Relationships Among Sexual Satisfactin, Marital Quality, and Marital Instability at Midlife Hsiu-Chen Yeh, Frederick O. Lorenz, and K. A. S. Wickrama Iowa State University Rand D. Conger University of California, Davis Glen H. Elder, Jr. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Sexual satisfaction, marital quality, and marital instability have been studied over the life course of couples in many previous studies, but less in relation to each other. On the basis of the longitudinal data from 283 married couples, the authors used autoregressive models in this study to examine the causal sequences among these 3 constructs for husbands and wives separately. Results of cross-lagged models, for both husbands and wives, provided support for the causal sequences that proceed from sexual satisfaction to marital quality, from sexual satisfaction to marital instability, and from marital quality to marital instability. Initially higher levels of sexual satisfaction resulted in an increase in marital quality, which in turn led to a decrease in marital instability over time. Effects of sexual satisfaction on marital instability appear to have been mediated through marital quality. Keywords: autoregressive models, marital instability, marital quality, midlife, sexual satisfaction Many empirical studies have reported a significant posi- tive association between sexual satisfaction and marital quality (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Cupach & Comstock, 1990; Edwards & Booth, 1994; Henderson-King & Veroff, 1994; Lawrance & Byers, 1995; Oggins, Leber, & Veroff, 1993; Young, Luquis, Denny, & Young, 1998). A few longitudinal studies also reported that sexual satisfaction was negatively predictive of marital instability (Edwards & Booth, 1994; Oggins et al., 1993; Veroff, Douvan, & Hatch- ett, 1995; White & Keith, 1990). Karney and Bradbury’s (1995) review of longitudinal studies on marriage also showed that marital satisfaction was more strongly related to marital stability (aggregate rs ranged from .14 to .42) than most other predictor variables. However, the causal sequences among sexual satisfaction, marital quality, and marital instability have not been carefully examined. Because most previous research has been cross-sectional, and no more than two waves of data linking the three constructs were included in previous longitudinal studies, specific causal connections were usually based on research- ers’ decisions, rather than on empirical evidence (Christo- pher & Sprecher, 2000; Sprecher, 2002; Sprecher & Cate, 2004). Moreover, Booth, Johnson, and Edwards (1983) have defined marital instability as “affective and cognitive states along the related actions that are precedent to termi- nating a relationship” and “a situation in an intact dyad, not to ones that already have been disrupted” (p. 392). How- ever, most researchers have commonly relied on separation and divorce statistics (i.e., consequences of instability) to represent marital instability. Furthermore, because most previous studies on sexual satisfaction have mostly focused on newlyweds and young couples (Henderson-King & Ver- off, 1994; Kurdek, 1993; Oggins et al., 1993), little is known about variability in sexual satisfaction among long- married couples. To carefully examine the interrelationships among the three variables, we used five waves of panel data on sexual satisfaction, marital quality, and marital stability collected over 11 years from married husbands and wives at midlife. Method Sample and Procedures Husbands and wives in the current study were those who had originally participated in the Iowa Youth and Families Project between 1989 and 1994 and continued participating into the Iowa Midlife Transitions Project in 2001 (see Conger & Elder, 1994; Lorenz, Wickrama, & Yeh, 2002, for details). Because sexual satisfaction variables were not included in the 1989 survey, only the last five waves (1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 2001) of data Hsiu-Chen Yeh, Frederick O. Lorenz, and K. A. S. Wickrama, Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, Iowa State Univer- sity; Rand D. Conger, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis; Glen H. Elder, Jr., Departments of Sociology and Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hsiu-Chen Yeh, W112 Lagomarcino Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3180. E-mail: hyeh@iastate.edu Journal of Family Psychology Copyright 2006 by the American Psychological Association 2006, Vol. 20, No. 2, 339 –343 0893-3200/06/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0893-3200.20.2.339 339