Can an affair improve your marriage?

As I continue studying the results of the Affair Recovery Index, there are continued surprises in the responses.

Although I am finished going through the results and writing up my report on the findings, I can tell you that the results dispel the myth that ‘an affair can improve your marriage’.

The reality as shown by the 500+ respondents is that affairs made most of their marriages worse.  Sure, there were a few that said their marriage improved after the affair, but are you willing to ‘bet the farm’ when the odds are against you in a major way? When there is over 60% of the marriage reporting things are worse after the affair are you willing to risk it? Would you play Russian roulette with bullets in four out of six chambers?

Consider that you are putting YOUR family, and YOUR marriage at risk for the small possibility of some added excitement in your bedroom. You need to consider that you are putting everything on the line, giving up all your security for a little bit of feel good times that will disappear after 15 minutes. That’s not a gamble I would take or consider reasonable. The payoff is not worth the risk.

When you come across those articles that talk about how “An affair improved my marriage”, keep in mind that the data does not support such claims. The reason you hear about isolated events where this happened is that they are just that, “isolated events”.  There are many more stories about how affairs ruined lives, marriages and families, but such stories do not sell magazines, or look hip and glamorous.

The next time you see an article like that, consider the source. Did they ask a large number of couples? How many couples did they have to go through to find this ‘one’ that says things got better. Who is the magazine trying to reach? Is this all about increasing sales or reporting facts?

My own suspicion is that some couples who claim that their relationship improved after the affair are trying to put a ‘good face’ on a tough situation. When that same respondents answered other questions, there was more secrecy, less honesty and continued avoidance of affair related issues. On seeing those responses, I scratched my head thinking “How can more secrecy, less honesty and continued avoidance be associated with improvements in a marriage?” To me, those things make it sound like the marriage relationship became more dysfunctional.

Perhaps, what some of couples view as improvement may be in that the cheater is more committed to stay in the marriage after they have been caught. That commitment may leave some of you feeling more secure than before, although in my mind, the more secrecy, less honesty and continued avoidance shows less security than before if you consider those items a measure of relationship security.

Your marriage can survive an affair. The affair will change things. Life will not ever go back to exactly like it was before, so your marriage will be different.

If you need help in surviving the affair, consider the “Affair Recovery Workshop” where you are led through the process of recovery. In it, I will show you ways to open up communication and change how the two of you interact with each other. You do not have to figure out what kind of affair it was, or what was behind the affair before you start making changes. When your marriage is hurting, you need to start changing how the two of you deal with each other.

You do not have to go through the struggle alone.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

 

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