Marital Adjustment, Intimacy and Needs in Female Agoraphobics and Their Partners: A Controlled Study

Female agoraphobics and their partners were compared with three groups of control couples (non-phobic female psychiatric patients and their husbands, maritally distressed couples, and happily married couples) on measures relating to marital adjustment, intimacy, and needs. Neither agoraphobics nor their partners rated their marriages as more maladjusted or unpleasant than non-phobic psychiatric patients or their partner controls. Instead, agoraphobics and their spouses were found to be more comparable to happily-married couples than to maritally-distressed controls. Non-phobic psychiatric patients and their partners were generally found to rate their marriages as being as distressing and unpleasant as those of maritally distressed controls.