The study found that for both women and men, childhood sexual abuse was linked to impaired cohabiting and married relationships due to anxiety about abandonment and psychological distress. Differences between men and women in the long-term adjustment to childhood sexual abuse were small and inconsistent with a gender-specific model of psychosocial effects of childhood abuse. For men, experiencing physical or psychological violence in their childhoods was linked to impaired adjustment in intimate relationships due to psychological distress. For women, there was an indirect relationship between witnessing physical violence as a child and impaired adjustment in intimate relationships due to abandonment anxiety. The study involved a representative sample of French-Canadian couples composed of 632 men and women. They completed measures of childhood abuse, attachment, psychological distress, and adjustment in a cohabiting or marital relationship. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale evaluated couple adjustment during the past month, and attachment experiences were measured with the Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire. Psychological distress was measured with the shortened version of the Psychiatric Symptom Inventory. Two single-item measures assessed whether the participants had witnessed parental violence during their childhood, and another two single-item measures determined whether the participants had experienced physical and or psychological violence as a child. A single item measured childhood sexual abuse. 4 figures, 1 table, and 41 references