Investigating the moderating role of people's age in the relationship between marriage duration and self-coherence with family performance of women on the verge of divorce in two stages of the life cycle

One of the determining factors in the occurrence of divorce is family functioning. As far as can be said, the optimal functioning of the family is related to the conflict resolution styles used by family members to solve problems and prevents couple burnout. Considering the importance of family functioning in the occurrence of divorce, the present study aims to investigate the moderating role of people's age in the relationship between the duration of marriage and their cohesion with family functioning in women on the verge of divorce in two stages of the life cycle (before the birth of a child and after birth of a child) was done. The present research method was descriptive and correlation type. The statistical population of this research included all the women on the verge of divorce who referred to counseling clinics in Sabzevar city in the fall of 2022. 270 people were selected as the sample of the research by available sampling method and in two groups of 135 people in the first years of life. Shared and divided before the birth of the child and also after the birth of the child. The data collection tool was an individual-demographic questionnaire (information on age and length of marriage), family functioning (Epstein, Baldwin and Bishab (1983) and the self-coherence scale of the victim, Watson and Hargis (2008). Analysis of findings was done using structural equations. Data processing and hypothesis testing were done using spss-v22 and Smart-pls3 software. The results obtained from structural equation modeling indicate that there is a significant difference between the moderating role of age in the relationship between self-cohesion and family functioning in both groups, and only in the group after the birth of a child, age plays a role in the relationship between self-cohesion and family functioning. acted as a moderator (p>0.05, 𝛽=0.11); However, age did not have a moderating role in the relationship between cohesion and family functioning in the group before the birth of a child (p<0.05, 𝛽=-0.04). Also, the results showed that the relationship between the duration of marriage and family performance in both groups before the birth of a child (p<0.05, 𝛽=-0.02) and after the birth of a child (p<0.05, 𝛽=0.02) does not have a moderating role and there is no difference in this regard between the two groups. Considering the moderating role of age in the relationship between self-cohesion and family functioning, it is suggested that counselors, clinical psychologists and therapists use compassion therapy, which is one of the treatments that affect self-cohesion, to improve health-related characteristics, especially increasing self-cohesion.