A Causal Model of Emotional Divorce in Couples Based on Emotional Aggression and Dyadic Coping: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies

Emotional divorce is a form of divorce in which the couples continue to live together but are cold towards each other, feel isolated, and live separately without obtaining a formal divorce. This study aimed to develop a model which examines the cause of emotional divorce based on emotional aggression and dyadic coping with the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies among couples in Guilan. The research design was descriptive and structural equation modeling. The statistical population of this study included all married individuals living in Guilan in 2021. The sample size was 253 individuals who were selected through the purposive sampling method. Gottman’s Emotional Divorce Scale (EDS), Nelson-Carroll’s Covert Relational Aggression Scale (CRAViS), Bodenmann’s Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI), and Gross-John’s Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) were used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that the causal model of the relationship between emotional aggression, dyadic coping, emotion regulation strategies, and emotional divorce in couples based on different indicators had a good fit. Emotional aggression, dyadic coping, and emotion regulation had a direct effect on the couple’s emotional divorce. Moreover, emotional aggression and dyadic coping had an indirect effect on the emotional divorce of couples through emotion regulation strategies (P < 0.05). Therefore, emotional aggression, dyadic coping, and emotion regulation strategies play an important role in the rate of emotional divorce of couples; therapists’ attention to these three components can be important in reducing the rate of emotional divorce of couples.