Structural Modeling of Marital Boredom and Gender Stereotypes through the Mediation of Marital Forgiveness

The family can be considered as an emotional unit and a network of intertwined relationships that is built from the marital bond of a man and a woman, and a person's satisfaction with married life is considered as his satisfaction with the family. One of the threats to growth and development in married life of couples is incompatibility and (marital burnout) in married life. Nowadays, the prevalence of marital burnout among couples is increasing and many couples do not want to stay in failed marriages. 50% of couples face marital burnout. The relationships of many couples lack the intimacy that characterizes a good marriage, and one of the most important reasons is marital burnout. Divorce may be rooted in marital burnout; marital burnout is a state of physical exhaustion and emotional and mental exhaustion that is the result of long-term mental and emotional conflicts. The onset of boredom rarely happens suddenly and usually its process is gradual. In fact, the intimacy and love gradually fade and along with it comes the feeling of general fatigue.
 
The research method was descriptive correlation. The statistical population of the study included all married people (men and women) with marital problems who referred to family counseling centers in Tehran in 2019. Among them, 300 people (150 women and 150 men) were selected as the research sample using available sampling method. Pines' (1996) marital dissatisfaction questionnaires, Bam's (1974) gender stereotypes, and Pollard et al.'s (1998) marital forgiveness questionnaires were used to collect data. Pearson correlation tests and structural equation analysis were used to analyze the data.
 
The results of the research showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between gender stereotypes and marital discord, and there was a negative and significant relationship between marital forgiveness and marital discord and gender stereotypes and marital forgiveness (p<0.01). Also, gender stereotypes through marital forgiveness, it had an indirect effect on marital burnout. Results showed that there is a relationship between marital forgiveness and marital burnout; this means that with the increase of marital forgiveness, marital burnout decreases.
 
In general, the assumed model of the research had a good fit; therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the role of variables of gender stereotypes and marital forgiveness in the construction of educational and counseling packages to reduce the marital forgiveness of couples. In general, according to the findings of this research, it can be concluded that the final model has a good fit. And marital forgiveness played a mediating role in the relationship between marital forgiveness and gender stereotypes. Therefore, the findings of the model provide researchers with more information to manipulate the dependent variable and help researchers design an experimental study to reduce marital burnout in couples with marital conflicts. Also, according to the religious and spiritual context of Iranian society, activating spiritual capitals such as forgiveness has significant effects in reducing marital burnout and increasing marital forgiveness.