Sharing important life goals within romantic couples: Relationship satisfaction as a measure of agreement between partners

Recent studies of romantic relationships highlight that the degree of agreement between partners with respect to important lifegoals (e.g., having a successful career; becoming parents) critically depend on specific dynamic relationship features. Drawing on this perspective, we hypothesized a correspondence between the desire for offspring of one member of the couple and parenting desire of the other member (as well as her/his attitude toward the family vs. career plans), but only when relational satisfaction was high. To test the hypothesis, we enrolled 220 participants in a cross-sectional design. As predicted, a moderated multiple regression model showed that relational satisfaction significantly altered the effect of parenting desire of one member on parenting desire of the other member of the couple, as well as her/his attitude towards family vs. career plans. Specifically, when relational satisfaction was high, increasing levels of parenting desire in one member predicted higher levels of parenting desire in the other, and lower conflict with career ambitions. We suggest that the perceived quality of the relationship may therefore act as an index of agreement between partners when weighing lifegoals. Further theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.