Factors Impacting Why Women Stay in Marital Life with Substance dependent Husbands: A Grounded Theory Study

Substance abuse is one of the major factors leading to divorce in Iran. Therefore, this study aimed to present a qualitative model of factors affecting women to stay married with substance-dependent husbands.

The grounded theory in the qualitative paradigm was used. Twenty participants (10 women and 10 experts) were interviewed based on theoretical saturation, purposeful, and snowball sampling, and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method.

The participants’ mean age for women was (M=35.2, SD=7.40, n=10) and for experts was (M= 37. 3, SD= 7.42, n=10), half of whom were men and half were women for experts.  The results indicated that causal conditions consisted of the child as a barrier to leaving the marital relationship; feeling satisfied with the marital relationship; the attitudes, expectations, and feelings of the spouses; promising behaviors of the husband; financial dependency on the husband, and level of substance-related disorder. The intervening condition was the family of origin’s role. The womenchr('39')s survival strategies in marital life include the use of supportive resources, increasing awareness, and the use of constructive behaviors. The contextual conditions were social and legal factors. Consequences of the core category (A journey with fear and hope), were desirable and undesirable emotions and experiences.

The results indicated that spouses of substance-dependent husbands stay in the marriage, not just due to obstacles like familial, social, legal, and financial factors, but also due to resourceful supports, marital satisfaction, and enjoy having a family with husband and children.