Developing a model of marital satisfaction based on resilience and emotion regulation in women: the mediating role of primary maladaptive schemas

Marriage is one of the most important factors of mental health in society. The purpose of the present study was to predict the marital satisfaction of adolescents based on resilience and emotion regulation with the mediating role of early maladaptive schemas.

The method of the current research was applied, descriptive and correlational (structural equations type). The statistical population of the present study was made up of all married women who referred to the counseling centers of the Family Foundation Consolidation with an Islamic lifestyle approach in Tehran in 2021. By calculating the overestimation due to predicting the dropout of the subjects, the final sample size was 401 people, which according to the extent of the studied population, a non-random and available method was used. Olson's ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (1989), Young & Brown's Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form (1990), Garnefski et al.'s Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (2002), and Connor & Davidson's Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale (2003) were used to collect data. Then the resulting data were analyzed using path analysis method by AMOS-18 software.

The results indicated that resilience was able to predict marital satisfaction indirectly through schemas of impaired limitations 0.04, other-directedness 0.03 and alertness and inhibition 0.03. Also, compromised emotion regulation 0.35 and uncompromised emotion regulation -0.37, both directly and indirectly and through the schemas of impaired limitations -0.34, other-directedness 0.53, and alertness and inhibition 0.65 were able to predict marital satisfaction (p<0.001).

Therefore, the variables of resilience, emotion regulation and early maladaptive schemas can play an important role in marital satisfaction and the need to pay attention to these important variables in divorce prevention programs should be considered.