Quality of Father Relationship Predicts Young Adults\u27 Romantic Relationship Quality

Girls’ interactions with fathers during their formative years may be important predictors of their later intimate interactions with men. To explore this idea, we assessed young adults’ relationships with both parents, as well as their romantic relationship quality. We hypothesized that adults who had higher quality relationships with their parents would have higher quality romantic relationships; and based on previous research, we anticipated that father relationships would be even more influential than mother relationships. Participants were 98 young adults with a mean age of 20 (SD = 3.9); 54% were Caucasian, 31% were African American, and the remainder reported other ethnicities. Half of the participants were from married households and half from households where the parents were no longer together. Participants responded to scales that assessed parent-child relationships, intimacy in romantic relationships, attitudes toward cohabitation, and self-esteem. The results partially supported our hypotheses; the relationship with both parents predicted young adults’ self-esteem; however only father relationship predicted the quality of young adults’ romantic relationships and positive attitudes toward marriage over cohabitation. Having married parents also predicted many positive outcomes. Perhaps the parents’ marriage provided stability during the young adults’ early development or a healthy example for young adults to later mirror. Age, SES, race, and gender were not as influential in determining romantic relationship quality. These findings suggest that early relationships can have a powerful impact on later relationships. They also support the notion that fathers serve a critical role in the family structure for both sons and daughters