Gender differences in marital relations in the shadow of an intellectually disabled mother

Zusammenfassung

Children of intellectually disabled mothers are characterized in society as different, from as early on as from childhood, when the experience of growing up with an intellectually disabled mother shapes the life in her shadow, as well as patterns of intimacy in later stages of a child's maturation. In addition to that, there are stigmas, affecting, in many instances, the spouse and their family. The purpose of the current study is deepening the existing knowledge in the field of choosing a spouse and creating intimate relations amongst children of an intellectually disabled mother. Additionally, intimacy in which one of the spouses has a mother with intellectual disability was examined, and the intimacy model that a spouse has absorbed in childhood was researched. The research method chosen for this purpose is MMR, the objective of which is to combine a variety of models for the same purpose, in order to receive the optimal answers to the research questions. The first research method chosen for this purpose is qualitative, semi-structured interviews addressed to couples in which one spouse has an intellectually disabled mother. Participants were 30 couples and were interviewed, to which the researcher's approach was performed in the snowball method. The sample was intentional. Five research questions were examined in the current study: 1. Does the gender of a child of a disabled mother create a difference in the impact on intimacy, meaning, is there a difference between a son of a disabled mother and his spouse, and between a case of a daughter of a disabled mother and her spouse? 2. Does the fact that one of the spouses was born to an intellectually disabled mother have an impact on the intimacy system? 3. What are the implications of life in the shadow of an intellectually disabled mother, on the intimacy system? 4. Is there an impact of tagging and self-esteem of a person who was raised in the shadow of an intellectually disabled mother, on choosing a spouse and the pattern of intimacy? 5. What are the implications of the constant need to support and help an intellectually disabled mother, on intimacy? These questions served as a basis for structuring the interview guide, which included the main questions to the interviewees. These questions also helped form the closed questionnaire, which had been created in order to support the findings and present the empirical aspect of the research, but the sample limitations should be taken into consideration. Answers to the questions reveal that intimacy with and marriage to a person with an intellectually disabled mother, almost always has implications on the intimacy of the spouses. Occasionally, those implications are positive, though mostly they are negative. The intimacy model an individual had absorbed in their childhood has great influence on the intimacy they manage to develop with his or her spouse. Weaknesses demonstrated by the party with an intellectually disabled mother, brings about harm to intimacy and to marriage. Regarding the last research question, no difference was found between women and men, in their behavior as spouses. The findings for hypothesis number 1 as well as additional tests that examined a connection between duration of marriage and number of children the couple has in relation to satisfaction in the relationship and the intimacy, were in line with the qualitative findings, but findings of the two additional hypotheses had not been reinforced. It is possible that the limitation in the sample size was the reason for that. Due to scarcity of available research on the researched subject, current study has served as a pioneer study, particularly in Israel. Therefore, current study could not have encompassed the entirety of themes involved and this is the reason for various limitations, which arose, in current study. Part of the limitations were caused by lack of use of background variables, such as religion or age. Due to the limitations and needs, which might reach the surface in a study of this sort, recommendations for further studies were given. Keywords: Intellectual disability, dependency, family implications, mother-child relationship