Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Sex Enrichment Training on Marital Relationship Beliefs, Expression and Sexual Activity in Women with Marital Conflicts

The family is one of the most important social institutions based on marriage. The issue of marriage is one of the most fundamental issues of human society and the first sprouts of communication between generations appear in the family. Emotional relationships, love, affection, and empathy in the family ensure the mental health of individuals and the upliftment of human beings. But one of the biggest social problems in today's human society is family conflicts; therefore, addressing the issue of marital conflict to achieve prevention strategies is one of the most important necessities of family education. Marital conflict can be defined as the dissatisfaction of at least one couple with the relationship, which increases rapidly. The existence of marital conflicts between couples is inevitable and conflicts in couples' relationships are one of the consequences of harm in the family and a common phenomenon. Although the family gives its members a sense of security and peace, marital conflicts weaken relationships, increase marital problems, and do not meet the natural needs of couples. On the other hand, couples' expectations towards marriage and married life play an important role in marital conflicts, and the problems that arise through marital conflict cause irreparable damage to the family body. As a result, the need to strengthen family life and its stability and durability is the type of attitude and interaction of couples with each other, and communication beliefs are among the factors that affect the relationship between couples. Awareness and knowledge of couples of their role in creating a healthy and fruitful relationship are of particular importance; But sometimes, after a while, a couple or both of them may have doubts about the depth and shape of their relationship; Because they do not see the necessary harmony in the psychological distances between the beliefs of marital relations (their expectations from life) and the realities of their marital life, and they feel frustration and marital exhaustion. However, one of the most damaging factors that threaten marital life and its stability is that irrational and romantic beliefs enter the couple's life after marriage. Research has shown that high levels of irrational communication beliefs are associated with low levels of marital satisfaction. One of the biggest social problems in today's society is family conflicts; therefore, addressing the issue of marital conflict to achieve prevention strategies is one of the most important necessities of family education. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of sex enrichment training on marital relationship beliefs, expression, and sexual activity in women with marital conflicts.

In this quasi-experimental study, 50 women with marital conflicts were selected by the purposive sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Eight 90-minute sessions were held for the experimental group for 4 weeks and the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. Participants were measured by the Barati and Sanai (1996) Marital Conflict Questionnaire, the Idelson-Epstein (1982) Communication Beliefs, the Halbert Sexual Index (1992), and the Rosen et al. (2000) Sexual Performance Index.

The results of analysis of covariance, repeated measures test, and Bonferroni post hoc test showed that the scores of marital relationship beliefs among the experimental group decreased significantly, but in the control group there was no significant decrease and the scores of expression and sexual activity among The experimental group had a significant increase, but in the control group there was no significant increase, so there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups. The follow-up results also showed that the effect of educational intervention was still stable.

The results of this study showed that sex enrichment training has a significant effect on marital beliefs, expression, and sexual activity in the experimental group who received the educational intervention, compared with the control group who did not receive educational intervention Significant changes were experienced in the dependent variables and also the follow-up results showed that the effect of educational intervention in the experimental group was still stable. Therefore, the hypotheses were confirmed. As a result, based on the evidence of the present study, this educational program can be used to improve the beliefs about marital relationships and the sexual expression and sexuality of women with marital conflicts. The Sex Enrichment Training Program helps couples reduce their communication problems by teaching them expressive speaking and listening skills. According to experts, in the approach of enriching sex, change and improvement are the results of the clients' own work, and the clients can overcome problems by acquiring special skills. As a result, in this training program, people are taught skills that can help people to achieve a healthy and happy life. Marital life combined with sexual intimacy requires skills that people in the family may not learn. In this training, conflict resolution skills and conversation skills are taught, and this training causes good couples to learn to listen and establish a good relationship with each other. This good listening skill reduces the couple's misunderstanding. In fact, enriching marital education leads to the growth of the marital relationship in a positive direction. People are also taught the skills to focus on their emotions and the feelings of their husbands, which results in the promotion of sexual intimacy and the ability to express sexual needs and desires by women and ultimately increase their sexual expression. The main limitation of this study is the taboo nature of sexual issues in society, and for this reason, some participants were cautious in their answers. Therefore, it is suggested that other researchers use this type of research with other effective intervention strategies on marital relationship beliefs, expression, and sexual activity in women with marital conflicts.