Over the course of the last six months I have read everything I could get my hands on about adulterous affairs. Among the best materials are Dr. Frank Pittman’s Private Lies, Dr. Shirley Glass’ Not Just Friends, Love Must Be Tough : New Hope for Families in Crisis by Dr. James Dobson, and all the books by Dr. Willard Harley. I have tried to synthesize the best of these explanations of the pathology of an affair.

There are several different types of affairs, but this post will deal with the “romantic” type. In this type of affair, the wandering spouse (WS) has crossed a boundary and “fallen in love” with an affair partner (OP, other person). What makes this affair so difficult to deal with is that it is emotionally driven. The “in love” state is often so powerful that the WS may be willing to sacrifice the marriage and just about everything else to pursue it.

You have probably heard about or known a teenager who has been told that the person they are dating and in love with is using him or her or is demonstrably bad for them. Have you ever seen such a person take anyone’s advice and stop seeing this lover? It’s rare, because one’s emotions corrupt any attempt at clear thinking. This is what happens in romantic affairs. It is a powerful fantasy relationship in which the partners may idealize each other and bond in a way that makes everything else in their lives seem insignificant by comparison. If your spouse is engaged in a romantic affair and agrees to break it off, you are extremely lucky.

From the point of view of a betrayed spouse (BS), one’s spouse having an affair appears to be a rejection of you in favor of someone else. This can be a devastating blow to your self-esteem. You hear things like “I love you, but I’m not in love with you,” and other statements along similar lines. You are shocked that this person who pledged to love you through thick and thin or until “death do us part” has suddenly forgotten that commitment or decided to revoke it without advance notice. (Chances are your spouse never talked about a marital crisis or separation or divorce before the affair.) They don’t want to work on the marriage, and you don’t understand why. They latch onto any events in your past in which you had a disagreement with them, no matter how rare or insignificant they seem, as evidence of your incompatibility. They won’t go to counseling, or if they do, they use it by sabotaging the counselor’s efforts and then tell you “I told you it wouldn’t work!” They won’t stop the affair, even though you can point out a dozen practical reasons for stopping it and fixing the marriage. They are not concerned about the children, after all, “they’ll adapt.” Your joint personal finances are jeopardized because the pursuit of love is more important than worrying about money or mortgages or credit card bills. Your wandering spouse’s family and friends may turn against you too. You don’t know what they’ve been told, but it’s a safe bet that they’ve been given a laundry list of grievances against you, while carefully leaving out the details of how they lied, cheated, and deceived you to pursue their affair. Of course, all those things were justified because you weren’t a good spouse, and this new person in their life is their true soul mate.

You’re angry, upset, and depressed. You fluctuate between these emotions while trying to make sense of it all. But you can’t make sense of it because infidelity is not a sensible act. In fact, much of what your spouse does seems self-destructive. That is because it is self-destructive, and if you are not careful your spouse will destroy you, too.

What can you do when you discover that your spouse is engaged in a romantic affair? Well, according to Pittman:

“I advise spouse’s who are waiting for their mate’s romance to end: don’t try to out-romance a romantic. Don’t bother to arouse jealousy. Don’t try to get your partner’s attention, increase your partner’s guilt, or threaten some kind of unpleasantness. Just express your point of view and then go off and do whatever holds you together during this time.”

Glass offers no solution to the WS who refuses to stop the affair.

Only Dr. Harley offers a plan for dealing with a spouse who is unwilling to stop the affair (see Plan A and Plan B on the MB website). But even Dr. Harley acknowledges that affairs of this nature are extremely difficult to break. They are often characterized as addictions, because they share many of the self-destructive traits that are visible among alcoholics and drug addicts. Most affairs will have to “burn out,” that is, they run their course until the romance fades and reality intrudes to destroy the fantasy. Unfortunately, this very often doesn’t happen until a lengthy separation between husband and wife occurs, or in some cases, after a divorce.

Here are some things to consider:

1. The affair is not your fault. No matter what the state of the marriage prior to the affair, no one forces the WS to have the affair, and having the affair is clearly not a solution to marital problems.

2. It is a myth that affairs don’t occur in good marriages. People in good marriages DO have affairs. You probably know someone who loves their wife or husband and claims to have a good marriage, but still can’t turn down an opportunity for a sexual encounter with someone else. This is especially true of philandering men. There are other reasons why people engage in affairs that have nothing to do with the marriage itself; self-esteem issues, depression, sexual addictions, etc.

3. Don’t take the affair personally. This is not a rejection of you; this is simply a bad choice by your partner who most likely tried to hide the affair from you because they didn’t want to lose you.

4. The OP is not necessarily more attractive or sexier than the betrayed spouse (BS). Most of the time the affair partner is no better in bed than the BS, it’s just that the intense emotional involvement makes it seem so, especially for women. Also, the OP is often chosen more for his/her incompatibility with the WS than for any similarities; the greater the differences, the more intense the relationship.

5. Not all affairs result in divorce. Most statistics indicate that, of couples who seek counseling for having marital problems due to an affair, between 80 and 85% reconcile. In Pittman’s experience, most of the couples who divorced after an affair did so because of the steadfast refusal of the WS to stop the affair.

6. Nearly all affairs end, usually within two years or less. Even when the affairees marry each other, only 25% of them are still together after 5 years. Pittman found that five years after the revelation of an affair, most WSs were back with their marriage partner.

7. In romantic affairs, it is usually a waste of time to try to talk the WS into stopping the affair, working on the marriage, or getting counseling. But it won’t hurt to try once or twice when you first uncover the affair. Don’t expect the WS be sensible or practical.

8. Although it goes against Dr. Harley’s advice, it may be a bad idea to assume responsibility for marital problems at the time of discovery of a romantic affair. That’s because the WS is looking for justification for the affair and by assuming responsibility for any marital problems, real or imagined, you are inadvertently giving your spouse an excuse for his/her actions. No attempt to solve marital problems will work while the affair continues. Stop the affair first, then talk about marital problems and their solution.

9. Don’t beg for a second chance or promise to change in an attempt to persuade your WS to stop the affair or prevent separation or divorce. This doesn’t work. Don’t allow what love your WS has for you to be turned into pity. Keep a bold front, even if it is only a façade and you are crumbling inside.

10. It is the WS who most often files for divorce. Interestingly, Dr. Pittman says there is almost always a point when the WS makes an attempt to return to the BS, even after the divorce occurs, (although you may not recognize the attempt for what it is, and it may come as a result of the WS’s desire to assure themselves of your continued love).

11. Don’t be surprised if your WS claims all sorts of marital problems that you had no idea existed. The creation and/or gross exaggeration of marital problems is part of the process of transferring guilt of the affair to you or the marriage. It is an attempt by the WS to rationalize what cannot be excused. Does the WS believe what he/she says about the marriage? The power of self-deception is often proportional to the guilt one would be forced to endure without it; WSs often believe their own lies and some never come to grips with the truth.

12. If your WS has had multiple romantic affairs, it may be that they are in love with the idea of being in love. These people are very often not suitable for marriage and will bounce from relationship to relationship until their dying day. You may want to bail out of this marriage or be prepared to spend a lot of money on a psychiatrist.

13. Although you may be desirous of saving your marriage, it is best to prepare for the worst. Seek legal advice about your possible divorce and custody issues. Do whatever is necessary to prevent the WS from destroying your financial resources along with your marriage.

For those of you looking for quick and easy solutions, there are none. Dr. Harley recommends exposure as a method of accelerating the demise of an affair, but generally speaking, there are three possible outcomes even if you follow Dr. Harley’s Plan A/B:

A. The affair continues, a divorce ensues, and the affairees live together happily ever after. (This is very rare.)

B. The affair continues for a time after discovery, the affairees eventually break up, but either the WS or BS or both refuse to reconcile. (The probability of this occurring seems to be directly proportional to the length of the affair.)

C. The affair continues for a time after discovery, the affairees eventually break up, the WS and BS reconcile. (The probability of this occurring seems to be inversely proportional to the length of the affair.)

I hope this helps some of you who arrive daily on this forum. There are a lot of good folks here offering fine advice coming from first-hand experience.

Remember that you are not alone.

Excellent post. Practically a thesis.

Under 13, I suggest adding:

D. The BS endures the romantic affair and files for divorce from the unfaithful spouse. The WS plays the "think of our child" card but refuses to give up the lover. WS tries enlisting help from a girlfriend of the BS to persuade the BS to hold off for a year or two, but refuses to break off his "friendship" or work on the marriage. At the very end, just before he moves out, he offers to break off contact with the lover. At this point, the BS has realized she can be happier without him moping around than with him. She realizes she can't muster the strength to stop the divorce and live for 2 more years wondering what his plans are.
She refuses his "reconciliation" offer. They go forward with the D.
And the WS continues seeing the lover every Friday night for dinner, with full support and approval of her family. After all, there's no sex. And his STBXW was crazy to call this an affair.
[venting]

E. The WS divorces her BS for married OM based on OM saying he will leave HIS BS to be with the now divorced WS. The OM then strings along the divorced WS for over 4yrs and never leaves HIS BS. The divorced WS stands in the driveway crying asking the EX BS for forgiveness and wishes she would have never broken up the family. The divorced WS then decides she has waited on the married OM long enough and stops seeing him after nearly 5yrs of promises.

StartinOver,

What happened after that? Did you forgive the WS?

Hiker...

Excellent post!

SD

Shattered,

Thanks. I've been through so much these last seven months that sometimes I feel I could write a book about it.

I said I forgive her.....but, I said this is what YOU wanted....this is where we are at. I told her that I loved my new wife very much, and she has to respect that.

We get along most of the time.....kinda have to because of our children. Actually, my wife and my EX get along pretty well......my wife just doesnt trust my EX, because she is a chronic liar. My EX will lie about things she doesnt even need to. I think it has become habit with her. Oh well, all I know is that Im very, very happy and have a wonderful wife that I love with all my heart.

Oh yeah......its also funny how some people are like oil and water together, while others blend like ice cream and milk (milkshake)...LOL. Bad analogy I know....anyhow, my wife and I have argued less in the 4-1/2yrs we have been together than my EX wife and I did in the first 3 weeks of marriage. Figure that one out.

Thanks for the reply. It's encouraging to see you not only survived but found happiness as well.

You are welcome my friend. I know that God did not want my original marriage to end......it wasnt supposed to and it shouldnt have. But, my EX is the one who had the affair and asked for divorce....NOT me. But I can say that God has blessed me since.......4-1/2 yrs after I was put out of my home, left in financial ruin and all alone.....I have since remarried, bought a new home, two new cars, and have a child on the way. Tell me that God had nothing to do with that. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


Alot of people have asked why I still come around marriage builders since I divorced and am now remarried. I tell them that I may be able to offer some advise to those going thru marital problems based on what I had been thru. Also, since I have children by my EX....I may be able to offer insite to those who are about to enter a similar situation. BUT!!!! more importantly I still come around to gain knowledge on how to have a better marriage, and to see where I DONT want to end up again. LOL

God Bless and have a super weekend!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

hiker you always have lots of great information about romantic affairs

Thanks, eav.

Too bad I had to learn all this stuff the hard way.

I've read most of the above books and that was a pretty good medley of all. I will say though that Pittman's book "Private Lies" gives you some solace to the why me answers and don't blame yourself for their poor choices.