Sources of distress among women in treatment with their alcoholic partners

We examined sources of psychological and relationship distress among 90 nonalcoholic women with alcoholic male partners seeking outpatient, conjoint alcohol treatment. Results indicated that greater psychological distress among these women was most strongly associated with lower satisfaction with the marital relationship, presence of domestic violence, lower frequency of male partner's drinking, lower perceived social support from family, and more frequent attempts to cope with the partner's drinking. Controlling for psychological distress, greater marital satisfaction was associated most strongly with greater attempts to reinforce positively the partner's abstinence and with less effort to detach from the partner's drinking. Severity of partner's alcohol problems was unexpectedly associated with greater marital satisfaction in multiple regression analyses, though not in bivariate analyses. Results highlight the close connection between psychological and relationship distress and potential relations between alcohol-related coping behaviors and both psychological and relationship distress.