Emotional Divorce and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation among Married Women: Effect of Sexual Satisfaction and Family Role Performance

The most frequent outcomes of marital dissatisfaction are emotional divorce and emotion regulation difficulties, which cause psychological distress for one or both partners. The association between emotional divorce and challenges in regulating emotions is greatly impacted by sexual satisfaction and family roles. The study aimed to explore the effect of sexual satisfaction and role of family performance on emotional divorce and difficulties in emotion regulation among married women at Zagazig University. This descriptive correlational study was conducted on 262 worker women. Data were collected through four tools: Socio-demographic data sheet, the difficulties in emotion regulation scale – short form, the emotional divorce scale, family role performance scale and sexual satisfaction scale. The results indicated that less than half of women had moderate to severe levels of emotional divorce (44.2%) and 51.5% had moderate to severe levels of emotional regulation difficulties. Women emotional divorce and emotion regulation difficulties are positively correlated with each other ((r=0.382) and negatively correlated with sexual satisfaction, husband role performance and wife role performance. The study concluded that, emotional divorce and difficulties in regulating emotions are significantly predicted negatively by sexual satisfaction and the performance of the roles of the wife and husband. The study recommended that women and their husbands might participate in psychosocial intervention programs and counseling sessions to prevent emotional divorce and to promote emotional regulation and sexual satisfaction.