Linking financial distress to marital quality: The intermediary roles of demand/withdraw and spousal gratitude expressions

This study investigates demand/withdraw communication and spousal expressions of gratitude as intervening variables in the association between financial distress and marital quality. With a sample of 468 married individuals, dual-mediation models revealed demand/withdraw transmitted the effect of financial distress onto 3 different marital outcomes; in most instances, this indirect effect occurred through total couple demand/withdraw and not one spouse-specific pattern. In moderated mediation models, spousal gratitude exerted main effects on all marital outcomes and, for a subset of outcomes, protective effects for couples with high levels of demand/withdraw. Results elucidate how demand/withdraw patterns link financial distress to marital outcomes and highlight spousal gratitude expressions as a promising, yet understudied, process within couples that promotes and protects marital quality. The deleterious effect of financial distress on spouses and their marriage is well documented, with higher levels of financial distress commonly associated with lower levels of observed and self-reported marital interaction and marital quality (see Conger et al., 1990; Falconier & Epstein, 2011a; Williamson, Karney, & Bradbury, 2013). With this effect established, research attention shifts to understanding the mechanisms and contingencies for this phenomenon (Hayes, 2012). In other words,