Comparison of the effectiveness of reality therapy and logotherapy on the components on forgiveness and marital trust of women affected by marital infidelity seeking divorce

Systematic review of research shows that infidelity and marital infidelity cause the most damage to the relationship between spouses and can even destroy the relationship.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of reality therapy and logo therapy on forgiveness and marital trust of women affected by marital infidelity seeking divorce.

The present research was a quasi-experimental method of pre-test and post-test with a control group. From the community of women affected by marital infidelity, divorce applicants referring to family counseling centers in Babol city using available sampling of 48 women (16 women in the reality therapy group, 16women in the logotherapy group and 16 women in the control group) were selected and were assigned randomly. All three groups completed the Pollard et al. (1998) Marital Forgiveness Questionnaire and the Rampel & Holmes (1986) Marital Trust Questionnaire in three stages: pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. After collecting data, the data were analyzed using repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance using SPSSV22 software.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the groups in both variables of marital forgiveness and marital trust (F = 3.955 and P = 0.001). In other words, the results showed that both reality therapy and logotherapy interventions were effective in the research variables, but there was no significant difference between the two interventions of reality therapy and logotherapy in any of the variables (P <0.05).

Finally, the results of this study showed that both reality therapy and logotherapy interventions are effective in promoting marital forgiveness and marital trust. Therefore, the awareness of couple therapists, counselors, psychologists and other specialists can help reduce marital infidelity and divorce.