. Spouse gender was included as a distinguishing variable (1 = wife, −1 = husband) to estimate separate intercepts and slopes for wives and husbands (Kenny et al., 2006). This enabled the examination of actor and partner effects for both spouses. Covariates (own and partner depressive symptoms) were entered in the first step of the models. We then entered own and partner reports of parental support in the second step to determine the implications of each spouse’s provision of parental support for marital satisfaction.

In the third step of the models, we entered an actor–partner interaction term to consider the moderating role of one’s partner’s support given to adult children on the link between one’s own parental support and marital satisfaction (actor parental support × partner parental support). To examine the nature of significant actor–partner interactions, we used the Johnson–Neyman region of significance approach (Johnson & Fay, 1950; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). In contrast to the pick-a-point approach, this method identifies the full range of moderator values for which the slopes are significant. Values that fall above and below the region of significance are considered to be statistically significant. Thus, we were able to determine the range of parental support levels at which help given to adult children was associated with marital satisfaction.

Finally, we estimated each hierarchical model with a single intercept to determine whether there were significant gender differences within couples for actor effects, partner effects, and actor–partner interactions. The ability to evaluate gender differences between wives and husbands in the same model is a major advantage of the APIM approach (Kenny et al., 2006).

Results

We first examined bivariate associations among major study variables in preliminary analyses (see Table 2). Compared with husbands, wives gave more frequent nontangible parental support (t(196) = 3.28, p = .001). There were no spousal differences in the provision of tangible support to adult children (t(196) = −1.19, p = .24).

Table 2.

Dyadic Pearson Correlations Among Wives’ and Husbands’ Scores

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Wife depressive symptoms
2. Husband depressive symptoms .17*
3. Wife tangible parental support −.08 .15*
4. Husband tangible parental support −.01 .12 .51***
5. Wife nontangible parental support −.11 .12 .72*** .42***
6. Husband nontangible parental support −.08 −.01 .37*** .56*** .50***
7. Wife marital satisfaction −.50*** −.10 .07 .002 .06 .03
8. Husband marital satisfaction −.14* −.40*** −.04 −.05 .01 .06 .32***
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Note: N = 197 married couples.

*p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001.

Associations Between Support Given to Adult Children and Marital Satisfaction

Wives’ Marital Satisfaction

As shown in Table 3, there were no significant direct associations between the support that wives or husbands gave to adult children and wives’ marital satisfaction. But husbands’ nontangible parental support moderated the link between wives’ own nontangible support and satisfaction with marriage (B = .08, p = .02). The region of significance was −3.17 to 1.64 for centered nontangible support scores (see Figure 1), which corresponds to raw scores ranging from 1.85 to 6.65. Scores above and below this region are statistically significant at p < .05. Wives were significantly less satisfied with their marriage when they gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children and their husband gave this support once per year or less (i.e., support scores less than 1.85). Wives were significantly more satisfied with their marriage, however, when they gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children and their husband gave this support at least a few times per week (i.e., support scores greater than 6.65).

Table 3.

Associations Between Own and Partner Parental Support and Marital Satisfaction for Wives and Husbands

Wives’ marital satisfaction Husbands’ marital satisfaction
Model 1: Tangible support Model 2: Nontangible support Model 1: Tangible support Model 2: Nontangible support
Estimate B SE B SE B SE B SE
Step 1
 Actor depressive symptoms −.84*** .11 — — −.53*** .09 — —
 Partner depressive symptoms −.02 .11 — — −.10 .09 — —
 Pseudo-R2 .24 — .16 —
Step 2
 Actor parental support .04 .06 .01 .06 −.01 .04 .02 .05
 Partner parental support −.02 .05 −.01 .06 .01 .05 .02 .05
 Pseudo-R2 .23 .23 .15 .15
Step 3
 Actor support × partner support .01 .03 .08* .03 −.01 .03 .08** .03
 Pseudo-R2 .23 .25 .15 .19
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Notes: Actor = own report; Partner = spouse report. Model 1 = actor and partner tangible support as predictors. Model 2 = actor and partner nontangible support as predictors. Separate models were estimated for tangible support and nontangible support. N = 197 married couples.

*p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Confidence bands for the observed sample values of husbands’ nontangible parental support and the simple slope for wives’ own nontangible parental support on their marital satisfaction. The area outside the dotted lines represents statistical significance at p < .05.

Husbands’ Marital Satisfaction

Similarly, Table 3 shows there were no significant direct associations between the support that husbands or wives gave to adult children and husbands’ marital satisfaction. But wives’ nontangible support moderated the association between husbands’ nontangible support and marital satisfaction (B = .08, p = .003). The region of significance was −1.84 to 1.32 for centered nontangible support scores (see Figure 2), aligning with raw scores ranging from 3.17 to 6.32. Scores above and below this region are statistically significant at p < .05. Thus, husbands were significantly less satisfied with their marriage when they gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children and their wife gave this support a few times per year or less (i.e., support scores less than 3.17). Husbands were significantly more satisfied with their marriage, however, when they gave more frequent nontangible support to adult children and their wife also provided this support at least on a weekly basis (i.e., support scores greater than 6.32).

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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Confidence bands for the observed sample values of wives’ nontangible parental support and the simple slope for husbands’ own nontangible parental support on their marital satisfaction. The area outside the dotted lines represents statistical significance at p < .05.

Gender Differences in the Links Between Parental Support and Marital Satisfaction

There were no significant differences between wives and husbands in the associations between their own and their partner’s tangible or nontangible support given to adult children (analysis not shown). Likewise, there were no significant gender differences in the moderating effects of one’s partner’s tangible or nontangible parental support on the link between one’s own support and marital satisfaction (analysis not shown). Hence, individual- and couple-level patterns of parental support were not substantially different for wives and husbands.

Post hoc Tests

To account for family background variables, we estimated models controlling for the number of adult focal children, mean age of adult focal children, mean positive and negative relationship quality with adult focal children, whether one or more adult focal children was a stepchild, and whether one or more adult focal children resided with the couple. We also estimated models with the two tangible support items (practical and financial support) as separate predictors. The pattern of findings did not change, demonstrating their stability.

Discussion

Taking a family systems approach, the present study demonstrates that parental support of adult children has implications for marital quality during midlife. This study advances the literature on the intersection of parent–child relationships and marital relationships by considering how the tangible and nontangible support that each spouse gives to grown offspring is linked to their own and their partner’s satisfaction with marriage. Overall, findings suggest that within-couple patterns of nontangible support given to adult children are consequential for middle-aged couples’ marital satisfaction.

Support Given to Adult Children and Marital Satisfaction

For both wives and husbands, more frequent nontangible support given to adult children was linked to greater marital satisfaction when their partner gave high levels of this support. It is likely that spouses who both give more nontangible parental support share similar family values and a joint investment in sustaining emotionally close and supportive ties with adult children. This shared commitment may in turn benefit marital quality. Indeed, similarity in spouses’ values and perceptions of responsibility to help family members has been associated with marital satisfaction (Gaunt, 2006; Polenick et al., 2015). Spouses who each provide frequent nontangible parental support may also benefit from experiential similarity, a principle of homophily theory that likely fosters a closer and more satisfying marriage through shared experiences (Suitor, Pillemer, & Keeton, 1995; Thoits, 2011). Furthermore, spouses who both give frequent nontangible parental support may perceive their marriage as more equitable with regard to meeting the emotional needs of their offspring, which may contribute to each partner’s favorable views of marital quality (Hatfield & Rapson, 2011).

Another possibility is that the positive aspects of supporting adult children may spill over to enhance the marriage. Helping grown offspring is often personally rewarding for middle-aged parents (Fingerman et al., 2011), and providing this support has been linked to parents’ greater positive mood (Fingerman et al., 2015). Considering the interdependence among family relationships (e.g., Bowen, 1978; Polenick et al., 2017; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2008), these psychological benefits may extend to spousal interactions and how partners view their marriage. Spouses who both give more nontangible help to adult children may also be more emotionally supportive of each other in a way that strengthens feelings of affection and closeness in the marriage. In support of this possibility, research on young adult couples in the early years of parenting found that wives’ and husbands’ perceptions of a higher quality marital relationship (e.g., feeling that their partner understands, listens, and expresses love) predicted greater parental engagement (e.g., playing with children; Carlson et al., 2011).

Of note, wives’ own more frequent nontangible support given to adult children was only associated with their own greater marital satisfaction when husbands gave particularly high levels of this support (i.e., a few times per week or more). Research shows that compared with men, women tend to give more frequent emotional support within their families (Antonucci, 2001). Mirroring these previous findings, husbands in the current sample gave significantly less nontangible aid to adult children than did wives. It therefore appears that nontangible help given to adult children may only enhance wives’ satisfaction with their marriage when the support that husbands provide is well above the norm.

Wives’ and husbands’ more frequent nontangible support given to adult children was linked to less marital satisfaction, however, when their partner gave very low levels of this support (i.e., once per year or less for wives and a few times per year or less for husbands). This pattern suggests that parental support may only be linked to poorer quality marital relationships among couples who are highly discordant in their provision of nontangible aid to adult offspring. These findings are consistent with research showing worse marital quality among couples who are discordant in how they parent their young children (Feinberg, 2003; Kolak & Volling, 2007) and couples who are discordant in the frequency of everyday support to given to aging parents (Lee et al., 2012). Such couples may experience more conflict or tension related to their ties with adult children and/or may have stark differences in other areas (e.g., values, beliefs about family support) that contribute to less marital satisfaction (Gaunt, 2006; Polenick et al., 2015).

Interestingly, we found no significant gender differences in the moderating effects of partners’ nontangible parental support. We anticipated that within-couple patterns of parental support would be especially salient to wives’ satisfaction with marriage because of the greater centrality of intergenerational ties for women than men (Stephens et al., 2009). Findings instead bolster other work suggesting that the parental support role may grow less gender-differentiated as couples enter middle and later life (Kahn et al., 2011).

In accord with the hypothesis, nontangible support given to adult children was more salient to satisfaction with the marital relationship than tangible parental support. Hence, the findings imply that emotional types of parental support (e.g., listening to children’s concerns, giving advice) matter more for satisfaction with marriage than instrumental types of parental support (e.g., helping with children’s finances or household chores). Parents who provide frequent nontangible support to adult children likely share strong emotional bonds and high levels of investment within these ties (Fingerman et al., 2013). Consequently, giving emotional aid to adult children may be an especially meaningful aspect of the parental role at midlife that holds particular salience for the parents’ marriage and the wider family system.

Strengths and Limitations

Strengths of this study include our focus on parental support provided by midlife couples, data collected on the same measures for wives and husbands, the use of dyadic data analysis to account for spousal interdependence and test for gender differences, and the examination of how within-couple patterns of support given to adult children are linked to marital satisfaction. Furthermore, we considered the differential implications of tangible and nontangible types of assistance, which allowed us to paint a more nuanced picture of the linkages between parental support and satisfaction within the marriage. Importantly, post hoc tests revealed that the findings held even when we controlled for family characteristics, including the number of adult children and whether adult children currently resided with the couple. Couple-level patterns of nontangible support given to grown offspring therefore appear to have robust associations with marital satisfaction at midlife.

Notwithstanding these attributes, this study has several limitations. First, cross-sectional analyses precluded the determination of causal associations. It may be, for instance, that wives and husbands in satisfying marriages are more likely to share high levels of engagement in providing frequent nontangible parental support. Second, overall, wives and husbands were highly satisfied with their marriages. Consequently, the findings may not apply to couples in more distressed marriages. Third, rates of coresidence with adult offspring were relatively high. Grown children often live with parents because of problems that heighten their need for assistance (Davis et al., 2016), and coresidence in turn increases opportunities for parental support. The present findings may therefore not generalize to samples with lower rates of coresidence. Fourth, the sample was mostly non-Hispanic White. Norms about parental support of adult children vary across cultural contexts (Fingerman, VanderDrift, Dotterer, Birditt, & Zarit, 2011), and so future studies should evaluate whether the findings generalize to more ethnically and culturally diverse couples. Finally, findings are specific to middle-aged couples and may not generalize to older couples. Marital quality may become increasingly important for health and well-being with age (Robles, Slatcher, Trombello, & McGinn, 2014). Thus, it will be critical for future work to examine whether the present findings are observed in late life, a time when intergenerational support continues to flow predominantly from parents to children until the parents near the end of their lives (Fingerman et al., 2013). Despite these limitations, this study paves the way for future research to gain more in-depth knowledge of how spouses’ provision of support to adult children is linked to marital quality in midlife and beyond.

Practical Implications and Future Directions

This study has a number of practical implications for future clinical work with middle-aged couples. Research on couple-based interventions thus far has largely focused on how the early years of parenthood affect satisfaction within the marriage (e.g., Feinberg, Jones, Roettger, Solmeyer, & Hostetler, 2014; Shapiro, Gottman, & Fink, 2015). Yet as this and other studies have shown (e.g., Davis et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2016), spouses’ experiences in their parental roles remain salient to marital quality across the life course. Hence, attention to both individual and within-couple patterns of support given to adult children in a therapeutic context may help clinicians to identify problematic areas (e.g., disagreements about parental support) as well as sources of strength in the marriage (e.g., working together to help an adult child). This approach may be particularly useful in therapy with distressed married couples.

Relatedly, the present findings have implications for proactive relationship education programs to promote positive marital functioning in middle-aged couples. On average, parents today give more support to adult children compared with parents in the past century (Fingerman, Cheng, Tighe, et al., 2012). It is worth noting, however, that there are few normative guidelines on when and how often this help should be provided. Moreover, supporting grown offspring is often portrayed by the popular media as aberrant and/or harmful to the offspring’s well-being (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann, et al., 2012). As a consequence, even nondistressed couples may have difficulty navigating their roles as parents during midlife. Relationship education programs that prepare and guide couples in handling the potential challenges of parenting an adult child may be helpful. Couple-based educational programs focused on the transition to parenthood have demonstrated numerous positive outcomes for families, including better couple communication skills (Shapiro et al., 2015) and long-term gains in children’s emotional and behavioral adjustment (Feinberg et al., 2014). Similarly, programs that educate midlife couples on ways to effectively manage relationships with children as their offspring enter young adulthood may be highly beneficial for families. These programs could address complex issues such as ways to help adult children without undermining their autonomy as well as whether and how to intervene when offspring experience life problems.

Along with these practical implications, this study poses important considerations for public policy. The associations between parental support and marital satisfaction are likely bidirectional (e.g., Erel & Burman, 1995). Thus, beyond the well-established benefits of high marital quality for couples’ health and well-being (Proulx et al., 2007; Robles et al., 2014), this study suggests that better quality marriages may have societal advantages that extend to adult offspring. Specifically, middle-aged wives and husbands who are happier with their marriages may be more likely to work together to effectively help grown children launch their independent lives. Given the psychological benefits of parental aid for adult offspring (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann, et al., 2012), along with the economic challenges (e.g., unemployment, low wages, college debt) currently encountered by many young people, high-quality marriages during midlife may be a key societal resource that empowers young adults with the emotional support needed to become autonomous and successful members of their communities.

Future studies should explore factors that may explain the present findings. In particular, each spouse’s perceptions of the couple’s parental support patterns may be useful to examine. Wives and husbands may be happier with their relationship, for example, when they each give frequent nontangible parental support because they feel their partner is willing to contribute to shared goals in the marriage. Partners may also view one another’s parental support as too much or too little in frequency, which could affect marital functioning. Perceptions of parental support may be more consequential for middle-aged adults’ well-being than the amount of support provided (Fingerman, Cheng, Wesselmann, et al., 2012), and so future studies should consider how each spouse’s views of the tangible and nontangible support they and their partner provide to adult children are linked to marital satisfaction.

In sum, the present study provides evidence that within-couple patterns of everyday support given to adult children have significant implications for wives’ and husbands’ marital satisfaction at midlife. Findings underscore the value of examining both individual- and couple-level processes in understanding how parent–child relationships and marital relationships intersect within aging families.

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), R01AG027769, Family Exchanges Study II, Psychology of Intergenerational Transfers (Karen L. Fingerman, principal investigator). The MacArthur Network on an Aging Society (John W. Rowe, network director) provided funds. This research also was supported by grant 5 R24 HD042849 awarded to the Population Research Center (PRC) at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). C. A. Polenick was supported by training grant T32 MH073553-11 (Stephen J. Bartels, principal investigator) from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Conflict of Interest

None reported.

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