Comparison of the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Couple Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Couple Therapy on the Couple Burnout and Post-traumatic Stress of Women Affected by Marital Infidelity

It is important to use appropriate interventions to reduce negative effects of marital Infidelity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to comparison of the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and acceptance and commitment couple therapy on marital burnout and post-traumatic stress in women affected by infidelity. The statistical population of the study consisted of all women affected by infidelity in the west region of Tehran in 2019. Forty-five women selected by purposeful sampling and then randomly assigned to one of the three groups, including the cognitive-behavioral couple therapy group, the acceptance and commitment couple therapy's group, and the control group. Participants in the cognitive-behavioral couple therapy group as well as the acceptance and commitment therapy group received 12 90-minutes weekly sessions of therapy, while the control group received no intervention. All participants completed the marital burnout (Pines, 1996) and the post-traumatic stress questionnaires (Foa, Riggs, Dancu, & Rothbaum, 1993) at pre/post intervention. Data were analyzed using covariance analysis. The results was show that both cognitive-behavioral couple therapy and acceptance and commitment couple therapy had a significant effect on physical burnout (P= 0.002; F=7.64), emotional burnout (P= 0.001; F=19.07), mental burnout (P= 0.001; F=16.42), and post-traumatic stress (P= 0.001; F=65.72). Also, the results of Bonferroni post hoc test showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in marital burnout (p>0.05), while, in terms of post-traumatic stress, the difference between the two groups was significant and the results were in favor of the acceptance and commitment couple therapy (p < 0.05). According to the results, it can say that cognitive-behavioral couple therapy, and acceptance and commitment couple therapy are effective on marital burnout and post-traumatic stress in women affected by marital infidelity. Therefore, we recommended that family psychological counseling specialists use these couple therapy methods to reduce the effects of marital infidelity.