A reader queried “How can you know if your marriage can survive an affair?” Many of you may be asking this question and searching for answers. In dealing with this question, I devised the “Affair Recovery Index” which is a survey covering the key areas involved in affair recovery.
With the Index, you can see what strengths you have and what is missing in your marriage.
You may be one of those who is impatient and want some fast answers now rather than going through a survey. Affairs test the strength of your marriage. An affair is a brutal test drive that strains the bonds of your relationship, your morals, your social skills, your commitment and your faith. An affair will reveal any weaknesses in those areas and more.
The statistics show that many couples can survive affairs. It changes them, but they do survive. Some marriages come out stronger and some weaker. For some of you, it is a wake-up call to grow up and get serious about your marriage.
When the cheater is using the affair to leave your marriage as in an ‘exit affair’, the story changes. In such cases, the cheater is betting on not surviving the affair. The affair is their way of saying “I want out”. They often do not want to be married or survive the affair.
It is always a good sign when the both of you want the marriage to continue. A surprising number of marriages where there have been affairs do want their marriage to continue (over 75%). I will soon be reporting on the overall findings of the ‘Affair Recovery Index’ with the specifics on this, which you will find hopeful and encouraging.
This is just one of the many areas involved in recovering from an affair which are covered in the index.
The index is very near the point where there are enough responses to consider it a significant and important finding. I am looking forward to sharing those findings with you when they are completed.
Some of the other things to look for are the level of commitment to your marriage, whether or not you or your spouse see affairs as a ‘wrong’, the duration of the affair and length of time the two of you have been married.
Even though your marriage has what it takes to survive an affair, the most important consideration is believing that “an affair is not the end of your marriage”.
If you or your spouse hold to that belief, having all the skills or necessary pieces in place is not going to matter. When either one of you holds to the idea that “an affair is the end of our marriage” or even that marriage is a temporary thing, your chances of surviving the affair plummet dramatically.
Holding onto those ideas puts up a barrier that blocks any kind of healing. You can do all the right things, but holding onto the wrong beliefs cancels out all that you have done.
Best Regards,
Jeff
