Borderline but not antisocial personality disorder symptoms are related to self-reported partner aggression in late middle-age.

Partner aggression in romantic relationships is a troubling yet common phenomenon. Aggressive episodes are often classified as psychological (e.g., shouting, stomping out of the room) or physical (e.g., punching or slapping; Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996). In a study of 18 US states, 17% of surveyed participants indicated that they had been physically hurt by an intimate partner (Breiding, Black, & Ryan, 2008), whereas over 90% of participants in O’Leary and Slep’s (2006) study reported mild psychological aggression. Although the repercussions of physical aggression can be more devastating, physical and psychological aggression tend to co-occur (e.g., O’Leary, 1999). Clinical researchers have attempted to identify types of people more prone to partner aggression. Borderline and antisocial personality disorders (PDs) have often been linked to this type of violence (e.g., Dutton & Starzomski, 1993; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Mauricio, Tein, & Lopez, 2007). One feature common to borderline and antisocial PDs is impulsivity, which could be partially responsible for partner aggression. Otherwise, borderline and antisocial symptoms probably drive partner violence for different reasons. Borderline symptoms include identity disturbance, disproportionate anger, and fear of abandonment; antisocial symptoms include lack of empathy and remorse, irresponsibility, reckless disregard for the safety of self and others, and a general tendency toward irritability and aggression. Hence, it has been theorized that those with borderline symptoms may perpetrate partner violence due to insecure attachment (e.g., Dutton, Saunders, Starzomski, & Bartholomew, 1994), whereas those with antisocial symptoms might behave in these ways as a consequence of generalized hostility (Holtzworth-Munroe, 2000). Epidemiological studies report a steady decline of partner aggression with age. Despite this decline partner aggression still occurs later in life. A longitudinal study examining middle-aged couples at three yearly time points (Vickerman & Margolin, 2008) found only a small decrease in physical aggression, with no evidence of a decrease in psychological aggression. Similarly, in Pan, Neidig, and O’Leary’s (1994) study of 11,870 White males, age was not a factor in distinguishing between mild and moderate aggression. Conversely, lower levels of education (Cascardi, Langhinrichsen, & Vivian, 1992) and excessive alcohol consumption (Fals-Stewart, 2003; Pan et al., 1994) have consistently been shown to increase episodes of partner aggression. Partner aggression may decline with age in part because some risk factors (in particular, personality pathology and alcohol use) also fade. The specific features of antisocial and borderline PD seem to decrease in frequency as people get older (Grant et al., 2008; Ullrich & Coid, 2009). Nevertheless, symptoms of these disorders continue to produce impairments later in life. In a sample of borderline patients aged 18 to 52, the only symptom significantly predicted by age was impulsivity (Stevenson, Meares, & Comerford, 2003). Although there is ample evidence that both personality pathology presentation and patterns of partner aggression change across the lifespan, the relationship between personality pathology and partner aggression in older samples has not been systematically investigated. In our study, we examine the relationship between personality disorder symptoms and partner aggression in a late middle-aged community sample adjusting for alcohol use and level of education.