Predicting Emotional Divorce based on Early Maladaptive Schemas in Couples with Marital Problems

One of the consequences of marital problems is emotional divorce, and based on the purpose of this research was predicting emotional divorce based on early maladaptive schemas in couples with marital problems. This was study was descriptive from type of correlational which its statistical population was couples with marital problems referred to counseling centers of Babol township with number of 436 people (218 couples). The research sample based on Krejcie and Morgan table was estimated 204 people (102 couples) who were selected after reviewing the inclusion criteria by purposive non-random sampling method. The research instruments were included the emotional divorce scale (Gottman, 1994) and early maladaptive schemas scale (Young, 1994). Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression in SPSS software. Findings showed that the whole of early maladaptive schema and three schemas including disconnection and rejection, other directedness and over vigilance had a positive and significant relationship with emotional divorce in couples with marital problems (P˂0.05), but two schemas including impaired autonomy and impaired limitations had not significantly relationship with emotional divorce in them (P>0.05). Other findings showed that early maladaptive schemas significantly could predict 36.8% of the changes of emotional divorce in couples with marital problems and three schemas of disconnection and rejection, other directedness and over vigilance significantly could predict 88.5% of the changes of emotional divorce in them (P˂0.001). According to the findings of the present study, the planning by health professionals and therapists to reduce emotional divorce in couples with marital problems is necessary by reducing the early maladaptive schemas, especially the three schemes of disconnection and rejection, other directedness and over vigilance.