Effects of Rational Emotive Behaviour, Family Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour on Proneness to Extramarital Affairs among Christian Groups in Abeokuta Metropolis, Ogun State, Nigeria

Extra-marital affairs are emotional or sexual relationships outside marriage. Engaging in extra-marital affairs present both legal and moral problems for the society. Universally, people get married to provide relatively preferred, secured and stable context in which they can meet their sexual needs, have reciprocal sexual pleasure, have children and train them properly. The study examined the effectiveness of two counselling strategies on proneness to extramarital affairs among selected Christian groups in Abeokuta metropolis. Quasiexperimental pre and post-test control group design was used. The first group was exposed to Cognitive Behaviour Family Therapy (CBFT) while another treatment group was exposed to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), as the Control group. The sample size consisted of 120 married persons. Multistage sampling technique was used for this study. Marital Comparison Level Index (MCLI) r: [0.93] which was used for the baseline assessment, Justification for Extramarital Involvement Questionnaire (JEIQ) r= [0.71], Index of Marital Satisfaction (JMS) r= [0.85], and Personal Report of Spouse Communication Apprehension (PRSCA) r: [0.86 ] were used for the study. A research hypothesis was formulated to guide the study. The hypothesis was tested using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The finding shows that both CBFT and REBT were effective in counselling participants on proneness to engage in extramarital affairs. However, it showed that participants exposed to CBFT were less prone to engage in extramarital affairs than participants exposed to REBT and control group. It was recommended that marital sexual frustrations should also be discussed with one’s spouse; otherwise a search for reality may expose a frustrated spouse to an outsider of the opposite sex, thereby making the rate of proneness to extramarital affairs high.