Determining the Effectiveness of an Educational Program Based on Emotional Divorce on Reducing Marital Conflicts of Couples Referring to Counseling Centers

The family, as the first institution of society and the oldest natural nucleus, has existed in all human societies since the beginning of history, and human beings have not been able to find a replacement for it. This issue shows the constant presence of this social institution and its necessity. Marriage is the basis of family formation, and the opposite end is divorce. Divorce leads to personal, family, and social breakdown and negatively affects women more than men. Marital conflict is a continuous and significant disagreement between two spouses reported by at least one of them, and its continuation can cause problems in married life. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of an educational program based on emotional divorce in reducing marital conflict between couples referring to counseling centers.

The method of the present study was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all couples referred to counseling centers to receive counseling services in Tehran City, Iran, in 2019–2020. Among the eligible volunteers, 40 were selected and randomly placed in two groups of 20 experimental and control. The inclusion criteria were as follows: women applying for divorce with a file centered on marital conflict, volunteering to participate in the research, having a job, having at least three years of marriage, having a child, being literate in reading and writing, not suffering from psychological disorders and chronic physical diseases, and not participating in other counseling and therapy groups at the same time. The exclusion criteria were the absence of more than two sessions in the treatment protocol and the unwillingness to continue cooperation in training sessions. The experimental group received 10 sessions of a 1.5–hour training program based on emotional divorce, but no intervention was provided for the control group. Data were obtained using the Couples Conflict Questionnaire (Sanai Zaker, 2000) before and after the implementation of the educational program based on emotional divorce. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics methods, including frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation, and inferential statistics, including t test of two independent samples to compare the age of two groups and multivariate analysis of covariance and univariate analysis of covariance in SPSS version 23. The significance level of the tests was 0.05.

The results showed that the educational program based on emotional divorce was effective in reducing the components of marital conflicts, including reduction of cooperation (p<0.001), reduction of sexual relations (p<0.001), emotional reactions (p<0.001), getting children's support (p<0.001), individual relationship with relatives (p<0.001), family relationship with spouse's relatives and friends (p<0.001), and separating financial affairs from each other (p<0.001) in couples of the experimental group referring to counseling centers. According to the Eta square, 31%, 31.3%, 28.6%, 39.9%, 34.1%, 35%, and 43.8% of the changes in the components of cooperation reduction, sexual relationship reduction, emotional reactions, getting children's support, individual relationship with relatives, family relationship with spouse's relatives and friends, and separation of financial affairs from each other, respectively resulted from subjects' participation in the educational program based on emotional divorce.

According to the findings, using an emotional divorce program as an effective intervention effectively reduces marital conflict. Therefore, this program can empower couples who refer to counseling centers to reduce marital conflicts.