Reaction to Infidelity in Iranian couples: A Phenomenological Study

Introduction: Infidelity can have devastating effects on the couple and other important people in the couple's life. Many researches are dedicated to examine the predictors of infidelity, however reaction to the infidelity is still an unknown issue. Hence, this study was conducted with the purpose of examining people's reaction to the infidelity in Iranian couples. Methods: The present study was a qualitative research with a phenomenology approach. People with the experience of spouse's infidelity were invited to participate in a psychological research through public notice. Purposive sampling continued till the saturation of data was achieved. Through this procedure, 16 people were interviewed. The in-depth semi structured interview was used to explore participant's reactions to the infidelity. Results: In this research, the Colaizzi's method was used to analyze the data. After transcribing the interviews, formulated meanings were extracted. Within the analyzing process, these formulated meanings were classified in 12 theme clusters. Finally 5 major themes were emerged: reactions to oneself, reactions to spouse, reactions to spouse's family of origin, reactions to third person, and reactions to others (own family, children and friends). Conclusions: The findings of this study were consistent with theories which conceptualize reaction to infidelity as a traumatic response. This is while the clusters of reactions to the spouse's family of origin and physiological reactions are the specific outcomes of this research.