Designing and Investigating the Efficacy of a Forgiveness Training Program on Enhancing Marital Satisfaction

Marital dissatisfaction at both individual and social levels is a significant problem. According to Ellis’s rational-emotive theory in couple therapy, couples' irrational beliefs  about their marital relationship, cause problems  in their interactions leading to disappointment and  eventually  marital dissatisfaction. To prevent such disappointment, based on Positive Psychology perspective, learning forgiveness is recommended. Thus, in this research with the aim of helping those who suffer from lack of forgiveness skills, a training program on forgiveness was designed based on Enrigth's theory of forgiveness. Evaluating this program, initially marital satisfaction of 60 volunteer women was assessed using Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire. Then, the participants were devided into two groups of control and experiment. The experimental group participated  in eight  two-hours learning sessions. In addition, both groups' forgiveness skills were assessed three  times (before, after, and beyond the program) using an instrument especially constructed for this project. Findings based on  Multi Variate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that the training program  helped with the  improvement of forgiveness skills  and marital satisfaction that lasted beyond the implementation of the program.