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Does an Affair Spell Death for Your Relationship?

Does an affair spell death for your relationship? Or is there hope for a relationship post-infidelity?
“Life is Short. Have an Affair”. So goes the advice on dating cheat site Ashley Madison. That’s right, Ashley Madison is an Internet dating site set up specifically for married individuals looking to cheat on their spouses. Since it launched in 2010, the site has attracted almost half a million Australians members – apparently all searching for an easy way to have an affair.
A recent study on infidelity by Relationships Australia reveals that men and women both estimate that around 40-50% of Australian couples have cheated on their partners (1). Whilst the census doesn’t provide a definition of ‘cheating’ and is based on a relatively small sample of 1800 participants, the figure nonetheless suggests a high prevalence of infidelity in our community.
But the impact of an affair is not to be under-estimated. In an Australian Institute of Family Studies survey (admittedly an old survey conducted in 1997), 1/5 of Australian divorcees blamed their divorce on an infidelity (2). And even if divorce can be avoided, the personal ramifications of an affair will undoubtedly be devastating for the injured party, if not also for the person who cheated and their families.
So what happens to your marriage or relationship if an infidelity has occurred? Can your marriage survive? And if so, how? Or does a discovered infidelity mean death for the relationship?
Interestingly, the Great Australian Sex Census suggests that 34% of Australians say they would forgive their cheating partners, and a further 29% are not sure. Is there hope, then, for a sustained and satisfying marriage post-infidelity?

What does the road to repair after infidelity look like?

First, and this will sound fairly obvious, the affair needs to be 100% over and all forms of communication cut-off. You can’t move forward if one of you is still hanging on to another relationship, and there is no chance that trust will be rebuilt if one partner is still lying to the other.
Second, the victim needs to find the capacity to forgive. This can only be achieved after a firm and sincere apology from the person who engaged in the infidelity, and only after the affair is 100% over. Infidelity is a serious disloyalty, and one that leaves the victim feeling wounded and betrayed. The loss of trust that results from an affair can be very, very difficult to regain. And so, forgiveness is usually something that takes a long time to offer, but it is essential to any hope of rebuilding your relationship after an affair. Remember that achieving forgiveness does not mean you condone the infidelity.
Third, both parties need to accept some responsibility for the state of their marriage or relationship prior to the infidelity. Many psychologists and counsellors suggest that infidelity only occurs in a vulnerable relationship. This means that infidelity rarely happens in a vacuum – instead, infidelity indicates an unhappy or unsatisfactory relationship that has, in a sense, allowed the infidelity to happen.
Accepting some responsibility for the state of your relationship prior to infidelity can be very difficult to do, especially for the injured party. But remember, accepting some responsibility for the state of your relationships doesn’t mean you are taking responsibility for the infidelity itself, or condoning it in any way. It does however, acknowledge that a weak relationship is susceptible to infidelity, and both parties need to take responsibility for that weakness.
The next step is to take some action towards addressing the problems in your marriage or relationship, that is, the problems that existed prior to the affair. These problems are likely to include:
•    a lack of connectedness and intimacy,
•    a lack of respect for one another, and
•    negative communication patterns.
A qualified couples counsellor or relationship therapist can teach you better modes of communication and help you regain intimacy in your relationship. This is where the hope lies – because hopefully, by the time the process of healing and repair has ended, what you are left with is a marriage or relationship that is actually way better than the one you started with.
There is no doubt that it takes time for you and your relationship to heal after an affair – it takes strength, contrition, forgiveness, understanding, skills development and loads of practice – but it can be done, and what you end up with might just be much greater than what you had before the affair even happened.
In this sense, there is great hope for a marriage after infidelity.
References
(1) Relationships Australia – Infidelity 2018
(2) Australian Institute of Family Studies – Survey 1997

References

  1. Bradbury, T.N., Fincham, F.D., & Beach, S.R.H. (2000). Research on the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62
    (4), 964–980. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00964.x.
  2. https://www.aamft.org/About_AAMFT/About_Marriage_and_Family_Therapists.aspx
  3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23761407.2018.1563013
  4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23761407.2018.1563013
  5. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1111%2Fjmft.12350
  6. https://www.relationships.org.au/what-we-do/research/australian-relationships-indicators/relationships-indicator-2011
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