The effectiveness of emotion-oriented couple therapy on forgiveness and communication beliefs of couples involved in marital infidelity

The statistics of extramarital affairs are increasing due to its negative effects in different societies and it is a matter of concern, especially that in backgrounds related to infidelity, extramarital affairs is associated with a decrease in psychological health; And knowing that your spouse is unfaithful can lead to negative reactions, including physical assault, suicide, or even murder.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion-oriented couple therapy on forgiveness and communication beliefs of couples involved in Marital Infidelity.

The research method was quasi-experimental and was a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of this study included couples on the verge of divorce who had referred to the Deputy for Justice and Prevention of Kermanshah in 2019 due to marital infidelity. The research sample consisted of 24 pairs, which were selected by available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (12 pairs each). Participants completed the Forgiveness Questionnaire (Ehteshamzadeh et al., 2010) and Communication Beliefs (Idelson and Epstein, 1982) before and after the treatment intervention. Emotional couple therapy intervention was performed for 8 sessions for the experimental group. During this period, the control group did not receive any therapeutic intervention. To test the hypotheses, multivariate analysis of covariance was used using SPSS-21 software.

Findings showed that emotion-oriented couple therapy can significantly increase forgiveness and reduce dysfunctional communication beliefs of couples with marital breakage experience (p< 0/001).

Accordingly, emotional couple therapy can be used by therapists as an effective and efficient way to increase forgiveness and reduce the couplechr('39')s dysfunctional beliefs, and thus help improve marital relationships. Emotional couple therapy that requires the least facilities, equipment, and costs should be considered by couples with experience of breach, and family therapists should use these programs to reduce the problems of couples with breach of experience.