Parenthood is undoubtedly a blissful experience, yet the escalating expectations of parental roles in modern society have placed immense demands on parents to be deeply involved in parenting emotionally, physically, and financially (Lee et al., 2014; Martin and Leloup, 2020). Consequently, contemporary parents are facing a significant surge in parenting stress (Taubman-Ben-Ari et al., 2021). Parenting stress refers to the negative emotional experiences and states that arise from the role of parenting, including restlessness, fear, worry, anxiety, feelings of self-loss, and fatigue (Yoshiyuki et al., 2012). This stress poses a great risk to parents' well-being and mental outcomes (Jennings and Dietz, 2007; Vismara et al., 2016; Skreden et al., 2012). Moreover, parenting stress is not only a personal issue for parents, it is closely linked to the marital relationship and is widely acknowledged as a key factor in the deterioration of marital relationships (Dong et al., 2022). Considering that marital satisfaction is an important indicator for assessing the quality of the marital relationship (Glenn, 1990), this feature makes it the optimal reflection of the marital relationship.

Parenting stress is a risk factor in low marital satisfaction (Dong et al., 2022). The stress-divorce model proposed by Bodenmann et al. (2007) emphasizes that subtle stress originating from outside the relationship is particularly detrimental to intimate relationships. It creates emotion distance between couples, and contributes to a decline in relationship quality, which is potentially related to lower marital satisfaction. Parenting stress, which permeates daily life contexts, falls precisely within this category of subtle and often overlooked pressures. Empirical studies have provided further evidence confirming that there is a negative prediction from maternal and paternal parenting stress to their own marital satisfaction (Dong et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2023). At the individual level, parenting stress indicates that parents lack sufficient personal resources to meet the demands of child-rearing (Deater-Deckard and Panneton, 2017). Under conditions of resource scarcity, they have less energy available to maintain their marital relationship and may experience lower marital satisfaction. From an interactional perspective, as children grow, the accumulation of parenting stress intensifies the tension in family interactions (Bronte-Tinkew et al., 2010; Mikolajczak et al., 2018), thereby showing a correlation with a deterioration of the marital relationship (Zhong and Xu, 2024). It is worth noting that there is a sharp increase in problem behaviors in children during the middle childhood, and parenting stress may reach a high level during this stage (Lougheed et al., 2020; Macias et al., 2003). Particularly, parenting stress may be even heavier in the context of Chinese culture, which emphasizes the expectation that “children are expected to become dragons”, meaning that parents hold high hopes for their children to achieve success and surpass the ordinary. Furthermore, unlike the Western emphasis on the centrality of marriage in the family (Erel and Burman, 1995), Chinese families are child-centered (Shek, 2006), which implies Chinese parents often prioritize addressing childcare-related challenges over maintaining their marital relationship. Consequently, their parenting stress is more likely to seep into the marital relationship, posing a threat to marital satisfaction.

Although such actor effects (i.e., the association between maternal/paternal parenting stress and their own marital satisfaction) have been confirmed (Dong et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2023), previous research has largely analyzed data from mothers or fathers separately, neglecting the interdependence and mutual influence between parents. The family is a whole, wherein fathers and mothers are not isolated from one another but rather exist in a state of mutual interdependence (Cox and Paley, 1997; Minuchin, 1985). This suggests that when exploring the relations between parenting stress and marital satisfaction, both the two parents and the partner roles (the effect of parenting stress on partners' marital satisfaction) should be examined. The negative effects of one parent's parenting stress have been associated with more marital conflict (Han and Lee, 2020). In this situation, the other partner may become involved in the conflict and reports feelings of distress (Berryhill et al., 2016; Turgeon et al., 2023), which possibly correlates with lower levels of marital satisfaction. Consequently, this study aims to explore the associations between parents' parenting stress and both their own and their partner's marital satisfaction.

In recent years, the field of parenting has increasingly highlighted the more complex mechanisms through which parenting stress may relate to marital relationships. This is crucial for understanding the risk and harmful effects of parenting stress. So, how is the parenting stress, which accumulates outside the couple's relationship, associated with lower marital satisfaction? The stress-divorce model further posits that external stress can be associated with impaired marital relationships through higher incidence of emotion-related psychological problems (Bodenmann et al., 2007). In this process, chronic daily parenting stress may shift from quantitative changes (accumulation of negative emotional states) to qualitative changes (impaired emotional functioning), ultimately changing marital satisfaction. As an expression of damaged emotional functioning (Cole et al., 1994; Turk et al., 2005), emotion dysregulation refers to the inability to recognize, understand and accept negative emotions, along with difficulties in making reasonable responses to emotional events (Kaufman et al., 2016). Its core manifestation is characterized by inconsistencies in the application of an individual's cognition, attention, and behavior regulation strategies relative to their environment (Pop-Jordanova, 2023).

The discomfort brought about by parenting stress may trigger emotion dysregulation in parents. According to the Conservation of Resources Theory proposed by Hobfoll (2001), individuals with limited resources are more vulnerable to subsequent resource depletion. High parenting stress indicates that parents possess relatively insufficient resources at their disposal, thereby impairing their ability to effectively cope with child-rearing demands (Deater-Deckard and Panneton, 2017). This state of resource scarcity may further contribute to emotion dysregulation, as its core manifestations, such as difficulties in emotion regulation and a lack of adaptive regulatory strategies, can be viewed as the manifestation of severe psychological resource depletion. Extensive empirical evidence has demonstrated that the accumulation of daily life stress is associated with impaired emotion regulation abilities and higher levels of emotion dysregulation (Abravanel and Sinha, 2015; Herrero-Fernández et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2023; Tang et al., 2019). To be specific, when in the face of maladaptive environments, such as high parenting stress situations, individuals' ability to develop effective emotional regulation strategies is impaired (Gratz and Roemer, 2004). In addition, persistent parenting stress entails a significant accumulation of negative emotional states (Yoshiyuki et al., 2012). When it exceeds an individual's coping threshold, it may be associated with impaired emotional functioning and an increased risk of emotion dysregulation. It is further supported at the neurobiological level. Studies have shown that repeated exposure to stress exerts profound effects on prefrontal and limbic-striatal functions, which are critically involved in emotional processing and regulation (Ansell et al., 2012; Seo et al., 2014). However, few existing studies have situated the aforementioned processes within the parenting context. Research in this area often takes emotion dysregulation as a starting point to examine its prediction on parenting stress (Camisasca et al., 2022; Cao et al., 2017), which limits the exploration of how parenting stress may be related to more severe individual outcomes for parents. This is particularly evident in the Chinese context, where children are central to the family, and parenting stress among Chinese parents is notably severe (Shek, 2006). It reality lends unique relevance and significance to the choice of parenting stress as a starting point for research.

Emotion dysregulation may be associated with reduced parental marital satisfaction through two primary ways. In terms of outward emotional expression, due to the high level of intimacy inherent in marital relationships (Chmielewska, 2012), parents with elevated emotion dysregulation may be more inclined to direct these dysregulated emotions toward their partners. This pattern can interfere with the maintenance of marital relationships (Ogan et al., 2024), making it difficult for parents to feel satisfied with their marriage. In terms of the generation of internal emotions, emotion dysregulation is linked to alterations in an individual's cognitive processes, which may exacerbate parents' negative views of their marital relationship (Barnett et al., 1990; Viau-Quesnel et al., 2019). Tani et al. (2015) found that emotionally dysregulated partners exhibit a strong fear of emotional investment and dependence on others. As a result, they often avoid intimacy and fear being controlled by their partners, which may further contribute to lower marital satisfaction. However, despite the relatively abundant research examining the associations between parenting stress and marital satisfaction (Bradbury et al., 2000; Hou et al., 2019; Lavee et al., 1996), exploration of the underlying psychological mechanisms remains in its early stages. Furthermore, the limited mechanistic studies that have been conducted have adopted a cross-sectional perspective (Dong et al., 2022; Han and Lee, 2020; Zhong and Xu, 2024), which is insufficient for understanding how the longitudinal cumulative effects of parenting stress may be transmitted from the external environment into the couple's relationship. Therefore, further research is needed to clarify whether and how parenting stress escalates from a common experience to a personal vulnerability that subsequently affects marital functioning.

As national policies in China increasingly call for both parents to be involved in parenting (Yujue et al., 2023), the stress and emotional dysregulation that parents face in parenting are not merely individual challenges, but dyadic dilemmas. Thus, it is essential to examine not only the role of mothers' and fathers' experiences on their own outcomes (i.e., actor effects), but also how parents' stress and emotions may be linked to their partner (i.e., partner effects). The Systemic transactional model (STM) of stress and coping in couples emphasizes the interdependence and interrelationship between parents, whereby one partner's stress and coping processes can play a substantial role in the other partner's experience (Bodenmann, 2005; Bodenmann et al., 2016; Kelley et al., 1983). This suggests that one partner's parenting stress can alter the emotional experience of the other partner in an intimate relationship (Mangialavori et al., 2021), which could contribute to emotion dysregulation in both partners. Simultaneously, one partner's maladaptive coping process, such as emotion dysregulation, may further correlate with poorer marital interactions (Lee et al., 2020), potentially corresponding to lower marital satisfaction. However, existing research on parenting stress has often focused solely on mothers or analyzed data from mothers and fathers separately (Fang et al., 2024; Ponnet et al., 2013a). Even when both parents were included, mainly composite or aggregated scores from the two parents were used, ignoring the mutual influence between mothers and fathers (Fang et al., 2024; Ponnet et al., 2013a). Based on this, examining the dyadic roles among parenting stress, emotion dysregulation, and marital satisfaction is necessary.

Parenting stress implies a range of maladaptive states and negative emotions (Yoshiyuki et al., 2012). However, due to their collectivist cultural background, Chinese individuals tend to be more emotionally restrained than Westerners, particularly in suppressing negative emotions (English and John, 2013; Eng, 2012; Gross et al., 2006; Huwaë and Schaafsma, 2018). Just as the saying goes, “bao xi bu bao you”, which means “share only the good and keep the bad to oneself.” Consequently, Chinese parents may be more prone to accumulating parenting stress due to emotional repression. Although this suppression contributes to controlling emotions in the short term, it actually poses a threat to psychological health (Tran and Rimes, 2017), potentially exacerbating damage to emotional functioning and causing emotion dysregulation. Meanwhile, severe emotion dysregulation may further challenge Chinese parents' marital satisfaction. In addition, as Chinese culture emphasizes collectivism (Xu et al., 2014), the dyadic effects more adequately describe interdependence between Chinese mothers and fathers (Liu and Wu, 2018). Thus, this study aimed to analyze the dyadic associations between Chinese mothers' and fathers' parenting stress and their marital satisfaction using the longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kenny et al., 2006). On this basis, we incorporated emotion dysregulation as a mediator to construct an Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model (APIMeM; Ledermann et al., 2011).

Hypothesis 1

There are negative actor effects of parenting stress on marital satisfaction in both parents.

Hypothesis 2

There are negative partner effects of maternal/paternal parenting stress on their partner's marital satisfaction.

Hypothesis 3

Emotion dysregulation plays an actor mediating role in the association between parenting stress and marital satisfaction.

Hypothesis 4

Emotion dysregulation plays a partner mediating role in the association between parenting stress and marital satisfaction (e.g., mothers' parenting stress → fathers' emotion dysregulation → fathers' marital satisfaction).