MARITAL SPIRITUAL INTIMACY PREDICTS COPARENTING PROCESSES ACROSS THE TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD

Daniel D. Flint

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2019

Committee:

Annette Mahoney, Advisor

Kenneth Pargament

Anne Gordon ii ABSTRACT

Annette Mahoney, Advisor

The present study used longitudinal data to quantify the psychological relationship between marital spiritual intimacy and three coparenting processes. Spiritual intimacy within a marriage is characterized by the quality and quantity of disclosures surrounding religious and spiritual issues and the degree to which these disclosures are met with empathetic support. The subjective experience of spiritual intimacy within a marital relationship is a combination of willingness to disclose and warmth upon reception of disclosure for both spouses. As the 164 married couples who participated in this study underwent the transition to first-time parenthood, they were assessed using self-report measures of marital spiritual intimacy as well as coparenting solidarity, support, and undermining. Solidarity and support refer to aspects of the degree in which a spouse feels like an encouraged member of a unified coparenting team. Meanwhile, undermining coparenting encapsulates behaviors and words that spouses may or may not employ that have the effect of damaging their spouse’s self-confidence about parenting choices or causing one to doubt the level of support they are receiving from their partner. At three time points (3 months, 6 months, and 12 months post-birth), couples' felt levels of spiritual intimacy and coparenting support, solidarity, and undermining were assessed. Using fixed effects regression, stable and unchanging characteristics about each participant were functionally eliminated when examining links over time between marital spiritual intimacy and coparenting processes. As expected, marital spiritual intimacy predicted higher levels of coparenting support and solidarity, and lower levels of undermining coparenting processes. The construct of spiritual iii intimacy is a largely un-examined variable in the psychological literature that could prove to be a potent predictor of adaptive marital, parental, and coparental outcomes. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d first like to take this opportunity to thank my committee for providing helpful feedback and stimulating discussion that has not only helped me to grow as a researcher, but as a clinician and as an individual. Specifically, Dr. Annette Mahoney has been a tireless editor, advisor, and teacher as I’ve grown from a nervous first-year student to an almost-semi- competent thesis defender. I am looking forward to the coming years at BGSU, as I continue to develop as a graduate student under her mentorship. To the researchers before me who worked to collect the data used for this project, I thank you. To my closest clinical cohort-mates Jenny

Grant, Emily Ferrell, Sarah Russin, and Rachel Hardy, as well as their handsome partners, I want to express how much I appreciate the friendships we’ve built over the past two years and the many little moments of comradery that make graduate school doable. Finally, I’d like to thank my wife for her practical and emotional support throughout these past two years and her promised coming support for the remainder of my time at BGSU. She is as wise as she is lovely. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 4

Modern Coparenting Research ...... 4

Historical Sketch of Coparenting Research ...... 4

Key Dimensions of Coparenting...... 6

Coparenting During the Transition to Parenthood ...... 8

Religion and Spirituality in Family Life: The Relational Spirituality Framework ... 11

The Relational Spirituality Framework: Stages of Family Relationships ...... 12

Specific Religious and Spiritual Mechanisms: Tiers ...... 13

The Relational Spirituality Framework and Coparenting ...... 14

Global R/S Variables and Desired Marital Outcomes ...... 14

Global R/S Variables Tied to Parenting Practices ...... 16

Global R/S Variables Tied to Coparenting...... 17

Spiritual Intimacy and Coparenting across the Transition to Parenthood...... 19

Defining and Reviewing the Construct of Spiritual Intimacy ...... 20

Development of the Construct of Spiritual Intimacy ...... 20

Spiritual Intimacy in the Present Study ...... 21

Extending the Study of Spiritual Intimacy to Coparenting Research ...... 23

HYPOTHESES ...... 25

METHODS ...... 26

Participants ...... 26 vi

Procedure ...... 27

Spiritual Intimacy...... 27

Coparenting…………………………………… …………………………………… 28

RESULTS ...... 30

Preliminary Analyses: Descriptive Statistics . ……………………………………… 30

Preliminary Analyses: Bivariate Correlations Among Coparenting Variables ...... 30

Preliminary Analyses: Bivariate Correlations Between Spiritual Intimacy and

Coparenting at Each Time Point ...... 30

Fixed Effects Analysis ...... 31

DISCUSSION ...... 34

Rationale for Spiritual Intimacy Predicting Coparenting ...... 34

Brief Review of Methodology ...... 37

Addition to the Literature ...... 38

Limitations ...... 39

Future Research and Application ...... 40

Conclusion ...... 42

REFERENCES ...... 44

APPENDIX A: SPIRITUAL INTIMACY ITEMS ...... 55

APPENDIX B: COPARENTING ITEMS ...... 56

APPENDIX C: TABLES ...... 58

APPENDIX D: INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL LETTER...... 63 SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 1

INTRODUCTION

This study extends current literature on predictors of coparenting by examining whether one specific aspect of relational spirituality, spiritual intimacy, within the marriage predicts positive coparenting behaviors across the transition to parenthood. As early as 1957, researchers examining families of children with schizophrenia documented undermining coparenting behavior – wherein one parent would compete with the other for the child’s affection – as one problematic dynamic between ineffective coparents (Lidz, Cornelison, Fleck, & Terry, 1957).

Over 30 years later, Maccoby, Depner, and Mnookin (1990) identified fathers’ and mothers’ support (or lack thereof) of one another in their respective roles as parents as a potential source of additional problematic dynamics between coparents. More recently, Van Egeren and Hawkins

(2004) emphasized the importance of coparenting solidarity while also including measures of supportive and undermining coparenting behavior. In the past two decades, important links have been established between the quality of the coparenting relationship, individual parenting practices, and child development. Concurrently, researchers have begun to try to identify what aspects of the marital relationship may help spouses having their first child develop a strong coparenting bond as they make the transition from being a dyad to being coparents of a newborn child. Thus far, a decline in marital satisfaction, the presence of conflict, a sense of parental competence, and discrepancies between maternal and paternal beliefs about the importance of the mother’s role have been found to be significant predictors of coparenting qualities across the transition to parenthood. These findings will be discussed in more detail over the course of this paper.

The present study offers unique insights into another aspect of marriage that may predict coparenting across this transitory period. Namely, I focus on spiritual intimacy as one facet of a marriage that could predict three specific aspects of coparenting: perceived coparenting support SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 2 and undermining behavior (rated by self and partner) as well as the solidarity of the co-parenting pair (rated by self and partner) as measured by the Family Experiences Questionnaire (FEQ)

(Frank, Jacobson, & Avery, 1988). More specifically, using a population of 164 married, heterosexual couples, fixed effects regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis that spouses’ joint reports of the pair’s spiritual intimacy skills when their firstborn infant is 3, 6, and

12 months old (referred to elsewhere as T2, T3, and T4, respectively) predict: a) more supportive coparenting behavior, b) less undermining, and c) more solidarity in coparenting by the pair as a co-parenting unit.

Notably, fixed effects regression minimizes the possibility that unmeasured stable, individual attributes such as personality traits or prior education account for any significant findings between spiritual intimacy and the three targeted aspects of the coparenting relationship.

Focusing on a particular spiritual skill that may function as a resource for couples offers more insights than did many of the single-item measures of religiousness or spirituality that have been utilized previously. Global measures like frequency of religious attendance or overall subjective levels of spirituality conceal the specific psychological processes that may help or harm family functioning.

Based on fixed effects statistical modeling, spiritual intimacy in the marital relationship has previously predicted more positivity and less negativity between couples during observed conflict resolution interactions (Kusner, Mahoney, Pargament, & DeMaris, 2014) and more positivity during emotionally-focused dialogues across the transition to parenthood (Padgett,

Mahoney, Pargament, & DeMaris, 2017). It is also possible that greater spiritual intimacy will predict better coparenting dynamics by protecting against marital conflict decreasing levels of supportive coparenting and increasing levels of undermining coparenting (Christopher et al., SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 3

2015). To provide a full rationale for this study, I will now provide a literature review relevant to coparenting processes and marital spiritual intimacy.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 4

LITERATURE REVIEW

Modern Coparenting Research

Coparenting research is a vibrant and continually relevant area of psychological inquiry that focuses on the responsibility and collaborative nature of two adults who harmoniously work together to bring up a child (McHale, 1997; Talbot & McHale, 2004). While intrinsically related to the parent-child and marital family subsystems, coparenting branches out as its own topic for research that emphasizes the collective nature of child-rearing rather than simple information regarding whether two adults are married and/or the quality of their romantic relationship. Most social science literature defines coparents as two adults who carry out the task of raising and being responsible for a child (McHale et al., 2002). This definition implies a close relationship between the parental dyad as well as between each coparent and the child – creating a triadic unit. Indeed, coparenting is an endeavor that necessitates two relationships: one with the other coparents and one with the child. However, it is important to note that, historically, the parental dyad has been assumed to be a marital union despite the growing number of parents in contemporary western societies who have not been formally married or are not both biologically related to the child they coparent. Due to the growing complexity in this field of research, a great deal of work must be done on the psychological underpinnings of the coparenting relationship.

Historical Sketch of Coparenting Research

The emergence of coparenting as an important sub-component within of the family traces back to the theoretical contributions of Salvador Minuchin’s structural family therapy model

(Minuchin, 1974). Minuchin posited that the best environment for the psychological development of a child is when married, biological parents create hierarchy within the family marked by parents effectively sharing authority and maintaining a flexible but firm boundary between the coparental unit and the child. Based on informal observation of clinic-referred SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 5 families, Minuchin emphasized that spouses should avoid turning to children in a developmentally inappropriate manner to gratify their own emotional needs as adults and triangulating the child into marital conflicts in a variety of maladaptive patterns. This could involve one spouse being pushed away from the child and the other spouse becoming overly enmeshed with the child - resulting in the loss of adaptive parental authority. Alternatively, in triangulation processes, children could be scapegoated and become the focus of excessive attention, with parents inadvertently engaging in parenting processes that may reinforce the child’s maladaptive internalizing or externalizing behaviors. An optimal coparenting subsystem necessitates that spouses provide one another with intimacy and support to facilitate their ability to maintain a distinct parental role separation from the child (Minuchin, 1974). Creating and maintaining this level of spousal intimacy can be conceptualized as an interpersonal skill.

Additional work in the 1980s reinforced Minuchin’s observations by critiquing the conclusions of major figures in the early development of the field of psychology. This work argued for the possible importance of the coparenting relationship beyond the role of parenting carried out primarily by a maternal figure. For example, both Freud’s and Bowlby’s ideas on the mother-child relationship tended to exclude the notion of coparenting as a critical aspect of the family dynamic. Ainsworth’s “strange situation” never involved the child’s father. The implication was that the mother was and is the primary caregiver and attachment figure for the young child. Patricia Minuchin (1985), however, further catalyzed a focus on coparenting by suggesting that viewing family relationships as a clump of distinct dyads was not an effective way of summarizing the family system. Instead, she argued for the examination of triadic family processes and suggested that the psychological development of a child was not determined solely by a maternal figure. In a healthy triadic ecosystem, spousal intimacy is a potentially important tool for promoting psychologically healthy marital units where coparents avoid engaging in SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 6 inappropriate coparenting processes and instead provide a strong foundation to support one another as coparents. Coparenting is a prime example of a triadic family process because it simultaneously refers to both the parent-parent dynamic as well as each spouse’s parent-child dynamic.

Minuchin’s theoretical conjectures about coparenting based on working with clinic- referred families in the 1960s and 1970s also helped to spark contemporary quantitative research on coparenting in the late 1980s and 1990s with typically developing families. Researchers who have attempted to untangle and investigate coparenting dynamics, primarily based on observational studies of parents drawn from community samples, have produced ample empirical evidence supporting Minuchin’s basic premise that effective coparenting requires establishing clear but flexible boundaries for family dynamics where both partners are involved in and supportive of each other’s parenting practices.

Key Dimensions of Coparenting

Within the scientific study of family systems, the quality of a pair of parents performing as a coparenting team has been defined, at least in part, as the core of the executive subsystem of the family model in two-parent households (Schoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Frosch, & McHale,

2004). Coparenting, as a broad domain of processes, consists of different modes of communication within the parent-parent relationship, the difference in levels of coparenting support, and behaviors while interacting with the child (Cowan & McHale, 1996; Schoppe-

Sullivan et al., 2004). Researchers conducting studies on coparenting must synthesize overlapping processes that occur within both the marital and parental relationship. Coparenting researchers have demonstrated that within traditional families headed by married heterosexual parents, child development and emotional maturation are influenced by a function of the quality of the interactions within the coparents themselves (spousal) as well as between each of the SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 7 coparents with the child (parental) (Cowan & McHale, 1996; Schoppe-Sullivan et al., 2004). The coparenting relationship has the potential to create a positive dynamic relational environment in the family that facilitates a child’s psychological growth. In the past, emphasis has been on how the coparenting relationship predicted child’s conscience development and moral regulation

(Groenendyk & Volling, 2007) as well as temperament (Belsky, Putnam, & Crnic, 1996). Since ineffective coparenting leads to undesirable child behaviors (Karreman, Tuijl, van Aken &

Dekovic, 2008; McHale, Rao, & Krasnow, 2000), interest in child behavioral outcomes begs the question of what factors predict coparenting quality. In addition, coparenting processes are likely more proximal predictors of child wellbeing than other aspects of a marriage which parents may be able to psychologically compartmentalize. While parents can reasonably keep arguments about finances, careers, or even philosophical differences out of the realm of parent-child interactions relatively easily, parents who disagree on childrearing are more likely to expose the child to that inter-parental conflict and consequently reduce their child’s wellbeing (Mahoney,

Jouriles, & Scavone, 1997).

In attempting to understanding important aspects of coparenting dynamics, researchers have identified three potentially critical and distinct coparenting processes that impact child well- being: support, undermining, and solidarity. Coparenting support is characterized by spouses feeling appreciated by one another, supported in their choices, and encouraged in their role as a parent. Undermining coparenting is a construct that taps into the amount of negativity, distrust, and shame that exists in the relationship between two coparents regarding their individual parenting choices. And finally, coparenting solidarity refers to activities and perceptions that characterize spousal closeness, agreement, and togetherness in regard to beliefs and experiences while parenting. This study focused on these three dimensions of coparenting as assessed by The

General Alliance subscale of the Family Experiences Questionnaire (FEQ) (Frank, Jacobson, & SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 8

Avery, 1988) which asks partners to report their own (and their partner’s) levels of undermining and support behaviors as well as the amount of solidarity in the relationship as a whole. Notably, these three dimensions of coparenting have been found to be similar between mothers and fathers

(Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004) and are comparable to McHale’s descriptions of coparenting behavior based on observation of triadic play where co-parental support was labeled

“harmonious,” undermining as “hostile-competitive,” and (lack of) solidarity as “discrepancy”

(1995).

Coparenting During the Transition to Parenthood

The birth of a child – especially the first child – can be an especially stressful and difficult transition period for a couple. In fact, the transition to parenthood is generally understood to have a negative impact on the level of relationship satisfaction between the parents

(Mitnick, Heyman, & Slep, 2009). However, the effects of this transition can be mitigated by paternal support, maternal self-esteem, and constructive marital problem-solving patterns or magnified by maternal daily stress, paternal anxiety, destructive marital problem-solving patterns, anxiety and depression symptoms during pregnancy, and short relationship length

(Houts, Barnett-Walker, Paley, & Cox, 2008; Don & Mickelson, 2014; Trillingsgaard, Baucom,

& Heyman, 2014). Negative impacts of the transition to parenthood can also be intensified by a difficult birth experience, insecurely attached parents-to-be, or by the birth of an infant with a difficult temperament (Doss & Rhoades, 2017). These studies recognize that no comparison group was used to make more conclusive claims about transitioning to parenthood being the causative factor behind relationship satisfaction deterioration. But, when compared to a control group of couples not undergoing to transition to parenthood, the effect of first-time parenthood was deleterious for marital relationship satisfaction (Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009).

This difficult transitionary period occurs when the coparenting relationship is initially formed SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 9 and offers a unique window into examining factors that predict a couples’ ability to form a unified and effective coparenting bond.

Several factors within the broader marital domain have been associated with greater negative coparenting processes on the part of new parents. For mothers, the gender and the number of children in the household have been associated with intrusive coparenting behaviors.

Additionally, couples with a spouse who shows less support for their partner’s parenting experienced more competitive coparenting (Murphy, Boyd-Soisson, Jacobvitz, & Hazen, 2017).

Furthermore, the presence of higher overall levels of marital conflict was connected to mothers’ lack of support for fathers’ parenting (Christopher, Umemura, Mann, Jacobvitz, & Hazen, 2015).

Similarly, marital satisfaction ratings by mothers were linked to lower levels of disparagement and conflict within the coparenting domain (Favez, Tissot, Frascarolo, Stiefel, & Despland,

2016). Although Merrifield and Gamble (2012) did not find differences between mother’s and father’s attitudes in predicting an outcome within the coparenting domain, they did show that low parenting self-efficacy by both parents was associated with higher levels of undermining coparenting behavior. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this study found that discrepancies between maternal and paternal beliefs about the importance of the mother’s role is a significant predictor of conflict in the coparenting domain. Overall, although findings are somewhat mixed, available evidence suggests the following themes for couples making the transition to parenthood together: declines in marital satisfaction, higher marital conflict, and discrepancies in parenting philosophy. Across the board, these tend to be associated with undesirable coparenting processes including conflict, lack of support, and undermining.

However, positive elements of marital functioning could strengthen parents’ ability to coparent effectively across the transition to parenthood and may serve as a protective factor that helps couples develop a strong coparenting bond. For example, studies have suggested that SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 10 parents from dual-earner families experience higher levels of supportive coparenting than parents from single-earner families (Lindsey, Caldera, & Colwell, 2005). In addition, higher levels of general social support and self-esteem were linked to supportive coparenting behavior on the mother’s part (2005). Moreover, couples with mothers who showed greater support for their partner’s parenting reported greater overall involvement from the father (Murphy et al., 2017).

Marital relationship satisfaction has been shown to be a high-quality predictor of coparenting processes (Christopher et al., 2015). In this study, both mothers and fathers completed marital satisfaction and conflict measures prenatally and again at 8 and 24 months after the birth of their first child. Using observation of triadic family interactions, researchers coded for cooperative (solidary) and competitive (undermining) coparenting qualities. Results indicated that decreases in marital satisfaction and increases in marital conflict predicted higher levels of undermining coparenting behaviors for fathers and lower supportive coparenting for both fathers and mothers (Christopher et al., 2015). More satisfied marital relationships report more supportive, collaborative coparenting experiences and lower satisfaction marital relationships report more intrusive, conflictual, and undermining coparenting experiences. In fact, in a study of couples during the transition to parenthood, positive pre-birth marital relationship qualities predicted more positive coparenting experiences and interactions over time

(Van Egeren, 2004).

In summary, researchers have begun to identify numerous predictors of the quality of coparenting. However, one critical aspect of family life that has not yet been examined as a possible resource for building positive coparenting relationships (both intra-dyadic and parent- child) is the broad and complex realm of coparents’ religiousness and spirituality. Remarkably, no studies (to date) appear to exist that have linked any aspect of couples’ religiousness or spirituality to the quality of their coparenting. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 11

Religion and Spirituality in Family Life: The Relational Spirituality Framework

I will now provide an overview of the literature on the intersection of faith and family life to introduce context for this master’s thesis project which will offer an initial and novel study to examine one spiritual factor – a couple’s level of spiritual intimacy within their marriage – that may predict the three coparenting processes of support from a coparent, undermining by a coparent, and solidarity between coparents. Additionally, Mahoney’s “relational spirituality framework” (RSF) provides broad context for this study. Mahoney’s RSF organizes and integrates theory and research on the intersection of religion/spirituality and family life.

Remarkably, most of the available research on the intersection of faith and family life has examined global religious or spiritual variables such as religious affiliation, attendance or overall importance of religion to participants’ daily life. Literature reviews using the RSF highlight such linkages and also advocate for more in-depth studies that untangle specific Religious/Spiritual

(R/S) factors that potentially function as resources or risks for close relationships and the well- being of individuals in those relationships.

Mahoney’s RSF organizes global indicators used by published research to identify the one- or two-item measures designed to assess spiritual mechanisms. Examples of such these items include items on the frequency of religious attendance, the overall importance of religion in daily life, and degree of Biblical literalism. Additionally, Mahoney organized research studies into three categories of relational spiritual mechanisms: the nature of a family member’s relationship with the divine (Tier 1), whether or not a familial relationship is seen as invested with spiritual properties (Tier 2), and the nature of a family member’s relationship with his or her spiritual community (Tier 3). Notably, to date, few studies exist within the last tier that delve into ways that the participants’ interactions with a religious tradition, leaders, or co-believers focused SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 12 on relational issues (e.g., forming, maintaining or exiting a romantic or family relationship) may impact relational or personal functioning.

The Relational Spirituality Framework: Stages of Family Relationships

To provide a perspective on empirical findings linking global religious and spiritual variables, the RSF sorts studies according to three developmental stages of family relationships: formation, maintenance, and transformation. These three recursive stages are analogous to

Pargament’s (1997) conception of religion as a search for significance involving the discovery, conservation, and transformation of the sacred. In the RSF, Mahoney translated these stages to relationships as follows: (1) formation—creating and structuring a particular relationship, (2) maintenance—preserving and protecting an established relationship, and (3) transformation— coping with the reformation or termination of a distressed relationship.

As applied to marriage and co-parenting, the formation stage includes the creation of couples’ relationships and the process of defining partner, marital, and/or coparental roles. For example, the selection of marital partners (aka, mate selection) is affected by religious affiliation similarity (Sherkat, 2004) and the decisions that couples make early on in their relationship about beginning dating, cohabiting, and marriage appear to be shaped, in part, by their religious similarity (Blackwell & Lichter, 2004). The maintenance stage for families refers to processes that conserve and protect the integrity of family relationships over time. Ideally, these processes involve love, selflessness, commitment, and ethical behavior (Onedera, 2008). For example, when applied to marriage, religious similarity as measured by service attendance has been shown to predict higher levels of marital satisfaction (Myers 2006). And, greater religious attendance rates in spousal relationships is tied to decreased future divorce rates (Brown, Orbuch, &

Bauermeister, 2008; Woods & Emery, 2002). The transformation stage of the RSF refers to fundamental changes being made to the structure or processes of distressed relationships SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 13

(Mahoney, 2010, p. 807). For instance, for married couples, higher levels of religious attendance, especially joint religious attendance, appears to be marginally related to lower divorce rates

(Mahoney et al., 2001; Mahoney, 2010). At least one study (DeMaris, 2009), however, found that more religiously engaged spouses are more likely to divorce when extramarital infidelity occurs. This implies that some religious factors may intensify the personal distress and negative relationship outcomes when people face major relationship problems violations. Still, religious service attendance frequency does tend to lower the likelihood of an extra-marital infidelity occurrence (Atkins & Kessel, 2008).

Specific Religious and Spiritual Mechanisms: Tiers

As the above paragraph illustrates, higher engagement in organized religious groups has been tied to relational outcomes that most would view as desirable. But, global indicators of religiousness/spirituality can confound the positive and/or negative roles that R/S may play in one’s life. Higher frequency of religious attendance, for example, could expose an individual to spiritual struggles with the divine or with their community, but could also provide the individual with a social fabric or a source of spiritual strength on which to rely in times of difficulty. An important question is raised: how valuable is information gained from global R/S variables when it comes to making real-world inferences about research findings?

Within the second tier, there are studies outlining the positive and negative influences that specific spiritual and religious factors may reciprocally influence the quality of relationships within the family. For example, Mahoney and colleagues (1999) found that viewing one’s relationship as sanctified (believing it to have “divine character and significance”) (Pargament &

Mahoney, 2005) was linked to less marital conflict and more adaptive communication strategies between spouses. Further examination revealed that couples who viewed their relationship as sanctified tended to experienced mitigated effects of perceived unfairness (DeMaris, Mahoney, SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 14

& Pargament, 2010). Furthermore, marital spiritual intimacy has been found to predict general positivity within the spousal relationship (Kusner et al., 2014). This variable will be further defined and explored in more detail after providing an overview of the literature.

The Relational Spirituality Framework and Coparenting

Within the processes of formation and maintenance – which have to do with development and protection of familial relationships – research findings especially relevant to coparenting during the transition to parenthood revolve around the creation of marital relationships and the process of defining spousal/parental roles.

Thus far, peer-reviewed studies that have investigated linkages between religious/spiritual factors and coparenting have involved general markers of religious involvement rather than specific factors that would fall within any of the RSF tiers. Therefore, to provide a rationale and support for the hypotheses of this study, I have included a summary of available research on general religious involvement – such as attendance – and marriage, parenting, and coparenting in a manner consistent with the RSF. This will help set the stage for then reviewing theory and specific studies on one particular spiritual factor that I have examined in this study that may enhance coparenting - spiritual intimacy across the transition to parenthood.

Global R/S Variables and Desired Marital Outcomes

In research conducted between 1980 and 2009, greater importance of religion and/or higher religious attendance by one or both spouses was found to be a consistent predictor of higher marital satisfaction and lower divorce rates (Mahoney, 2010; Mahoney, Pargament,

Tarakeshwar, & Swank, 2001). Additionally, even after controlling for depression, social support, and alcohol and substance use, more frequent attendance of religious services has been linked to lowered risk of domestic physical aggression against a romantic partner (Ellison & SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 15

Anderson, 2001) and lowered risk of extra-marital affairs (Atkins & Kessel, 2008). Furthermore,

Myers (2006) found that religious similarity within a marital relationship is predictive of higher levels of marital satisfaction. In a recent study of 829 married couples, greater religious service attendance by spouses was associated with greater marital satisfaction and less marital conflict

(Goddard, Marshall, Olson, & Dennis, 2012). In a study of 191 Hispanic couples, greater husband religiosity (as measured by service attendance) was linked to his own marital satisfaction as well as his wife’s marital satisfaction (Stinson, Bermúdez, Gale, Lewis, Meyer, &

Templeton, 2017). While the differences between wives’ and husbands’ religiosity as a predictor of satisfaction within a coparenting dyad remains debated, (Clements, Stanley, & Markman,

2004; Wilcox & Wolfinger, 2008), higher religious attendance and higher global religiosity tend to predict marital stability and future marital satisfaction for coparents. In light of these findings, spiritual and religious variables are clearly associated with a variety of marital outcomes in cross-sectional studies.

Overall, evidence based on global markers of involvement in religious groups or importance of religion suggests that many spouses who identify as religious often strengthen their marital relationships by relying on God, their spiritual community, or even their personal spiritual convictions about the nature of their marriage. When effectively employed, diverse spiritual and religious resources could offer some couples a wider arsenal of tools in the quest to strengthen their marital relationships (Mahoney et al., 2001). But, growing research on specific

R/S variables such as characterizing one’s marital relationship as sanctified (Lichter & Carmalt,

2009; Mahoney et al., 1999) or heightened levels of spirituality (as indicated by answers to questions about how much influence God had on their life and how often they felt like their prayers were answered) (Parker, Mandleco, Olsen Roper, Freeborn, & Dyches, 2011) tend to be more firmly or consistently linked to increased marital satisfaction and commitment compared to SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 16 global markers of involvement in organized religion. While these emerging findings are robust, the research literature on relational spirituality in the family can be significantly bolstered by the additional study of coparenting.

Global R/S Variables Tied to Parenting Practices

The impact of religious and spiritual elements on family life extends well beyond the marital relationship. In fact, a national sample of young parents found that attendance, prayer, and importance of religion all predicted higher levels of overall parenting satisfaction for both mothers and fathers (Henderson, Uecker, & Strooper, 2016). Even at the earliest stages of the transition to parenthood, a large proportion of pregnant women report that their personal spirituality positively influenced their pregnancy experience (Jesse, Schoneboom, & Blanchard,

2007). Amongst these women, researchers found themes of spiritual significance in their pregnancies such as a reliance on spiritual aspects of their life like a perceived connection to the sacred or to a faith community to cope with any difficulties associated with their pregnancy experience (2007). Married parents and single mothers (Petts, 2012) who consistently attended religious services reported less parenting stress than their non-attending counterparts.

Additionally, higher levels of R/S experiences (as measured by a 12-item questionnaire) were tied to lower incidences of spanking or hitting children in a sample of (71% married/partnered)

Ukranian mothers (Grogan-Kaylor, Burlaka, Ma, Lee, Castillo & Churakova, 2018).

Specific R/S variables tied to Parenting Practices

Specific R/S variables can add more detail and depth to research about parenting practices in the same way that they do to research about marital relationships. R/S variables such as sanctification and religious coping predict a number of parenting behaviors. Sanctification of a relationship refers to perceiving that relationship as having divine significance and character

(Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). For example, in a study of 134 married mothers of elementary- SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 17 aged children, higher levels of viewing the parenting relationship as sanctified by God was tied to more positive parent-child interactions (Murray-Swank, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2006).

Henderson and colleagues (2016) found that sanctification fully mediated links between attendance, prayer, and importance of religion and parenting satisfaction for both mothers and fathers (Henderson, Uecker, & Strooper, 2016). Amongst an ethnically diverse sample of parents

(96% mothers; 44% African American, 44% Caucasian, 11% Hispanic or other) from a low- income, urban setting, those who reported viewing their parenting as sanctified by God also reported greater investment of effort to care for their children. However, these parents did not report greater parental efficacy (Dumas & Nissley-Tsiopinis, 2006). In another community sample, positive religious coping by parents was related to improvement in ratings of parental sense of competence, particularly when parenting children with significant behavior problems

(Weyand, O’Laughlin, & Bennett, 2013).

Overall, emerging evidence based on global markers of involvement in religious groups or importance of religion as well as specific markers such as sanctification and religious coping suggests that many parents may often attempt to rely on a felt relationship with God, their spiritual community, or even their personal spiritual convictions about parenting to facilitate their adjustment to this role.

Global R/S Variables Tied to Coparenting

Although a limited amount of research exists on linkages between coparenting and R/S variables, intriguing findings have begun to emerge. For example, large discrepancies between parenting partners regarding biblical conservatism has been linked to more arguments about childrearing practices (Curtis & Ellison, 2002). Even though it is uncommon for married couples in the United States to maintain major disagreements about Biblical interpretation (2002), coparenting difficulties may magnify these spiritual disagreements by bringing to the surface SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 18 parents’ child-rearing principles and practices (McCarthy, 2007). Furthermore, significant disagreements about religious beliefs between two coparents have been linked to an increased risk of adjustment problems for the child (Bartkowski, Xu, & Levin, 2008; van der Jagt-Jelsma et al., 2011). While these sorts of major disagreements are uncommon, such findings suggest that problems in coparenting may be related to intensified spiritual stressors amongst parents and further suggest that the domains of marital spirituality and coparenting are intimately linked.

Longitudinal research across the transition to parenthood has also tied both higher religious service attendance and Biblical conservatism to greater likelihood of coparents having a traditional (complementarian) division of child care activities wherein the new mother takes a dominant position over the new father (DeMaris, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2011). Additionally, for more religiously involved mothers, greater daily infant care activities by fathers predicted lower maternal aggravation toward their infants (DeMaris, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2013).

However, global measures are only a rough indicator of meaningful psychological constructs.

There is still need for specific religious and spiritual variables to be assessed within the study of family relationships. Whether greater religious involvement is interpreted to be tied to better or worse coparenting arrangements is a value-laden conclusion, with more detailed research clearly merited on religious and spiritual factors that are tied to coparenting cooperation, support and solidarity.

Furthermore, religion can significantly affect how coparents cope with conflict over parenting (Mahoney, 2005). Past study has shown that a lack of supportive behaviors within the marital relationship may lead to inconsistent discipline techniques and long-term negative child behavior outcomes (McHale & Rasmussen, 1998). However, parental religious involvement can enhance parenting efficacy. Li (2013) found that familial religious activities were connected to less juvenile delinquency amongst adolescent children. These findings suggest that there is a SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 19 relationship between spiritual/religious variables and various aspects of shared parenting practices between parents, but that greater examination is still necessary.

To date, there appears to be no studies focused on coparenting processes, such as support, solidarity, and undermining, that would presumably be helpful within families where parents have chosen either egalitarian or complementarian roles. Furthermore, it is unclear which particular R/S processes (that may or may not be correlated with higher religious attendance) may facilitate these three coparenting processes. Given that higher frequency of religious attendance does not specify which R/S processes that could hinder or facilitate coparenting, it is important to untangle and identify malleable and specific R/S factors that could help coparents work well together. As such, this study seeks to examine spiritual intimacy as one specific R/S variable that may connect to a variety of coparenting outcomes in an effort to bolster the sparse literature on specific R/S variables and family life.

Spiritual Intimacy and Coparenting across the Transition to Parenthood

In order to define spiritual intimacy, it is important to first discuss the meaning of intimacy for a romantic relationship. Specifically, intimacy within a marital relationship is a well-known construct that relies on and supports romantic investment in the marriage (Cordova,

Gee, & Warren, 2005). Marital intimacy is strongly linked to felt marital satisfaction for both spouses (Patrick, Sells, Giordano, & Tollerud, 2007). Reis and Shaver (1988) define intimacy as

“feeling understood, validated, cared for, and closely connected with another person” (p. 385).

Additionally, intimacy is a variable that not only reflects the amount of disclosure of sensitive, emotional material, but also how each partner is able to respond to this disclosure in a loving, non-judgmental manner (Cordova, 2009). Thus, intimacy involves two key processes: willingness to make disclosures to one’s partner and ability to offer empathic support when one’s partner makes disclosures. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 20

Defining and Reviewing the Construct of Spiritual Intimacy

Feeding off the interrelated aspects of intimacy theorized by Reis, Shaver, and Cordova, the construct of marital spiritual intimacy was developed to encapsulate the specific skills related to the spiritual aspects of marital intimacy. An ability to use intimacy skills may be especially necessary when couples attempt to share religious and spiritual convictions or beliefs with one another due to their deeply personal nature and the accompanying vulnerability felt when one discloses such information. Sharing one’s spiritual identity involves disclosing experiences or beliefs that cannot be proven as ontologically “true,” but tap into one’s most profound concerns and ultimate desires. People may hesitate to reveal such information for fears of being dismissed, ridiculed, or misunderstood. Conversely, eliciting such disclosures from a partner requires responding in an open-minded, empathic, and non-punishing manner (Brelsford & Mahoney,

2008; Kusner et al., 2014). In the present study, a measure was created of each spouse’s spiritual intimacy skills, defined here as engaging in spiritual disclosure and providing support when a partner offers spiritual disclosures. Thus, for the purposes of this study, spiritual intimacy refers to making disclosures and offering support about religiously and spiritually meaningful aspects of life. In the present study, a measure of each spouse’s spiritual intimacy skills was created; defined here as engaging in spiritual disclosure and providing support when a partner offers spiritual disclosures. Notably, respondents were allowed to react to the term “spiritual” when answering questions about engaging in these two processes in whatever way they deemed to be most relevant.

Development of the Construct of Spiritual Intimacy

Some research focused on dyadic interactions has examined whether two family members who dialogue about R/S issues in a constructive manner could engender relational growth. In an initial study on this topic, Brelsford and Mahoney (2008) examined the effects of SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 21 spiritual disclosure between college students and their mothers. Spiritual disclosure was defined as a relational communication process that was characterized revelation of one’s own spiritual beliefs. In further study of college students and their parents, higher reports of spiritual disclosure by both mothers and their college-age child was tied to a higher quality relationship, better ability to resolve relational conflict, and less verbal aggression. This effect was over and above what could be explained by global religiosity (Brelsford, 2013). Results of this study on spiritual disclosure in parent-child relationships also indicated that the presence of spiritual disclosure predicted higher levels of relationship quality between parents and their child.

Furthermore, Brelsford and Ciarrocchi (2013) examined the ego resiliency (defined as an individual’s ability to psychologically adapt to an ever-changing environment) of 318 community members in connection with the amount of spiritual disclosure the individual shared with an intimate other. Indeed, the degree of spiritual disclosure to a significant other predicted ego resiliency over and above personality traits, general disclosure, and religious congregational support (2013). Clearly, spiritual disclosure is a unique variable within the realm of research on

R/S that has real-life implications for individuals and families. There seems to be a tangible relationship between spiritual factors in the family realm and positive outcomes for parents and their children. In particular, spiritual intimacy appears to be a communication skill that may be tied to better family functioning.

Spiritual Intimacy in the Present Study

While initial studies have assessed marital spirituality by way of a simple amalgamation of partner scores on measures of spirituality (Giblin, 1997), more recent studies recognize that marital spirituality is a complex, dynamic variable that includes, but is not limited to, spiritual intimacy (Kusner et al., 2014). The present study draws upon Brelsford and Mahoney’s (2008) scale of spiritual disclosure within relationships to assess spiritual intimacy within the marital SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 22 relationship. In their study, spiritual disclosure was examined and correlated with greater collaborative problem-solving skills and the ability to manage conflict by college students and their mothers (2008). But, disclosure is only one part of intimacy; in order to experience spiritual intimacy wholly, individuals must empathically welcome disclosures of deeply-held, ontologically un-provable beliefs from a significant other. Seeing the opportunity to improve the assessment of this variable, Kusner and colleagues (2014) created a measure designed to evaluate spiritual disclosure as well as the ability to receive spiritual disclosure in a non-threatening, sincere manner. In a sample of 164 married couples surveyed at four time points across their transitions to parenthood (during pregnancy and then at three points during the first year after childbirth), participants responded to a four-item measure which assessed spiritual intimacy skills (willingness to disclose and openness to non-judgmentally receiving disclosure). These questions were answered both about oneself and one’s partner. Spiritual intimacy has been defined as a combination of disclosure and warmth that facilitates spiritual openness with one’s partner and simultaneous support when receiving that spiritual disclosure from one’s partner

(Kusner et al., 2014). Spiritual intimacy consistently predicted more positivity and less negativity during observed marital conflict interactions.

Kusner and colleagues (2014) utilized these items in an effort to tap into beliefs about safety in disclosure towards partner, openness to hearing spiritual disclosures from partner, and supportiveness towards joint spiritual struggles. Spouses reported their perceptions of their own spiritual intimacy as well as impressions of their partner’s spiritual intimacy in order to create joint reports for both husband and wife. In fact, findings of this study showed that joint spousal indications of spiritual intimacy impacted observed spousal behavior such that both husbands and wives exhibited more positivity and less negativity (2014; Padgett, 2016). This finding was salient even after controlling for spousal report interdependence, other marital factors, and SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 23 demographics. Thus, the variable of spiritual intimacy is inherently dyadic and necessitates self- and partner-reported scoring methods in order to ascertain a degree of marital spiritual intimacy skills for the couple as a dyad. Kusner postulates that the presence of spiritually intimate inter- partner dialogues may facilitate spouses’ investments in their unions and motivate them to protect their marriages when conflicts occur during stressful family transitions, such as the transition to parenthood (Kusner, 2014). This is evidenced by findings that show marital spiritual intimacy predicts observed levels of couple emotional intimacy even after controlling for marital sanctification (Padgett, Mahoney, Pargament, & DeMaris, 2019).

Extending the Study of Spiritual Intimacy to Coparenting Research

Despite these valuable findings regarding religion and spirituality in the home, there is a dearth of research regarding what specific spiritual beliefs serve to support and maintain coparenting relationships. Additionally, increasingly diversifying family organization trends in recent years have left the conclusions drawn from early research to be left wanting.

Hypothetically, greater spiritual intimacy may foster coparents’ sense that they have found a special “soul mate” with whom they can share their deepest spiritual aspirations and hopes as well as their doubts, troubles, or struggles. Having spiritually intimate dialogues may thus facilitate coparents’ investment in their union and motivate them to protect their marriage broadly speaking as well as employ coparenting teamwork when conflicts do occur during stressful family transitions, such as the transition to parenthood.

After all, if spouses feel welcome to rely on one another in sharing their R/S doubts, confusions, and joys through this difficult transition, then it is likely that they will feel especially motivated to ask for and give support to each other as they adapt to the challenges of being a new parent. Mutual provision of spiritual support and solidarity across this transition will likely serve as protective factors against spousal undermining behaviors while parenting. In other words, SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 24 when couples are able to be open and vulnerable with each other about their deepest existential, spiritual, and religious positions, then they may feel better able to share and support each other when faced with confusion or anxiety about an equally murky and difficult to manage issues tied to parenting. As such, the spouses who more often share spiritually intimate dialogues may have more confidence in their togetherness and unity with which they face a challenging situation (the transition to parenthood). This supportive marital union is likely a product of relational vulnerability and intimacy.

Though communication about religion between married partners has been linked to overall marital quality (David & Stafford, 2015), within the realm of couple’s research, religion and spirituality has not yet been connected to coparenting outcomes. But, this finding - along with the well-researched connection between higher marital satisfaction and positive coparenting outcomes (Christopher et al., 2015) - calls for the examination of the relationship between marital spiritual intimacy and coparenting. This study addressed the gap in the literature on coparenting outcomes and spiritual intimacy by focusing on one specific spiritual factor that may facilitate coparenting: spiritual intimacy.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 25

HYPOTHESES

The present study used longitudinal data gathered across the transition to parenthood to examine links between spouses’ combined reports of the pair’s marital spiritual intimacy when their infant is 3, 6, and 12 months old (T2, T3, T4, respectively) and the pair’s combined reports of coparenting processes at T2, T3, and T4. Specifically, in fixed effects regression analyses, his and her report of the couples’ spiritual intimacy was expected to predict: a) more supportive coparenting behavior, b) more solidarity in coparenting, and c) less undermining of the other parent in coparenting for the couple. Notably, because fixed effects regressions were conducted, the aim was to rule out the possibility that unmeasured stable, individual attributes and traits such as personality traits or prior education account for any significant associations between spiritual intimacy and the three target coparenting behaviors for mothers and fathers. It is important to note that in these analyses, marital spiritual intimacy is a construct that combines his (husband’s) reports of his disclosure and empathic support, his reports of her (wife’s) disclosure and empathic support, her reports of her disclosure and empathic support, and her reports of his disclosure and empathic support.

1. Greater couple spiritual intimacy skills predicts greater coparenting solidarity by the couple

(combined his and her report of the couple)

2. Greater couple spiritual intimacy skills predicts higher levels of supportive coparenting

within the parental dyad (combined his report of her and her report of him).

3. Greater couple spiritual intimacy skills predicts lower levels of undermining coparenting

behaviors by the couple (combined his report of her and her report of him).

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 26

METHODS

Participants

This study involved unique data analysis on a dataset of 164 heterosexual, married husbands and wives who underwent the transition to parenthood with the birth of each couple’s first biological child. This dataset has been used in previous research. Based on data collected during pregnancy (T1) and prior analyses with this sample (e.g., Kusner et al., 2014), the mean ages of husbands and wives, respectively, were 28.7 (SD = 4.4) and M = 27.2 (SD = 4.0) (Table

1). Because no parenting data was collected during pregnancy, the first wave of data usable for the purposes of the present study is T2. As seen on Table 1, self-described ethnicity for wives and husbands, respectively, was 92.0% and 85.0% Caucasian; 3.7% and 5.0% Asian American;

3.7% and 5.5% African American; 0% and 3.7% Latino; and .62% and .62% other. The highest education for husbands and wives, respectively, was 11% and 6% high school only, 28% and

21% partial college or post-high school education, 42% and 46% college degrees, and 19% and

27% graduate or professional degrees. Household income was broadly distributed as follows: 8% at 0–$25,000, 29% at $25,000–50,000, 30% at $50,000–75,000, 19% at $75,000–100,000, and

13% at greater than $100,000. At pregnancy, couples in the sample were married an average of

2.7 years, in a relationship for about 5.9 years and had cohabited for about 3.5 years. The self- reported religious affiliation for wives was 34.7% nondenominational Christian, 30.6%

Protestant, 27.1% Catholic, 4.1% none, 2.9% other, and .6% Jewish, and for husbands was

30.0% Protestant, 28.8% nondenominational Christian, 27.6% Catholic, 7.1% none, 5.9% other, and .6% Jewish. Couples were no more involved in organized religion than other married U.S. couples with biological offspring based on national norms of wives’ religious attendance

(Mahoney, Pargament, & DeMaris, 2009).

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 27

Procedure

Couples were drawn from a midsized, midwestern city and surrounding suburban and rural communities, and recruited primarily from childbirth classes (64%), with the rest responding to announcements posted in medical offices, retail locations, or newspapers (14%); word of mouth referrals (15%); or direct mail (8%). Inclusionary criteria were that spouses were

(a) married, (b) pregnant with each individual’s first biological child, and (c) both spoke English.

Data were collected in couples’ homes. Each spouse read and completed consent forms for the project, which were approved by the university’s institutional review board. In order to monitor that spouses independently answered items and to answer any questions that may arise, a research assistant was present while each spouse completed the questionnaires. Couples were assessed in their 9th month of pregnancy and reassessed three more times over the course of the next year: at 4 (T2), 7 (T3), and 13 (T4) months after the first visit (3, 6, and 12 months after birth). Couples were paid $75.00, $100.00, $100.00, and $125.00 for their participation in Waves

1–4, respectively. Relatively little participation attrition occurred, with 164 of the 178 couples who participated during pregnancy completing all four waves.

Spiritual Intimacy

To assess spiritual intimacy, four items from a 20-item index of spiritual disclosure previously used with college students (Brelsford & Mahoney, 2008) were modified so each spouse answered two items about spiritual disclosure about themselves and two items about their partner (see Appendix A). Additionally, four new items to assess spiritual support were created.

Thus, each spouse answered the four items about themselves: “I feel safe being completely open and honest with my spouse about my faith,” “I tend to keep my spiritual side private and separate from my marriage (reverse scored),” “I try not to be judgmental or critical when my spouse shares his or her ideas about spirituality,” and “I try to be supportive when my spouse discloses SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 28 spiritual questions or struggles;” and four items about the partner: “My spouse doesn’t disclose her or his thoughts or feelings about spirituality with me,” (reverse scored), “My spouse shares his or her spiritual questions or struggles with me,” “My spouse really knows how to listen when

I talk about my spiritual needs, thoughts, and feelings,” and “My spouse is supportive when I reveal my spiritual questions or struggles to her or him.” Items were rated on a Likert-scale from not at all (0) to a great deal (3). In this study, husbands’ and wives’ ratings of each spouse were averaged to create a multiple-informant report of the couple’s total spiritual intimacy skills (i.e., each wife’s self-report of her spiritual intimacy skills will be combined with her husband’s report of her spirituality intimacy skills, husband’s self-report of his spiritual intimacy skills, and his wife’s report of his spirituality intimacy skills). This total score was divided by the total number of items (e.g. 16) to generate item mean values for data analysis.

Coparenting

Three distinct dimensions of coparenting, specifically coparenting solidarity, coparenting support from partner, and undermining coparenting from partner were assessed using three coparenting subscales from the Family Experiences Questionnaire (FEQ – 21 items) (Van

Egeren & Hawkins, 2004). In its entirety, the Family Experiences Questionnaire consists of 133 items composing 12 total subscales derived from factor analysis that measured parents’ perceptions of their coparenting relationship with their spouse and each parent’s own sense of parenting competence and gratification in parenting. For the purposes of the current study, only the coparenting solidarity, support, and undermining subscales were used (Appendix B). Each item was rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and items were summed to create the three subscales. The coparenting solidarity scale, which consists of 10 items, assesses the couples’ ability to work and grow together as parents (e.g.,

“My spouse and I talk about what is best for our children,” “Parenting has brought my spouse SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 29 and me closer together”) and the extent to which couples share the same childrearing values

(e.g., “My spouse and I agree on our ideas, guidelines, and rules for raising children”). The coparenting support scale uses 5 items that assess the degree of perceived support that each parent receives from their spouse in his/her parenting goals (e.g., “My spouse backs me up as a parent”) and whether the parent feels the spouse approves of his/her parenting (e.g,, “My spouse makes me feel that I am the best possible parent for our child”) and provides emotional support

(e.g., “When I make a mistake a mistake with our child, I can talk it over with my spouse”). The undermining coparenting scale, which consists of 6 items, assesses each parent’s perceived level of criticism (e.g., “As a parent, I cannot seem to do anything right in my spouse’s eyes,” “My spouse thinks I am a bad influence on our child”), distrust (e.g., “My spouse does not trust my abilities as a parent) and lack of support from his/her spouse in parenting efforts (e.g., “I am afraid of my spouse’s anger when I do something wrong with the kids,” “I feel too ashamed about my mishaps with my children to talk them over with my spouse”). In a prior study conducted by Van Egeren and Hawkins (2004), these three coparenting scales displayed levels of internal consistency ranging from .75 to .83 for both mothers and fathers and correlated as expected with perceived marital outcomes. In this study, husbands’ and wives’ self-reports were combined to assess total spousal perceptions of the extent of coparenting solidarity between the couple, the degree of coparenting support, and level of undermining coparenting within the couple as a whole. These scores were then divided by the number of items for their given subscale to produce an item mean.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 30

RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses: Descriptive Statistics

As seen in Table 2, the descriptive statistics on key predictor and criterion variables are as follows. For the coparenting variables, the couples’ averaged item responses ranged from 1 to

5. The mean item scores for solidary coparenting of 4.05 (SD = .36; a = .80), 4.05 (SD = .34; a =

.79), and 4.07 (SD = .34; a = .83) at T2, T3, and T4, respectively. For couples’ supportive coparenting, the mean item scores were 4.27 (SD = .39; a = .76), 4.23 (SD = .34; a = .74), and

4.19 (SD = .43; a= .81). Finally, mean item scores for couples’ undermining coparenting were

1.30 (SD = .06; a = .76), 1.30 (SD = .07; a = .73), and 1.34 (SD = .07; a = .82). For couples’ spiritual intimacy, averaged item means were 2.21 (SD = .44; a = .83), 2.21 (SD = .44; a = .82), and 2.20 (SD = .44; a = .83) across the three time points. Here, item responses ranged from 0 to

3.

Preliminary Analyses: Bivariate Correlations Among Coparenting Variables

Bivariate correlational analyses were conducted between each coparenting construct across all three time points (Table 3). As would be expected, greater coparenting undermining was significantly correlated with lower coparenting solidarity (T2, -0.38; T3, -0.44; T4, -0.58, p

< .001) and support (T2, -0.57; T3, -0.58; T4, -0.71, p < .001), whereas greater coparenting solidarity was associated with greater coparenting support (T2, 0.66; T3, 0.62; T4, 0.70, p <

.001). The magnitude of correlations between dependent variables justified treating them as separate variables.

Preliminary Analyses: Bivariate Correlations Between Spiritual Intimacy and Coparenting at Each Time Point

Bivariate correlational analyses were conducted between marital spiritual intimacy and the three coparenting variables (Table 4). As expected, the cross-sectional bivariate correlations SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 31 were significant. Specifically, couples’ greater marital spiritual intimacy was associated with greater supportive coparenting at r equal to 0.39, 0.40, and 0.41 (p < .001) at T2, T3, and T4, respectively. Similarly, greater marital spiritual intimacy was correlated with greater solidary coparenting at r equal to 0.34, 0.27, and 0.39 (p < .001) at T2, T3, and T4, respectively. Finally, couples’ greater marital spiritual intimacy was tied to lower undermining coparenting with r equal -.034, -0.30, and -0.39, respectively.

Fixed Effects Analysis

Fixed effects ordinary least squares regression models for longitudinal data were employed to examine the direct effects of couples’ reports of spiritual intimacy on couples’ views of coparenting solidarity, support, and undermining as a couple. Use of this statistical methodology controlled for both measured and unmeasured characteristics of individuals that do not change over time (time invariant) and limited underlying statistical biases (Allison, 2005).

Due to the feasible argument laid out above for causal directionality between spiritual intimacy and coparenting outcomes across the transition to parenthood, it is appropriate to use fixed effects regression to conservatively analyze this potential causal relationship across 3 time points. It is well-known that experimental design (randomization between a control and an experimental group) is the most efficient path towards claiming a causal relationship between two variables. In many situations, however, especially within the field of psychology, it may be unethical or impracticable to randomly assign participants. As such, when this randomization of participants cannot occur, longitudinal data is used to approximate causal relationships by statistically including control variables in the model (Allison, 2005).

In non-experimental research, statistical control helps to mitigate the lack of random assignment. Although data about numerous variables that may account for a given association

(e.g., demographics, personality traits) are often collected in hopes of controlling for such SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 32 variation between individuals, it is impossible to include every conceivable variable in a given data set to use as control variables in a statistical model and some variables that may be worth inclusion are too difficult to accurately measure. As a result, bias may impact conclusions drawn about linkages between a predictor and criterion variable when conducting a non-experimental study. The fixed effects approach to modeling helps to rule out the possibility that time invariant factors accounting for direct associations between the focal variables with a given investigation

(Allison, 2005). With longitudinal data and the assumption of time-invariance, fixed effects modeling controls for potential individual characteristics that may have previously rendered a conclusion spurious. In the current study, any number of unmeasured, but stable, traits within participants’ marital and coparental relationships could influence the relationship between spiritual intimacy and coparenting outcomes. These steady, often immeasurable, characteristics could include (but are not limited to) interpersonal conventionality (i.e., level of relational eccentricity) and/or levels of outward positivity (regardless of possible internal conflict). In summary, the basic mathematical process behind drawing statistical inferences about relationships is by controlling for stable individual characteristics across time. In fixed effects regression, “each individual serves as his or her own control” (Allison, 2005, p. 3). Using individual scores across time, mathematical comparisons can be made between an individual’s own scores and between his/her scores and the scores of the overall sample. When an individual’s score is compared to his/her own scores on the same measure but at different time points, any stable variable that may influence the relationship between predictor and criterion variable may be partialed out. When using fixed effects methods, researchers can assume that if stable characteristic such as these correlate with coparenting outcomes (the independent variable), that link will be controlled for in the statistical analysis. Whereas a basic linear regression would result in a biased estimator, fixed effects methods controls for these SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 33 relationships even without explicitly measuring and including every possible covariate in the statistical model.

With the prior explanation in mind, fixed effects ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis was conducted to regress marital spiritual intimacy scores on couple-level coparenting outcomes

(undermining, solidarity, and support). Results of this analysis are reported in Table 4. Indeed, marital spiritual intimacy predicted coparenting solidarity, support, and undermining across the three time points as expected. For supportive coparenting, couple level marital spiritual intimacy revealed a fixed effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression coefficient of .085 (p < .05).

Similarly, for solidary coparenting, an OLS regression coefficient of .182 (p < .01) was found.

Finally, for undermining coparenting, an OLS regression coefficient of -.121 (p < .001) was found. These conservative statistical analyses provide support for all three hypotheses.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 34

DISCUSSION

The present study offers insights into previously unexplored links between a spiritual aspect of the marital relationship and three facets of coparenting. As expected, greater marital spiritual intimacy predicted greater supportive and solidary coparenting and lower undermining coparenting across the transition to parenthood in a sample of 164 first-time married heterosexual co-parenting pairs using bivariate fixed effects ordinary least squares regression across the transition to parenthood. More specifically, couples’ joint reports of the pair’s level of spiritual intimacy when their infant was 3, 6, and 12 months old predicted their joint reports of less spousal criticism and distrust in parenting practices across these same time points. Higher spiritual intimacy therefore lowers the odds that parents believe their coparent undermines them.

For a spouse, the subjective experience of undermining can produce feelings of shame about their practices and a hesitance towards disclosure. In addition, greater spiritual intimacy is tied to greater supportiveness and solidarity in coparenting - both of which have been identified as critical aspects of a healthy family environment necessary to facilitate the development of psychologically healthy children (Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004; Maccoby et al., 1990).

Supportive coparents appreciate each other, feel that their parenting choices are reinforced by their spouse, and receive encouragement from their spouse about their actions as a parent. When it comes to the amount of togetherness experienced in the practice of coparenting, spousal solidarity represents closeness, agreement, and a sense of presenting a united front. This study indicates that greater marital spiritual intimacy is associated with couples’ reports of greater positive coparenting practices and lower undermining coparenting practices.

Rationale for Spiritual Intimacy Predicting Coparenting

The quality of a structure’s foundation is determined best by how it responds in times of stress. Similarly, the transition to parenthood is well-known to be a stressful time for spouses as SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 35 their relationship transforms from married partners to married coparents. In this time of stress, spouses may find themselves bickering with, withdrawing from, or losing patience with one another. Many first-time parents feel as if they’re “burning the candle from both ends.” Romantic relational discord is an unfortunate corollary to the transition to parenthood. Still, there may be some qualities of a spousal relationship that could buffer against the negative effects of this stressful period. Marital spiritual intimacy necessitates both support and disclosure – empathy and openness. A spouse who is willing to disclose their innermost spiritual struggles and conflicts or even hopes and dreams must feel safe to do so in a non-judgmental, nurturing environment fostered by the empathic support of their partner. In order for spiritual intimacy to abound in a marital relationship, both partners must be willing to disclose and be capable of empathic reception. Just as spiritual struggles are intimate facets of one’s being that are likely shared only with a loved one, the process of trying, failing, and learning to be a parent during the transition to parenthood may be best coped with through reliance on a loved one. Couples who make and receive spiritual disclosures are logically more likely to make and receive disclosures about parenting struggles. The interactive experience of disclosure and reception of parenting struggles likely facilities greater coparenting solidarity – a sense of togetherness. The empathic support of a loving spouse who non-judgmentally listens as their partner discusses the stresses and hardships of parenting facilitates a supportive coparenting environment.

On the other hand, couples who have little-to-no coping skills to rely on during the transition to parenthood likely find their marriages lacking the emotional closeness to feel safe enough for spiritual intimacy. These partners may take opportunities to criticize each other at every turn in an effort to conceal their own insecurities about parenting. The criticism and withdrawal in their romantic relationship almost certainly spills over to their coparental relationship and manifests itself as undermining coparenting. Theoretically, couples who employ SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 36 spiritually intimate conversations and foster spiritually intimate disclosures may approach parenting conflicts and stresses with more relational support mechanisms than couples who do not possess spiritual intimacy skills. This sort of mutual vulnerability required for marital spiritual intimacy likely forms a solid foundation for connectedness, forgiveness, appreciation, and respect. When a spousal relationship is tested by the stressors that accompany the transition to parenthood, partners who practice the mutual vulnerability of spiritual intimacy could access their skills in forgiveness, patience, togetherness, and respect for one another when working as a team to address those stressors.

Conceptually, spiritual intimacy represents a facet of the marital relationship that may help motivate spouses to employ more adaptive coparenting practices. When viewing the family unit as an interconnected system of relationships where spouses are also parents, coparents, and romantic partners, it stands to reason that there is overlap between these realms. Just as the marital realm (and in this study, spiritual intimacy skills within the marital realm) can impact coparenting processes between husband and wife, so also can the coparenting realm play a role in defining aspects of the marital relationship. In other words, if spouses lack spiritual intimacy in their marriage, they are likely to struggle to be supportive, solidary, and non-undermining coparents. Similarly, if spouses undermine each other’s parenting techniques, withhold support, and demonstrate little-to-no solidarity, then marital spiritual intimacy is likely damaged. The transition to parenthood is a period rich with strong emotions ranging from joy, love, anxiety, and frustration on the part of both new parents. The degree to which a couple comes together to draw on one another for psychological support and to which each spouse senses their partner’s warmth and empathy during that process is reliant on marital intimacy (Padgett, et al., 2019). A particular sub-type of this intimacy – spiritual intimacy – represents the degree of comfort felt in disclosures of a spiritual nature and the degree of warmth provided upon reception of those SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 37 disclosures. The findings of this study illustrate that individuals who possess spiritual intimacy skills experience more supportive and solidary coparenting processes and less undermining coparenting processes.

Brief Review of Methodology

Methodological strength is notable due to having both spouses’ provide reports for supportive and undermining coparenting domains. For coparenting solidarity, spouses reported on their perception of the amount of solidarity that exists between them as a couple. Likewise, to assess marital spiritual intimacy, four items from Brelsford and Mahoney’s index of spiritual disclosure (2008) were modified such that each spouse answered two items about their own spiritual disclosure and two items about their partner’s spiritual disclosure. Similarly, four new items were created to assess spiritual support; husbands and wives answered two questions about their spiritual support toward their partner and their partner’s spiritual support toward them.

These items were summed to create a quantified representation of marital spiritual intimacy that exists for the couple. To best mirror this analytic choice, spouse reports of coparenting variables were combined to create summed levels of support, solidarity, and undermining for the couple as a whole. Additionally, longitudinal data carries with it a greater ability to make conclusive claims and draw theoretically sound, potentially causal links. The use of fixed effects analysis across three time points deepens the meaningfulness of the connections found through this research. Through the use of conservative statistical techniques, comprehensive and longitudinal survey methodology, and a sound theoretical background, the findings in this project generate associations between spiritual intimacy in the marital realm and coparenting solidarity, support, and undermining that come as close as possible to providing insights into causal linkages between the two constructs using non-experimental research designs.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 38

Addition to the Literature

The birth of a first child is linked to the creation of new familial roles for each spouse to undertake: that of a parent and that of a coparent. Next, the coping strategies and techniques utilized by parents in response to this new life stressor (a newborn child) represent the maintenance of a family relationship because it involves preserving an existent relationship – the marriage. If the family were to undergo some sort of relational loss – whether that be physical by way of tragedy or emotional by way of unresolved conflict – that experience would be labeled as a transformation. Across these three stages (creation, maintenance, and transformation) are three tiers of relational spirituality that refer to the types of relationships that may or may not be imbued with spiritual meaning. The first tier consists of an individual’s relationship with their perception of a higher power. The second tier involves the spiritual aspects and significance of a family relationship such as that between a wife and a husband. Finally, the third tier refers to the one’s membership (or lack thereof) in a spiritually meaningful community. Mahoney’s (2010) literature review points out that few studies exist that examine the effects of marital skills on parenting. And even fewer exist that examine which, if any, spiritual aspects of the marital domain impact coparenting processes. Thus, the present study spans Mahoney’s first two stages while existing in the second tier and bolsters the literature on relational spirituality in the family unit.

Kusner and colleagues (2014) found that marital spiritual intimacy can successfully predict less negativity and more positivity for husbands and wives even after controlling for stable, time-invariant participant characteristics. Keeping in mind that the stress associated with the transition to new parenthood diminishes marital satisfaction (Don & Mickelson, 2014; Doss

& Rhoades, 2017), Padgett and colleagues (2019) examined this transition and found that spouses who engaged in more spiritually intimate conversations during pregnancy tended to SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 39 sustain the marital emotional intimacy observed by researchers from the time of pregnancy and across the first year after the birth of the couple’s first child. This emotional intimacy was maintained by dialogues characterized by revelation of personal vulnerabilities and warmth upon the reception of their partner’s vulnerabilities. It seems that marital spiritual intimacy is a salient predictor of positive marital processes during the transition to parenthood.

This thesis addresses the stark gap in the literature on what has been shown to be a salient marital domain – spiritual intimacy – on coparenting processes. It sought to examine if the aforementioned beneficial effects may extend to the processes associated with coparenting and in doing so further substantiated the value of marital spiritual intimacy as a domain for psychological inquiry. Based on Mahoney’s RSF and additional literature review summarized in the introduction, there is no previous research that links a spiritual domain of the marital relationship to practical domains of the coparental relationship. As such, this research lays the groundwork for and justifies future examination of connections between the spousal relationship, coparental relationship, and, ideally, child behavior outcomes. Ambitious future study may seek to collect longitudinal data that follows the child’s development to determine what, if any, effects marital spiritual intimacy may have down the line.

Limitations

As discussed earlier, this study utilizes a sample consisting of married, heterosexual, first-time parents. Participants were middle class and largely ethnically homogenous. As such, there exists a notable limitation: that findings may not generalize to all people who undergo the transition to parenthood. Similarly, the sample used for this research was not clinically distressed and findings from this project may not extend to individuals coping with clinical levels of distress across the transition to parenthood. There exists a growing minority of families that do not fit the inclusion criteria used for this study. These families include but are not limited to SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 40 single-parent families, “mixed” families wherein one or both parents bring children from a previous relationship, families where grandparents or other family members are the primary caretakers of the child, or families where the child’s parents are not romantically engaged.

Conclusions may differ for these types of families as well as families in other socio-economic circumstances. Because spiritual intimacy is a construct that has not yet been thoroughly researched, individual responses to items on this and other R/S measures cannot be fully known

(e.g. one person’s definition of “spiritual” may be much different than another’s). While fixed- effects regression analysis revealed a strong link between the predictor variable and the outcome variables, future research may seek to consider relevant mediator and moderator variables that could serve to further elucidate the nature of these associations. Despite these limitations, the present study has contributed unique knowledge about the effects of one spiritual aspect of the marital relationship on three facets of the coparental relationship.

Future Research and Application

Previous research has confirmed the generally accepted idea that the transition to parenthood brings with it a decrease in overall marital satisfaction and has elucidated a number of spousal factors that can mitigate or magnify this effect (Don & Mickelson, 2014). Future research may seek to identify the role of spiritual intimacy in predicting the degree of spousal marital satisfaction declines across the transition to parenthood. Doss and colleagues (2009) write that this decline is sudden and lasting. Doss and Rhoades (2017) recognize that pre-birth couple characteristics can influence the degree of marital satisfaction deterioration and note the moderate efficacy of interventions designed to minimize the decline in marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. Perhaps including spiritual intimacy development in these interventions could bolster their efficacy for couples who are approaching this transition. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 41

Merely identifying a gap in the literature is never enough to justify an entire line of research. For this project, clinical and practical applications abound. With thousands of marriage and family therapists and clinical psychologists who specialize in child and family therapy seeing a multitude of clients every year, there is a great deal of practical significance for application. According to Pew Research, 75% of Americans identify as spiritual and/or religious.

These individuals may benefit from talking about spiritual struggles with their therapist and families who seek clinical treatment for child psychopathology may benefit from discussing their own marital relationship with their therapist. If clients and clinicians alike were to be informed of the links between marital spiritual intimacy and coparenting processes, they may have an additional avenue of treatment for child behavior problems. That way, along with clinician- directed psychoeducation, couple’s counseling interventions could be utilized to bolster the development of joint coparenting skills. However, one limitation of this study is that the sample comes from non-clinically distressed families. So, it may be that practical applications for these findings are best enacted in psychoeducation for parents-to-be, newlyweds, or new parents.

A valuable target for research on newly forming families is the question of how to best prepare for the birth of a first child. In fact, the US government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars researching and promoting the psychological well-being of new parents (Mitnick,

Heyman, & Slep, 2009). With the well-known deterioration of marital satisfaction after the birth of a first child (Don & Mickelson, 2014; Doss & Rhoades, 2017) and damaging pre-natal marital problem-solving patterns increasing the likelihood of divorce within two years after the birth of a first child (Houts, et al., 2008), spouses and therapists alike may be motivated to identify a marital characteristic that increases the likelihood of adaptive coparenting processes and may buffer against the potential damaging effects of the transition to parenthood. While parenting classes are helpful (Mitnick, Heyman, & Slep, 2009), young parents-to-be may be surprised to SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 42 hear that the functioning of their own relationship is a building block for an environment that will foster the positive development of their coming child(ren). Ineffective coparenting leads to negative child behavior outcomes and effective coparenting leads to positive child behavior outcomes (Groenendyk & Volling, 2007; Belsky, Putnam, & Crnic, 1996; Karreman et al., 2008;

McHale, Rao, & Krasnow, 2000). Intuitively, parenting skills that may or may not be facilitated by parenting classes are foundational to effective coparenting. But the other element that contributes to effective coparenting is the subjective nature of the marital relationship. Future research may seek to examine the possibility that marital spiritual intimacy could predict observed triadic coparenting interactions. It is likely that spouses who are planning to become coparents may be both interested and encouraged to learn that their own marital skills and satisfaction contribute meaningfully to the development of their child (Favez et al., 2016;

Christopher et al., 2015).

Conclusion

The psychological study of religion and spirituality is a growing field with real-world effects; especially for the majority of Americans who identify as spiritual and/or religious. While past research has often relied primarily on over-simplified measures of global aspects of religiousness (like frequency of religious service attendance), this thesis recognizes the important role that one specific relational spirituality construct can play in the lives of spouses making the transition to parenthood. Since soon-to-be parents face relational strain as they transition to parenthood, turning to a religious or spiritual relational strength in these times of difficulty may be an attractive or necessary option. This project bolsters scientific knowledge about the interactions between marital and parental relationships by illustrating that marital spiritual intimacy - one of many possible aspects of the marital relationship – has beneficial effects on coparenting processes across the transition to parenthood. New and soon-to-be parents should be SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 43 encouraged to pursue the open disclosure and empathic warmth associated with marital spiritual intimacy with their spouse; not just for the sake of their union (Padgett, et al., 2019; Kusner et al., 2014) but for the sake of their coparenting skills and their developing child. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 44

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SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 55

APPENDIX A: SPIRITUAL INTIMACY ITEMS

(Disclosure items – reports about self)

I feel safe being completely open and honest with my spouse about my faith.

I tend to keep my spiritual side private and separate from my marriage.

(Support items – reports about spouse)

My spouse really knows how to listen when I talk about my spiritual needs, thoughts, and feelings.

My spouse is supportive when I reveal my spiritual questions or struggles to him/her.

(Disclosure items – reports about spouse)

My spouse doesn’t disclose his/her thoughts or feelings about spirituality with me.

My spouse shares his/her spiritual questions or struggles with me.

(Support items – reports about self)

I try not to be judgmental or critical when my spouse shares his/her ideas about spirituality.

I try to be supportive when my spouse discloses spiritual questions or struggles.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 56

APPENDIX B: COPARENTING ITEMS

(Solidarity items – reported by both spouses) [Range: 10-50]

Parenting has brought my spouse and me closer together.

After my spouse or I have handled a difficult situation with our child, we discuss it and try to figure out what we could have done better

My spouse and I often talk together about what is best for our child.

My spouse and I feel as though we are growing and maturing together through our experiences as parents.

Having a child has helped me to see positive qualities in my spouse that I never noticed before.

My spouse and I agree on how much time we should spend with our child.

My spouse and I like to imagine together what our child will be like when he/she grows up.

My spouse and I agree on our ideas, guidelines, and rules for raising our child.

Parenting has given my spouse and me a focus for the future.

My spouse and I do not agree on when to punish and how to punish (reversed)

(Support items – reported by both spouses) [Range: 5-25]

My spouse appreciates how hard I work at being a good parent.

My spouse makes me feel that I am the best possible parent for our child.

My spouse backs me up as a parent.

When I make a mistake with our child, I can talk it over with my spouse

When I feel at my wits end as a parent, my spouse gives me the extra support I need.

(Undermining items – reported by both spouses) [Range: 6-30]

My spouse thinks I am a bad influence on our child.

My spouse does not trust my abilities as a parent. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 57

I feel too ashamed about my mishaps with my child to talk them over with my spouse.

I am afraid of my spouse's anger when I do something wrong with our child.

As a parent, I cannot seem to do anything right in my spouse's eyes.

My spouse makes me look like the "bad person" in the eyes of our child.

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 58

APPENDIX C: TABLES

Table 1

Descriptive Information for Sample: Demographic Variables at Time 1 (N = 164)

Descriptive Variable Wives Husbands

Age (years) 27.12 (20-40) 28.73 (20-42) Length of Marriage (months) 32.01 (1-121) 32.01 (1-121) Length of Relationship (months) 70.91 (12-216) 70.91 (12-216) Education Partial high school completion 0.0% 1.8% High school graduate 6.5% 9.4% Partial college/post-high school training 20.6% 27.6% College graduate 45.9% 42.4% Graduate or professional degree 27.1% 18.8% Ethnicity Caucasian 92.0% 85.0% Asian American 3.7% 5.0% African American 3.7% 5.5% Latino 0.0% 3.7% Other 0.62% 0.62% Household income 0-$25,000 8.0% 8.0% $25,000-50,000 29.0% 29.0% $50,000-75,000 30.0% 30.0% $75,000-100,000 19.0% 19.0% >$100,000 13.0% 13.0% Religious Affiliation Christian/Protestant 31.5% 31.5% Christian/Catholic 25.8% 27.0% Non-denominational Christian 34.3% 28.1% Other 2.8% 5.6% Muslim 0.0% 0.6% Jewish 0.6% 0.6% None 4.5% 6.7% SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 59

Religious Service Attendance Never 5.1% 5.6% Less than once per year 6.2% 10.1% About once or twice a year 15.2% 12.4% Several times a year 11.8% 11.8% About once per month 5.6% 6.2% 2-3 times per month 15.7% 15.2% Every week 28.7% 28.7% Several times a week 11.8% 10.1% Private Prayer Never 5.6% 12.9% Less than once a month 7.9% 7.9% Once a month 4.5% 5.1% A few times a month 9.0% 9.6% Once a week 5.6% 4.5% A few times a week 17.4% 18.0% Once a day 20.8% 14.0% More than once per day 29.2% 28.1% Couple Biblical Conservatism Conservative 50.6 Non-conservative 49.4

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 60

Table 2

Descriptive Information for Sample: Criterion and Predictor Variables (N = 164)

Variable 3 6 12 months months months

Criterion Item Variables Range

Couples’ M 4.05 4.05 4.07 1-5 Solidary SD 0.36 0.34 0.34 Coparenting a 0.80 0.79 0.83

Couples’ M 4.27 4.23 4.19 1-5 Supportive SD 0.39 0.34 0.43 Coparenting a 0.76 0.74 0.81

Couples’ M 1.30 1.30 1.34 1-5 Undermining SD 0.06 0.07 0.07 Coparenting a 0.76 0.73 0.82

Predictor Variables

Couples’ M 2.21 2.21 2.20 0-3 Spiritual SD 0.44 0.44 0.44 Intimacy a 0.83 0.82 0.83

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 61

Table 3

Intercorrelations of Criterion Variables at all Three Time Points

Pearson Correlation Coefficients, N = 164

Coparenting Coparenting Undermining Solidarity

Coparenting T2 -0.38*** Solidarity T3 -0.44*** T4 -0.58***

Coparenting T2 -0.57*** 0.66*** Support T3 -0.58*** 0.62*** T4 -0.71*** 0.70***

Note. T2 = time 2, 3 months after birth of first child; T3 = time 3, 6 months; T4 = time 4, 1 year. *** p < .001 SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 62

Table 4

Bivariate Correlations and Fixed Effects Ordinary Least Squares Regression Analyses Examining Effects of Spiritual Intimacy on Coparenting Criterion Variables

Joint Report Marital Spiritual Intimacy

Supportive Coparenting T2 T3 T4

Cross-sectional bivariate correlations¹ 0.39*** 0.40*** 0.41***

Fixed Effects OLS estimate (co-efficient) 0.085*

Solidary Coparenting T2 T3 T4

Cross-sectional bivariate correlations¹ 0.34*** 0.27*** 0.39***

Fixed Effects OLS estimate (co-efficient) 0.182**

Undermining Coparenting T2 T3 T4

Cross-sectional bivariate correlations¹ -0.34*** -0.30*** -0.39***

Fixed Effects OLS estimate (co-efficient) -0.121***

Note. OLS = Ordinary Least Squares Regression; T2 = time 2, 3 months, T3 = time 3, 6 months, T4 = time 4, 1 year. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients; * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001 (1-tailed). All analyses represent a sample of N = 164. SPIRITUAL INTIMACY AND COPARENTING 63

APPENDIX D: INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL LETTER