Without a doubt, if a couple is going to stay together after an affair, they are going to take a trip down a very bumpy road. This is because adultery is the most grievous sin that one can commit against a marriage, and, unfortunately, the only group of people that truly understand its devastating effects are those on the receiving end.
All that being said, it should be noted that some couples, even after an affair, end up having a better relationship than they ever had before. Here are a few reasons:
Many Couples, After an Affair, Understand that you Can Not Just Let Life Happen
I often say that if having a great marriage was easy, then everybody would be doing it. Unfortunately, many seem to believe that having a successful marriage is just an overflow of all the feelings of love and passion that couples have for one another. Though feelings, passion, and hormones should be present in a marriage, if you just let life, and, consequently, your marriage happen, your marriage will get run over.
To have a successful marriage, you must carefully guard your time, schedules, priorities, mind, relationship with God, emotions, children, and thought-life. Mark it down. If you just let life happen, life will run you over.
Difficult Times can be a Tremendous Bonding Agent for Couples
Two pieces of gold are melted together by using intense amounts of fire and heat. The same can also be true with husbands and wives. In fact, when a couple takes a trip to “hell and back”, the fire and heat of that situation often causes them to have a bond and a mutual understanding that would be difficult to reproduce with any other individual.
Couples that have to Deal Directly with Adultery are Forced to Re-Establish their Priorities
Oftentimes, when adultery has occurred, there are a few reasons why adultery was an easier route for one of the participants in the marriage to take. One of the reasons is that either one or both of the parties involved had distorted priorities that were serving as leeches to the marriage. That is, before adultery, some work harder at protecting their material assets than their relationship with their spouse. Others put more time and effort into their hobbies and their weekend endeavors than their marriage. After an affair, many receive the wake-up call of their life and quickly put their relationship with their husband or their wife back in its proper place.
Regardless of your situation, if you are going to recover after your spouse has been unfaithful, you are going to have to adopt a competitive attitude. That is, you are going to have to decide whether or not you are “in it to win it”.
One of the questions that you should ask yourself is this. “Am I going to let the person that violated my relationship with my partner defeat me, my life, and my children?” or “Am I going to let the person that committed this act to win this ‘double-header’ against me and my family?”.
You might say, “‘Double-header’. What’s that?”. Obviously, if a person has committed adultery with your husband or your wife, they won the first game, but if you allow this to destroy your relationship, finances, children, and, consequently, your life, there is a sense where you are allowing them to “win” the second and, by the way, the most important game of the series.
One of the best ways to start ensuring that you can “win” after unfaithfulness is to start replacing some of the bad ingredients that were previously in your relationship with good ingredients. Our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting with One Another, is designed to help you in that process.
- Learn about our proven, 2-step process
- Designed as a couples devotional
- Use in a group study
- A biblical and refreshing approach
Lorraine, I understand most of what you shared!!! I thought we were the only ones who struggle with this issue. Except I’m the one who was leaving and was with someone else. You took the words right out of my head. I’m so tired of this storm and I would like to think we are almost out of it but the waves crash once in awhile. It’s been over half a year since we really committed to each other but over a year since I drifted. It was like I became a different person. Ready to walk away from my husband and six kids. Thinking I was tired of the race that I wanted to be alone. We haven’t done counseling yet. We quit going to church. We want to heal on our own and not be social. I will pray for you and your husband and for all the marriages out there. Never have I ever thought that this struggle is so painfully real. Evil is out there and wanting to destroy us all. May we have the strength to keeping fighting for our families.
My husband is a totally different person. He’s so mixed up in his head and is done! He filed for divorce in June and I just can’t believe it. He’s been living his life for himself for 13 mo and maybe more. Who really knows when it started! I don’t know him anymore.
This is a good article but I want to encourage any betrayed spouse who feels like the burden has been put on them to make the marriage better, thereby making the unfaithful spouse happy enough not to cheat. Sometimes our spouse brings behaviors and habits into a marriage that has nothing to do with us. My husband was addicted to porn when he married me, and as a consequence, has also had affairs. I thought we were happily married for years. We are now in therapy for his sex addiction. The betrayed spouse is not always able to change in ways to make the betrayer happy. Sometimes, the problem isn’t these issues listed in this article, but instead the issue is bondage to sin.