A Model of Marital Adjustment based on Parenting Styles by Mediating the Role of Coping and Impaired Limits Schema

One of the most critical periods of life is marriage. The family is the first founder of personality, values and intellectual criteria, which plays an important role in determining the future, lifestyle, ethics, health and mental health of the individual. The relationship between children and parents and other members of the family can be considered as a system or network that interacts with each other. This system, directly and indirectly, influences children's through different ways of parenting. Each family uses a particular form of parenting in the education of their children, influenced by a variety of factors, including cultural, social, political and economic factors.  Differences in the core elements of parenting (such as kindness, being involved, age-old requests and supervision) make changes in how the child responds to the effects of parents. In general, several scholars have devised four basic parenting approaches based on two main indicators: parenting love (parental responsiveness) and parental control (parental hardening), which include authoritative, lucid and neglected parenting styles. Studies have argued that marital problems are rising and divorce has increased. Therefore, researchers should consider factors related to marital adjustment. Studies have shown that coping strategies, parenting, and early maladaptive schemas are related to marital adjustment. Although most studies have shown the relationship between marital adjustments, coping strategies, parenting and early maladaptive schemas; but has not been explained a statistical model for predicting marital adjustment with respect to coping strategies, parenting and early maladaptive schemas. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to provide a model of marital adjustment based on parenting styles with mediating disconnection/rejection schema and coping strategies.

The present study was a descriptive study done by correlation method. The statistical population of the present study was couples who referred to welfare counseling centers of Alborz province (North of Iran) in 2017. According to the estimates, 570 (50% female) samples were selected. The instruments were marital adjustment questionnaire (Spinner, 1976) and Yang-Rae coping strategies questionnaire (1994), Young parenting inventory (Young, 1994), and early maladaptive schemas questionnaire-short form (Young, 1988). The used questionnaires had a good validity and reliability. Data were analyzed using linear modeling, Pearson correlation and independent t-test using SPSS-22 software.

Pearson correlation results showed a positive and significant correlation between parenting, regeneration strategy, avoidance strategy and disconnection/rejection schema (p<0.001). In addition, there was a positive and significant correlation between marital adjustment, regeneration strategy and parenting (p<0.001), but there was a negative correlation between marital adjustment and disconnection/rejection schema (p<0.001). The results of structured modeling of path analysis showed that parenting styles with mediating role of avoidance, regeneration strategies and disconnection/rejection schema could explain marital adjustment (p<0.001).

In general, the findings revealed parenting with the mediator roles of avoidance, regeneration strategies and impaired limits schema in explaining marital adjustment.