Appling Marital Adjustment Strategies for Emotionally Divorced Wives

This clinical study is designed to investigate the effectiveness of a structured marital adjustment strategies program in reducing emotional divorce among married women. Emotional divorce is increasingly recognized as a significant yet underreported marital issue characterized by emotional detachment, lack of communication, reduced intimacy, and psychological disengagement between spouses despite the continuation of legal marriage. This phenomenon has substantial negative consequences on women's psychological health, marital satisfaction, family stability, and child well-being. In many cultural contexts, including Egypt, emotional divorce may persist silently for extended periods without progressing to formal legal separation, making it difficult to detect and address through conventional marital support systems.

Marriage is widely considered a fundamental social institution that provides emotional security, companionship, and mutual support. However, modern life stressors, including economic pressures, role conflicts, inadequate communication, and unmet emotional needs, may contribute to marital dissatisfaction and emotional withdrawal. Women, particularly those balancing maternal and marital responsibilities, are more vulnerable to experiencing emotional distress within the marital relationship. Consequently, effective coping and marital adjustment strategies are essential for maintaining marital stability and preventing emotional disengagement.

Marital adjustment strategies refer to a set of structured cognitive, emotional, and behavioral techniques that aim to enhance communication, improve emotional expression, strengthen problem-solving abilities, and promote adaptive coping within marital relationships. These strategies include, but are not limited to, problem-solving skills, emotional discharge, social support utilization, recreational activities, religious coping, avoidance of maladaptive behaviors, and acceptance strategies. When effectively implemented, These strategies are intended to enhance communication, emotional expression, problem-solving skills, and coping within marital relationships.

Despite the growing recognition of emotional divorce, there is a scarcity of interventional studies examining the effectiveness of structured marital adjustment programs, particularly within the Egyptian context. Most existing studies have focused on descriptive or correlational designs without implementing evidence-based interventions. Therefore, this study aims to examine the implementation of a structured educational and counseling program addressing marital adjustment strategies among married women experiencing emotional divorce.

The study hypothesizes that emotional divorce scores measured after participation in the marital adjustment strategies program will differ from baseline scores.