Why Some Marriages Survive an Affair and Some Marriages Don’t

I recently heard from a wife who had found out about her husband’s affair about a week ago. Of course, the pain was still very fresh and she was struggling to process everything. She was starting to suspect that she might want to save the marriage but she didn’t know if this was going to be possible. She wanted to know what, in my observation, were the factors that lead some marriages to survive an affair while others couldn’t.

She asked, in part: “what makes one couple able to save their marriage after infidelity or an affair while another couple can’t? What factors decide which marriages make it and which marriages don’t?” There are actually many things that come into play. I will discuss many of them in the following article.

Sometimes, One Spouse Just Isn’t Willing To Save The Marriage After An Affair: Although I’ve seen plenty of marriages successfully be saved when one spouse is reluctant or doubtful, ultimately, both spouse’s have to eventually be on board with saving the marriage. (Notice that I said “eventually.” It’s fine to have doubts while waiting and seeing what’s going to happen before you walk away for good. Sometimes, giving the situation time (even when you’re doubtful) is the best thing that you can do.)

Other times, the spouse who had the affair doesn’t want to let the other person go. Or, the faithful spouse can decide that they just can’t move past this. However it happens, both people either can’t get on the same page, aren’t able to do the necessary work, or are just unwilling or unable to move on.

I often see people assume that they are in an “all or nothing” situation. They place a lot of pressure on themselves to forgive or move on within a certain time frame. When this doesn’t happen, they become very discouraged and worry that their marriage just couldn’t recover. The truth is, it might have recovered if they had given it more time. There are going to be some struggles and everything’s not always resolved neatly and quickly. Sometimes, the best that you can do is to just commit to hanging in there and seeing what unfolds. You don’t have to make any commitments or decisions immediately. It’s OK to have struggles and doubts. But if you walk away too early, you’re giving yourself the answer that you feared the most without letting it fully play out.