The Effect of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Attitude to Extramarital Relationship and Violence in Women with Emotional Divorce

Women with emotional divorce are more at risk of extramarital relationships and violence, and the cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the most effective ways to prevent and reduce emotional divorce issues and improve marital relationships. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy on attitudes toward extramarital affairs and violence in women with emotional divorce.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test and follow-up design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population was women with emotional divorce who referred to psychological services clinics in Dezful in 2018, from which 40 people were selected by convenience Sampling method and randomly replaced in two equal groups (20 people in each group). The experimental group received cognitive-behavioral therapy for 16 sessions of 120 minutes in three months and the control group was placed on a waiting list for training. Data were collected using by Demographic Characteristics Questionnaires, Emotional Divorce Scale, Domestic Violence Against Women Questionnaire and Attitudes Toward Infidelity Scale and analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance in SPSS-24 software.

The results showed that before treatment there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of attitudes toward extramarital relationships and marital violence (P <0.05), but after treatment there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of both variables and changes remained stable in the experimental group over time from post-test to follow-up (P <0.001). According to the results, cognitive-behavioral therapy reduces attitudes toward extramarital relationships (F = 6.278,P = 0.018) and violence against women (F = 21.987, P = 0.0001) in women with emotional divorce.

The results showed the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy on reducing attitudes to extramarital relationships and marital violence in women with emotional divorce. Therefore, it is recommended that counselors and family psychologists use cognitive behavioral therapy along with other methods such as couple therapy and family therapy to reduce attitudes to extramarital relationships and marital violence in women with emotional divorce.