مصرف مواد مخدر و رضایت زناشویی

With the acquisition of adult social roles such as marriage, more deviant or socially disapproved behaviors such as drug use often decrease. The objective of this work was to examine patterns of illicit drug use in a community sample of adults during the transition and early years of marriage. Additionally, this work examined if couples who were discrepant in their drug use (i.e., one individual reported past year drug use and the partner reported no use) experience sharper declines in marital satisfaction compared to other couples. Multilevel regression models explored these issues over the first four years of marriage (N = 634 couples). Although rates of illicit drug use decline over the first four years of marriage, a significant number of husbands and wives continued to use illicit drugs (21% and 16%, respectively). At the transition to marriage, both husbands and wives who had discrepant drug use behaviors experienced lower levels of marital satisfaction compared to other couples. Over the first four years of marriage, couples in each group experienced significant declines in marital satisfaction.

The process of psychosocial maturation suggests that as individuals progress through early adulthood, more deviant behaviors such as illicit drug use should cease (Labouvie, 1996). Labouvie (1996) suggests that during this process individuals attempt to self-regulate their behaviors and thus correct behaviors that are not normative or socially acceptable. Further, Role Incompatibly Theory (Thornton & Nardi, 1975) postulates that behaviors that are not congruent with a social role are more likely to be discontinued. For example, Miller-Tutzauer, Leonard, and Windle (1991) used data from a nationally representative sample of US adults and found that the first year of marriage was associated with a decline in the amount of heavy drinking. Additionally, they found that the decline in heavy drinking was actually evident in the year prior to marriage, suggesting that as these individuals were anticipating the transition into a new social role, heavy drinking declined. Similarly, Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, and Schulenberg (1997) found that marriage (and even the anticipation of marriage) was related to a reduction or cessation of both licit substances (i.e., alcohol use, tobacco use) as well as illicit substance use (i.e., marijuana and cocaine). Additionally, the relation between the transition to marriage and reductions in substance use held for both men and women. Yamaguchi and Kandel (1985) investigated the relation between social roles (e.g., first marriage, becoming a parent) and the cessation of marijuana use. Among men, the year prior to marriage as well as the year in which they became a parent were associated with cessation of marijuana use. Among women, the year prior to marriage, as well at the time of marriage and in the year prior to having a baby were all significantly associated with a cessation of marijuana use. Others have also found that the transition into family roles was related to reductions in illicit drug use (Chen & Kandel, 1998). Taken together, strong evidence exists to suggest that the acquisition of adult roles such as marriage is associated with a reduction in illicit drug use. Although the transition into adult roles such as marriage (or the anticipation of a transition into adult roles) is often associated with a reduction in illicit drug use, not all individuals cease their drug involvement. For example, in a community sample of newly married couples, almost one-fifth of wives (19.7%) and about a quarter of husbands (25.5%) reported past year marijuana use (Leonard & Homish, 2005). Although the drug use declined through the second wedding anniversary, a significant number of wives (12.5%) and husbands (18.7%) continued to use marijuana. Using data from the US National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health, 6.8% of married women and 8.9% of married men reported any past year illicit drug (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2003). When restricting this sample to married adults under the age of 30, 13.1% of women reported any past year illicit drug use and 19.3% of men reported any past year illicit drug use. In another large US survey (Monitoring the Future), 5.1% of 35 year old married women reported marijuana use in the past 30 days and 9.5% of 35 year old married men reported marijuana use in the past 30 days (Merline, O'Malley, Schulenberg, Bachman, & Johnston, 2004). Although rates of illicit drug use generally decrease with increasing age and the assumption of adult roles, it is clear that illicit drug use does not end for everyone. In accord with role incompatibly theory, socially deviant behaviors such as illicit drug use are not compatible with traditional adult, social roles such as marriage or parenthood (Vargas-Carmona, Newcomb, & Galaif, 2002); therefore, these individuals may be more likely to experience difficulty within a variety of aspects of their lives. One such domain that may be impacted by the continuation of illicit drug use is within the marital relationship. This may be especially true if only one member of the couple is involved with illicit drug use. In a cross-sectional study of substance use behaviors among newly married adults, Mudar, Leonard, and Soltysinski (2001) found that couples who were discrepant in their heavy drinking and frequency of intoxication (i.e., one engaged in the behavior but the other did not) had significantly lower marital quality scores compared to couples in which both or neither used. In a longitudinal follow-up to this work, Homish and Leonard (2007) found that discrepancies in heavy drinking between husbands and wives were predictive of decreased marital satisfaction through the second wedding anniversary. Importantly, the finding was not dependent on whether the husband or wife was the heavy drinker. Roberts and Leonard (1998) use the term “drinking partnership” to describe how couples integrate alcohol use into the relationship. The “drinking partnership” describes the match, or lack of match, between the amount and context of use for husbands and wives alcohol consumption. Within the examination of the drinking partnership construct, it was found that it was the discrepancy between the husbands and wives that related to relationship difficulty. Thus, it appears that how the alcohol use is integrated into the relationship relates to overall marital quality, not simply the alcohol use per se. In addition to more global measures of marital satisfaction, discrepancies in substance use can also be related to more extreme relationship events. For example, Leadley, Clark, and Caetano (2000) found that discrepancy in amounts of alcohol use among adult intimate couples was related to an increased likelihood of relationship problems (threats to end relationship due to drinking and arguments based on alcohol) and interpersonal violence. For relationship problems, the nature of the discrepancy (i.e., whether the husband or the wife was the heavier drinker) was not related to the outcome—it was simply the presence of the discrepancy that increased the likelihood of relationship problems. Although the study was based on a nationally representative sample of US adults, the findings are based on a single time point, and therefore, the directional nature of the variables cannot be ascertained. Quigley and Leonard (2000) also found that discrepancy in alcohol use among couples was related to a greater likelihood of husband-to-wife aggression. Ostermann, Sloan, and Taylor (2005) used five waves of data to examine the relation between alcohol use and marital dissolution (separation or divorce). After adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, number of years married, number of times married, health, religion, and education, discrepant levels of alcohol use between husbands and wives was related to marital dissolution, while concordant heavy drinking was not predictive of marital dissolution. From the alcohol literature it is clear that discrepancy in heavy alcohol use, not simply the presence of heavy alcohol use, was longitudinally related to changes in intimate relationship functioning. Far less work has considered the construct of discrepancy as it relates to illicit drug use. In a cross-sectional study of couples during the transition into marriage, couples who were discrepant in their use of illicit drugs (marijuana, cocaine, sedatives, stimulants, heroin, and hallucinogens), reported lower marital satisfaction compared to couples in which neither partner used or both partners used drugs (Mudar et al., 2001). In a treatment sample of drug using adults, Fals-Stewart, Birchler, and O'Farrell (1999) examined the relation between three groups of couples and marital functioning. The groups consisted of couples in which both members used drugs, only the wife used drugs and only the husband used drugs. Compared to the two discordant groups, couples in which both members used drugs had taken fewer steps toward ending their relationship and less frequently used maladaptive responses to a conflictual situation. The authors suggested that for some individuals, the drug use becomes positively associated with relationship satisfaction. In many ways, these results parallel the findings reported with alcohol use. The integration of substance use into the relationship, rather than the substance use by itself, appears to be an important predictor of changes in relationship functioning over time. However, the research to date on discrepancy in substance use patterns among intimate couples has been quite limited and has tended to focus on alcohol use. It is not clear if similar results would be found for the relation between patterns of illicit drug use and marital satisfaction over time. The work that has considered illicit drug use has been limited by cross-sectional work or research utilizing treatment samples. It is not clear if similar findings would be evident among less severe populations, such as community samples. The objective of this work was to use a community sample of newly married couples to examine changes in marital satisfaction over time on the basis of illicit drug use. This work focuses on four waves (time of marriage, and first, second, and fourth wedding anniversaries) of an ongoing study of marital functioning and substance use. Using multilevel regression models, we examined if changes in marital satisfaction over the early years of marriage differ for three couples: couples in which neither partner used illicit drugs in the previous year, couples in which both member used illicit drugs in the previous year, and couples in which only one member used illicit drugs in the previous year.