Association between Maltreatment in Childhood and Emotional Divorce: Mediating Role of Attachment Styles, Early Maladaptive Schemas and Difficulty in Emotional Regulation

Emotional divorce is an abnormality in family system that transforms couples into marriages that lack love, companionship and friendship. The aim of this study is to determine the association between child maltreatment and emotional divorce by mediating roles of attachment styles, early maladaptive schemas and difficulties in emotion regulation.
This is a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population consists of all married women and men in Tehran in 2016. 150 married couple (75 married women and 75 married men) who reside in Tehran in 2016 are selected by Purposive sampling method. The data is collected by “Young Schema Questionnaire Short Form”, “Child Abuse and Trauma Scale”, “Adult Attachment Scale”, and “Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale” questionnaires. Collected data is analyzed using statistical methods (i.e. Pearson's correlation coefficient and path analysis) and SPSS.24 and LISREL analysis softwares.
Results show a significant positive correlation between child maltreatment and disconnection/rejection schema domain (P Child maltreatment is directly related to early maladaptive schemas and indirectly related to emotional divorce with mediating roles of early maladaptive schemas and difficulties in emotion regulation. Child maltreatment causes insecure attachment styles, early maladaptive schemas and difficulties in emotion regulation to be formed. Therefore, it is recommended that training programs could facilitate the prevention of interpersonal problems and marital dissatisfaction in families.