Do Spousal Discrepancies in Marital Quality Assessments Affect Psychological Adjustment to Widowhood?

We use prospective couple-level data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples to assess the extent to which spouses concur in their assessments of marital quality (N= 844) and whether discrepancies in spouses’ marital assessments affect the bereaved spouse’s psychological adjustment 6 months after loss (n= 105). Spouses’ assessments of marital quality are correlated modestly (r= .45), with women offering less positive assessments. Bereaved persons who had rated their marriages more positively than their spouse at the preloss interview reported higher levels of anger 6 months postloss. We conclude that persons who offer more positive appraisals of their marriages than their spouse may view spousal loss as a particularly unjust event. We discuss implications for understanding late life marriage and spousal bereavement.