Exploring psychopathology, personality traits, and marital distress among women married to hypersexual men

This article reports the findings of a study investigating psy-chopathology, personality traits, and marital distress among a sample of women married to hypersexual men (n = 85) com-pared with a control group (n = 85) drawn from a combined college and community sample. Psychopathology and personality traits were measured using the NEO Personality Inventory—Revised (NEO–PI–R), and martial satisfaction was measured using the Re-vised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of between-group differences was significant. However, although there were a few minor differences with mod-est effect sizes, examination of post-hoc univariate tests revealed that generally, the wives did not show any more psychopathol-ogy or problematic personality traits than would be found within a community sample. In contrast, wives were significantly more distressed about their marriages compared with the controls. Over-all, these findings contradict much of the existing research that characterizes wives of hypersexual men as being more depressed, anxious, and chemically dependent, as well as emotionally needy