Extramarital Affairs: Can a Marriage Survive?

Having an extramarital affair is the most damaging thing anyone can do to a marriage. Still, everyone knows couples who stay married in spite of a partner's affairs, or even both partners' affairs-perhaps because a wife turned a blind eye or a husband decided he was better off married than divorced.

Some marriages do survive infidelity to one degree or another. Although the relationship is gravely damaged, it may endure. Whether the damage is mortal depends on the nature of the relationship and the nature of the infidelity.

The slip

Drunkenness, a trip out of town and perhaps a quarrel can add up to a slip. One partner is tempted and succumbs. He or she is likely to feel serious guilt. If he confesses, a partner may be able to forgive once. Probably the marriage will continue. If he or she is forgiven and repeats the error, then the marriage will be in danger.

Special circumstances

Most marriages hit dry spells. Both partners are busy or are preoccupied with their own careers, life adjustments or illness. A partner who is left out may turn to someone else for the comfort and closeness temporarily missing from the marriage. Again, a partner can sometimes understand what led to the betrayal, and the marriage may survive.

The emotional affair

An emotional affair is cruel. It hurts the spouse who is left out of the relationship and also hurts the emotional partner, who is left out of the marriage. As the affair intensifies, the emotional partner is prevented from seeking a true relationship. A partner who seeks the emotional support found in a marriage outside of it will often end up divorced.

Yet sometimes such a marriage can survive. It may mean months of counseling and require sincere efforts by both partners to repair the damage infidelity has done. Both partners must be motivated to work on the marriage, but often the betrayed spouse will balk. An emotional affair is dangerous to any marriage.

The chronic cheater

Some people cheat. They had an unhappy childhood, or they have raging hormones or they are irresistible to the opposite sex. To the deceived partner, the reasons do not matter after a while. Often he or she will give up and seek a divorce. In other cases, a spouse will train himself or herself to think of the cheating partner as someone who did not completely mature, who needs to behave childishly and who always will. If the betrayed spouse takes this attitude, a marriage of a sort can survive.

Yes, sometimes a marriage can survive extramarital affairs. However, an unfaithful partner is taking a huge gamble, for reasons he or she may not understand. Sometimes he or she will face life alone, and sometimes an unfaithful spouse may come to feel that while the marriage survives, infidelity has spoiled the most precious relationship in his life.