The Impact of Severe Negative Events in Marriage on Depression

Despite a strong body of evidence for an important association between marital discord and depression, issues of causality have been difficult to disentangle. In an attempt to better understand one aspect of the marital discord/depression link, the impact of severe negative marital events on the development of depression was assessed in women with no prior history of major depression (N = 50). The specific goals of the study were to examine rates of depression occurring after the severe negative marital event and to determine the types of events in marriage that wives perceived as severely negative. The rate of Major Depressive Episodes in this group of women experiencing a severe negative marital event (38%) was significantly higher than reported incidence rates. Additionally, participants had significantly elevated rates of depressive symptomatology both shortly after the event and two months later. The most frequently reported negative events were separation/divorce, extramarital affairs, and physical aggression. Path analyses indicated that marital discord predicted later depressive symptoms but that depressive symptoms did not predict later marital discord. The strong association between severe negative marital events and subsequent depression demonstrated that negative marital events predict depression even in the absence of a history of depression.