Extramarital Affairs: Can a Marriage Survive?

Everyone gets married believing that this is the person that they will love and live with for the rest of their lives. They believe that their new spouse will never betray the trust, the love, the relationship, or the marriage bed by having an extramarital affair. But a surprising number of adults do just that. The cheating spouse feels like their needs are not being met by their spouse, whether it is emotional or sexual. When the needs aren't being met, that leaves a door open that someone else can enter and start filling the unmet needs. The cheating spouse then rationalizes what they are doing. And before too long, a full blown affair is under way.

These affairs can last weeks, months, or even years. Every affair is different, and every action and reason, is different. And the life of an affair can mean the death of a marriage. However, a lot of the cheating spouses do not want the marriage to end. And with a lot of help, determination, and love, the marriage can survive the affair.

The first thing that needs to happen when an affair is outed, is that the cheater and his/her lover must sever every tie that binds them together. They must never communicate in any way ever again. If the cheat and his cheating partner work together, the cheater must find employment else where. The beginning of reviving the marriage, must be the death of the affair.

After all ties are severed, the healing process must begin. The time it takes to start healing depends on the persons involved and the general situation. A trusted counselor must be brought in to help untangle every knot that has led up to this point in the lives of the married couple. The knots that need to be untangled, are tight, twisted, and very painful to undo.

Then the ride begins. This ride is a rollercoaster ride of sorts. Unlike most rollercoaster rides, this ride starts by taking an extreme plummet down at an extreme rate of speed making you feel like you will loose your mind. The innocent spouse has issues of guilt, distrust, immense heartache, feelings of negative self worth, and more pain then any one person could ever imagine. The innocent spouse needs to understand that everything that they are feeling, the ride of emotions, is typical for the injured one. When you think you are at the bottom of the ride, and you feel that you are heading up a hill to a better outlook, the bottom drops out, and you are plummeting again. This ride continues for as long as it needs to. Every situation is different, as well as all the pain is different. But in order for the marriage to be saved, the ride must be ridden. Each day, week, month, the uphills start getting longer and the bottom stops dropping out as much. Pretty soon, you are up enough to see the sun and some brightness in the future.

The cheating spouse also has their own ride. While the innocent spouse has the pain of betrayal, and the questions as to why this is happening, what did they do to deserve this, the cheater has guilt. Guilt that they betrayed their spouse, that they hurt their family, that they broke their marriage vows, and that they have caused so much pain to the one person they loved above all others. They also have questions as to why? Why did they do this? Why did they let this happen? Why did it get so far? Why? They also have humiliation that they are now labled cheaters and this is a brand that they will never be able to take off. They have to face their friends and family members with the truth, and that is a hard pill to swallow.

The different levels that the marriage goes through is an adventure of sorts. It is the worst kind of trip that no one can ever dare to imagine. And statistics state that it takes an average of three years for the couple to heal from the betrayal of an extramarital affair. And I believe the reward for going through all of the pain and the different stages of healing, is a stronger and better marriage. This is NOT to say that people should go have an affair to save their marriage and make it better. Extramarital affairs destroy families, destroy trust, and shatters hopes, hearts, and dreams. You shouldn't have to break something, in order to fix it. If you feel like your marriage is broken, go get help before it gets that far. Once an affair occurs, not only do you have to fix what was wrong with the marriage to begin with, but then you must fix the damage that the affair caused. And sometimes, the damage will never be fixed, and the trust may never be restored.

The marriage can survive an affair. However, the marriage will never be the same. In time, it can be better with a lot of counseling, work, hope, faith, love, and time. It MUST be given the time to heal. The wounds that are caused by an extramarital affair are deeper and more painful then loosing a spouse to death. These wounds will remain raw and tender for awhile. There is no rushing through the healing process. The time it takes for each individual to heal from the wounds, is the time that is needed. Sometimes it feels like the healing process is going on nicely and quickly, but then everything is back to feeling raw again. This is normal. Each person needs to realize that; the betrayer and the betrayed. There is no rushing or hurrying this process along no matter how much the couple want that. It's not controlled by man, it can't be. It will take the amount of time it needs.

During the process, the spouses need to be understanding what the other is going through. Guilt from the betrayer is incredibly hard for that person to live with. The innocent spouse may never understand, but they can begin to forgive and realize that cheater's pain may be different, but it may be just as intense as their own. The cheater needs to understand that the innocent one lives with images that pop in and out of their head at all times, which may seem like there is no moving past the pain. But the images will fade, and the innocent spouse will begin to heal. But the cheater needs to understand the other spouse's pain, and let them experience that pain, but also be there for them when they do. The couple can be drawn closer just by being there through the pain of the other. It will not be easy, but it must be done. If the work is completed and the time is given, the life of the marriage will be back. And when the life comes back, the individuals come out stronger together, but stronger individually as well.