Read Answers for: The One Having an Affair | The Spouse | The Other Man/Woman | Family & Friends
 

Questions & Answers:
The One Who Had an Affair

• Should I tell my spouse about my affair even if they may never find out?
• Is it really an affair if it never became sexual?
• My spouse wants to know every detail. How much should I reveal?
• Why should I go back to my marriage if I'm no longer in love with my spouse?
• The feelings for my lover are so intense, how can anyone expect me to get over him/her?
• I'm trying to end the affair, but I keep going back-and-forth between my lover and my spouse. Will I ever be able to make a real commitment one way or the other?
• How long will it take to get over this?
• Will my spouse ever forgive me?
• Will my spouse ever trust me?
• What should I tell my kids?

Q: Should I tell my spouse about my affair, even if they might never find out?

A: You may not like my answer to this question, but please read all of it before checking out...

If you want to have a healthy marriage, the answer to that question is almost always yes. Although keeping the secret may allow you to escape immediate conflict or consequences, the long-term cost is not worth it. These costs include: (1) the toll it takes to hold a secret and manage (or ignore) your guilt; (2) the inability to ever achieve complete honesty and trust in your marriage; (3) ongoing vulnerable to this affair or other affairs.

Choosing not to tell is almost always an act of self-protection. You don't want to face the feared consequences. But in doing so you are making a decision for your spouse instead of allowing him/her to make the choice for themselves. In reality, what your spouse wants is less important to you than what you want. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking probably contributed to your affair behavior in the first place.

Is there a risk in telling? Yes. While most spouses, after dealing with the initial pain of discovery, will want to work towards restoring their marriage, it is possible that a betrayed spouse will choose separation or divorce. But they have the right to make the choice of staying or leaving based on the whole truth. If not, any forgiveness or trust offered to you is inherently incomplete. And even if your confession results in your spouse choosing to leave, your honesty is still a very important step toward becoming a healthier person.

If you want to work towards a relationship characterized by complete authenticity and trust, you should tell. Otherwise, you will wall off a part of you that must always be kept from your spouse. It is a secret that will always have a negative power, working against your personal and relational growth.

Despite this advice, I have had some clients who still chose to not tell their spouses about their affair, or to tell them only part of the story. I try to warn them that this choice will certainly not help them discover the kind of relationship they long to have. But if they reject full disclosure, I encourage them to prepare for dealing with possible future discovery by writing a letter to their spouses. This letter should clearly present the whole truth of the affair along with an explanation of why they decided not to admit to it at this time (usually including the desire to protect the spouse from more pain). The letter should then be dated, sealed, and given to a licensed therapist (or anyone bound by confidentiality standards) with instructions to keep it in the client's file, only to be returned at the client's direct request. Such a letter might help alleviate the weight of future betrayal (if the spouse finds out the truth) by at least giving an explanation of why the truth was not told.

Of course, if telling about the affair would create a dangerous situation (as in cases where there is a history of abuse or attempted suicide), you should work with a qualified counselor to help you determine what choices should be made.

Q: Is it really an affair if it never became sexual?

A: Any relationship that takes the place of what should be given to your spouse—either physically or emotionally—should be considered an affair. It steals what was promised to your spouse and gives it someone else. Just because the investment is emotional rather than physical doesn't mean it is less serious. In fact, an emotional affair is usually more damaging that one that is only sexual and it is much more difficult to end. (And when and affair involves both emotional and sexual connections, it becomes even more entangling.) Even online affairs that never cross sexual boundaries will likely be experienced as strongly by your spouse because he/she feels betrayed. Any word, feeling, touch, or desire that belongs to your spouse but is given to someone else in a relationship, whether casual or serious, falls into the category of an affair.

Q: My spouse wants to know every detail. How much should I reveal?

A: When you hide any part of your affair, your spouse feels pushed out and unable to work towards trusting you again. You should have a willingness to tell your spouse everything he/she wants to know.

That doesn't mean your spouse should know everything. There are details of your affair that will result in more hurt than healing. But you're not the one who should be making that call. This is where the help of a pastor or counselor can be of great benefit because she or he will be able to guide your spouse in determining which specifics they really need to know.

If your spouse is demanding immediate answers, I would suggest the following response: "I don't want to keep secrets and I am willing to tell you anything you want to know. But my understanding from people who know about these things is that we need help in working through this. Before we talk about all the details of the affair, would you agree to go to someone who will help guide us through all this?" Then, when the time comes, be ready to keep your word.

Q: Why should I go back to my marriage if I'm no longer in love with my spouse?

A: The loss of "in love" feelings is common to those who have been through an affair. It's also common that many doubt whether they were ever genuinely in love with their spouse, especially following an affair that involved a strong emotional connection. Most likely, passion had diminished in your marriage before your affair started and now the emotional jolt you got from the affair makes your marriage feel void of love. But it wasn't always that way. Your relationship with your spouse started out with a passion that you've forgotten. The question is, is it possible to get it back...especially after everything you've been through?

The answer is yes, if you're willing to put effort into restoring the relationship you had with your spouse. In fact, it's possible to experience greater intimacy with him/her than you've known before. It won't be easy, but the payoff is wonderful.

But why should you have to work at loving your spouse when it seemed to come so naturally with your lover? Because the passion you experienced in the affair was super-charged in a way that could never be sustained over time. No relationship can ever sustain that level of emotional euphoria, despite what popular songs and movies sometimes tell us.

Not every marriage can survive an affair. Not every marriage should. But it's too soon to give up if you've simply fallen out of love. If that's your main reason for leaving your spouse, I'd encourage you to first give at least 6 to 12 months of honest work toward rebuilding your marriage. Of course, if you've already decided to be done with it, there's probably not much I or anyone else can say to change your mind.

Q: The feelings for my lover are so intense, how can anyone expect me to get over him/her?

A: As mentioned in the previous answer, it is no surprise that emotions experienced in your affair have been extremely satisfying and passionate. Because of all the dynamics in an affair (relief from feelings of being inadequate or unappreciated; new sexual explorations; sharing the "best" parts of someone without having to deal daily with their worst parts; the thrill of secrecy), your passion may have reached a level you've never known before and may never know again, unless you seek out another affair.

But you need to understand that the dynamics at work in an affair are similar to those that occur in other forms of addictive behavior. There is a definite rush that can't be denied...but whether you want to believe it or not, that rush will not last forever. Whatever inadequacies you took into your relationship with your spouse will be repeated in new relationships as well unless you figure out what needs to change and how to go about changing it.

Q: I'm trying to end the affair, but I keep going back-and-forth between my lover and my spouse. Will I ever be able to make a real commitment one way or the other?

A: It is normal to have conflicted thoughts & feelings during this process. When you are confused about your choices, it usually means you have conflicting goals. Real change is hard, but it is nearly impossible if your motivation for change is unclear or conflicted.

Let me tell you a couple motivations that WON'T work in the long-run:

1. Guilt. Trying to make things "right" just because you feel guilt/shame, or because you're trying to do what others say you should do, will work for a while, but probably not for very long. Sooner or later, your own needs/desires will demand attention and you'll be repeating the same choices again.
2. Happiness. Most of the people caught up in affairs that I work with are just trying to find a way to feel happier. They want a relationship with more "connection," or better sex, or with less conflict. We all want to be happy! But the problem is that any new relationship really feels good at the beginning. And when you add in the secrecy that is part of an affair, the thrill of the experience is heightened even more. But it doesn't last. And so what thrills a person today won't thrill them a year or two from now... and they'll have to start looking for the next relationship that makes them feel that way again.

Both of these motivations usually rely on outward measures (outside of you): an outward standard of correct behavior or outward relationships/circumstances to make you happy. In my experience, clients motivated by a desire to avoid guilt or find happiness often find themselves going back-and-forth in their choices. Healthy, consistent change is driven by an INWARD motivation that comes when a person has a clear picture of who they want to be.

You need to take the focus off of deciding what person is more exciting or gives you better sex or whatever. I'm not saying those things aren't important, but they are secondary to a more primary question: What kind of person do you want to become? If your answer to that question is clear, your choices become less conflicted because you begin to see which ones help you (and which ones hurt you) become that person.

In my opinion, answering the questions "Why do I think/act the way I do?" and "What kind of person do I want to become?" needs to be a primary focus for someone coming out of an affair. It's a process that requires you to look at your past (the things that influenced the way you experience people and events), evaluate your motivations, and develop a clearer perspective of what future change will look like.

Q: How long will it take to get over this?

A: That depends on how connected you were to the other person (was it just sexual? emotional? both?) and how long the affair lasted. The deeper the emotional connection and the longer the affair went on, the more time it will take to get over it. Although it might feel like this is something you will never get over, the intensity of your emotional connection will diminish over time. It may take months before you stop feeling the pull back to the other person, and even then another contact might stir your longing for him/her again.

So if you're serious about moving after an affair, you must break off ALL contact with the other person. No exceptions. Every time you re-establish contact with him/her, you extend the time it will require to get over the relationship.

Q: Will my spouse ever forgive me?

A: I don't know. I hope they will, not just for your sake, but for theirs as well. It will be more difficult for both of you to move on if forgiveness is not given. And without forgiveness, your marriage has no hope of flourishing.

But forgiveness is a gift. You can hope for it. You can ask for it. But you cannot demand it. You'll need to give your spouse some time to work through their anger and grief before he/she is really ready to deal with their willingness to forgive.

Q: Will my spouse ever trust me?

A: First of all, let me be clear in stating that forgiveness and trust are not the same. Your spouse may choose to forgive you but still not be able to trust you. Forgiveness says, "I choose to let go of this offense and release you from its debt." Trust says, "I choose to act according to the belief that you will not let me down." Forgiveness is a gift, but trust should be earned.

You owe it to your spouse to go to extraordinary measures to earn their trust again. I find that the willingness to do this is a good indicator of whether or not a person has really ended and affair and is willing to invest in their marriage. Here are some things you might do to show you are trustworthy: call your spouse often when you're at work or away; temporarily limit any activities or travel that keep you from home; offer complete transparency with your personal schedule; give your spouse open access to your phone and email accounts and let them know they are welcome to look at them any time they want without questions; talk about your day in detail; pick up the phone every time your spouse calls; be willing to answer any and all questions about the other person. At first, it will be inconvenient to perform all these behaviors, but the need for them will decrease over time.

Q: What should I tell my kids?

A: You need to be honest with your children, but what you tell them depends on their ages and how much detail they already know. If your children are teenagers, it's likely that they already know or, at least, have guessed what is happening. If so, don't lie about it. Without getting into details, you should admit what happened, but then assure them that it is over and that you are taking steps to fix your marriage. (Caution: Don't tell them this if it isn't true. Telling lies just to assure and comfort them may buy some temporary peace, but it ultimately do more damage to their trust in you.) If they have questions, answer them. Keep the lines of communication open with your children and don't be afraid to check in with them periodically to provide assurance and to answer any new questions they might have.

Ages 8-12: Provide fewer details, but if they have any awareness of the affair, you need to admit that you got too close to someone else for a while, but that it's over now. Take responsibility. Give them plenty of reassurance with your words and your touch. Let them ask questions and provide answers that are general but honest.

Under age 8: Your child is likely too young to understand anything about an affair, but they'll certainly have some sense of the conflict in your marriage. Address the conflict. Let them know the two of you are having some problems that you are working on. Assure them that they have no responsibility for the conflict. Children that age tend to view the world as though they are at the center of it and will assume that your problems are their fault.