Could your marriage survive an affair?
 

Seeing this posted all over the net, thought I'd start a thread here. I'm curious if any or many tfpers think their marriage could survive? I feel pretty sure that mine would, although I'm glad that I have never had to deal with this in reality. We both are extremely loyal and open and I've told my husband that if he cheated, please don't tell me. For him, he would be devastated and I've never done anything although I've come mightly close to it on one or two occasions. I feel a lot of relief knowing I didn't "go there".

So...what are Your real feelings and beliefs on this topic? Let's not get all "Tiger Woods" here either, cuz that's not a situation most of us can relate to...(unless you are a billionaire golf pro & world famous)!

Our marriage is still new. Each day still feels magical. I don't imagine either of us with think about cheating anytime soon. But if the time comes, I'm confident we will be happy together through it. Maybe I'm a blissful fool, but I don't see how it would change much of our relationship. Perhaps trust is a more complex issue than I realize.

Well, if my last one was any indicator: EEERRRRGGH... KABLOOEY!

Heh.

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Thoughts:

I think I could forgive just about anything given the right resources (time, location, etc). I can be rational about stuff like this, I guess.

Though the person would have to really flex their guts and make me believe in them again. Trust is a flighty creature when spooked.

The next time I get married, I'm going to make sure to be upfront about the "cheating" issue. If it's just about sex? I could understand that.

I might even lay it down like this:

"You wanna bang somebody else? OK. But you have to tell me first, use safer sex practices, and you're not doing it on my $4000 Swedish sleep surface."

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I think you develop a certain amount of emotional callus when you go through something like a divorce stemming from an affair.

I need a partner who is there, pulls their weight, and believes in the "you and me" thing. I want to outgrow the "I own your vaj" bit.

Get the feeling I shouldn't have to tell my partner that they shouldn't go sneaking around on me if they need something I can't provide.

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Then again... maybe this is a lot of wishful thinking coming from a guy contemplating a vasectomy and a life of travel and dating site hookups.

I think a marriage should be strong enough to survive a "moment of madness" type affair - a one off occurrence. But in the case of a Tiger type situation - I'm not sure it would be wise to continue a marriage. Such a series of affairs is really indicative of much deeper problems.

This. I think honesty is more important than fidelity. I'm a pretty forgiving person, but lying to me is something I won't put up with.

Years ago, my family was sitting around after dinner talking about some neighbor lady who flirted with my grandpa all the time. My stepdad made a comment that he was surprised my grandma (his mom) seemed perfectly okay with it, and didn't put up a fuss when the neighbor lady asked for help with house maintenance stuff. Her answer has stuck with me since then: "Well, I figured if he was the type of man to have an affair with her, I didn't want him anyway."

...I suppose that's enough introspection from the non-married girl. Carry on.

It seems the definition of fidelity is at the heart of the matter.

I would imagine it would depend on how/why the affair happened in the first place. Was it a long drawn out scenario that took place over the course of a few years or a one off thing that just sort of happened, maybe during a rocky point in the marriage? The former would be much harder to simply shrug off as it indicates that the other person is probably very unhappy and/or not committed to the relationship. The second scenario is much more forgivable and ultimately survivable in my opinion as it seems more of a moment of weakness perhaps even an attempt to garner the others attention.

I've always been a harsh realist so I understand that sometimes things just happen and can usually forgive transgression and move on if the motive wasn't too sinister. So I suppose if I was married I would think relationship could survive depending on the circumstances.

No, my marriage could not and did not survive an affair. But maybe each situation, each marriage, each person is different. I don't particularly think this is the thread to go into details about my situation. Basically, he lied to me for more than 10 years, until he finally met someone he felt was worth leaving me for. The trust in our relationship was totally blown away with no chance of ever coming back. How can a relationship survive that?

Nope. I could forgive her eventually , but that amount of trust being lost means it's time to move on.

I am not married and never have been, but am very doubtful that my marriage could last.

To me, marriage is based largely on trust. To have an affair would be to deceive me, lie to me, and go behind my back for another man. Hardly something a marriage based on trust can withstand.

I agree that there are different scenarios, so I won't say that it could never work out, but it would be difficult.

I am a firm believer in both complete, and utter reciprocity; and the absolvement of a "trade"-based relationship, where I provide some resource (be it social companionship, financial security, child-rearing, etc.) in exchange for others I lack. When you become married, you cease to be two individuals and become one being in two bodies.

There is no way the marriage would last. Just thinking it might be okay means the marriage is not to be.

Yes and it did...

Bingo!

I can see that who you fuck is not the only sign of fidelity - there are some truly successful open and polygamous relationships that work very well (some of those people are here) but I have issues with being lied to in the course of it.

My ex wife is my ex wife because she wanted sex elsewhere and lied to me to get it. I have no idea if I could have coped with an open relationship (but I suspect that if put to the test I would come down on the side of NO) but I know I could not cope with a dishonest one.

If you need something you're not getting at home, the first thing you should do is explain it to your partner, and if you can't either get it or decide to do without it, you should leave your spouse before going to look for it.

I have a very simple rule; I will never cheat on my wife.

This.

My husband is Swedish; now I have a new nickname for him :thumbsup:
(Swedish Meatball, Swedish Chef, and MYKEA were all getting old)

This seems like such a tricky question. My husband and I have an incredibly fun and uniquely honest relationship. We weathered a lot before marriage, and have always been pretty circumspect about the fact that we both look at other people; we weigh the relative attractiveness of the opposite sex a hundred times a day, and occasionally meet that rare engaging individual that makes us curious. Being able to talk about those moments without fear of retaliation or judgment is one of the (many) things that keeps us happy enough that neither considers straying. As such, if he did cheat, I don't think our marriage would survive; nor, maybe, should it. We both put a lot of effort into keeping each other happy and satisfied; if one of us felt compelled to cheat after all, it would seem to me a sign that fundamentally we weren't built to last.

It's clearly not about cheating, it's about deceit. If you have an agreement with your partner, in terms of what you both are and aren't ok with, regardless of how limiting or open this agreement is, and you have been clear about it all, then if they still go against that agreement without first being honest with you, obviously they are betraying your trust. Once trust is broken, it's quite hard to regain it. I have been in that position once and I tried really hard to go past it. But my gut reaction as the time was to tell him it was over and I should probably have stuck to that. In the end we dragged the relationship on for quite a while but I was never able to trust him the same way again, no matter how much I cared about him and wanted to be able to.

I respect your thoughts on this Daniel. :thumbsup:

My thoughts...A marriage can survive, but trust and love wont.

My first husband cheated on me in the first year we were married and a few times after that. I stayed with him for almost 30 years, but only because I didn't know how to leave. Then, after a lifetime of believing I could never be unfaithful to my spouse, I had an affair...and I knew it was time to get out of my marriage, because to do that, I was already gone. Sexual intimacy is a very important part of a relationship to me. I want to be all that my man needs and if I'm not, then he doesn't need me. I'll never stay in a relationship without trust and respect again.

nope, and the first one didn't survive...

I really wish I could respond with some grounded opinion but I've never been married nor am I in a relationship that seems to be heading that way.

I would say however, from past experience, I'd say no, it couldn't last. Not just because of the trust issue but because a cheater, a real cheater, will never stop thinking about the greener grass on the other side. It might take years, but I'm almost positive it'll happen again.

I could be wrong, people change I'm sure, just not in my experience.

I would wake up to the smell of gasoline.

GiantAmericanHamburgerPsycho?

Could my marriage survive it? Depends. If I strayed (not going to happen), absolutely not. She would not accept it. Were she to cheat, I could forgive her. Strangely enough, I think I would see it as a failure on my part in that I had not met some need of hers.

Not married quite yet (256 days and counting) but this is where we are.

Pretty sure if he did cheat, someday, he knows what the consequence would be: me keeping his balls as a trophy. I am very much the jealous type, and he knows it. Personally, I would never cheat. Living with myself afterward would not be worth any pleasure it might bring.

Now THAT'S A FIRE!!!!!

Probably not. I would lose confidence in myself and trust in him.

At this point in your life and marriage, you probably are a blissful fool, and have every right to be.
When you're out of the honeymoon phase, say 5 years from now, I suspect you will have a different answer for this question.

As many others have said, it would depend on the circumstances. A one-off or brief affair during a troubled time would be much easier to understand & deal with than a long-term affair that involved lying & deceipt.

Yep. Been there, done that. Better and stronger than ever.

Cheating could be a sign that something is missing in the current relationship. It could also be that humans may not be wired to be monogamous.

Sometimes a relationship is broken and there's nothing to salvage with or without an affair.
I think that some people use affairs as a way to end a relationship because:
a) They won't be alone afterward
b) They can use the new person as the reason for the demise instead of saying that they just don't care for the initial person anymore

And now, for cheating-related entertainment:

I'm not married yet, but if I were, an affair would be grounds for divorce and annulment for me.

Well I think I can forgive and my other half can forgive too albeit it depends in ths situation. I don't think you can forgive someone with 10 mistresses in a span of 2 or 3 years right?

This makes perfect sense and yet mildly pisses me off for some reason I can't explain.

/2006

I am not a cheater myself, not that i think i am good to cheat, mostly i am too lazy and frankly i just have to much respect for my SO to fuck around. I am pretty sure that she'd drop me if i did.

I could never see her cheating but not sure what i would do. if it was right now when were all happy and everything seems good i'd probably have a huge issue. but if i was being a jerk and the relationship was in shambles i probably would not blame her.

either way, if you want to cheat just leave the person first. I'd only want to know so i don't get a disease.

No, it would not. Too many fish in the sea to deal with shit like that.

MY S.O. and I go to Swinger's Clubs here in Toronto. So we've completely removed the issue of "an affair" from the context of our relationship. We have "affairs" together every 8 weeks or so. It's made for an excellent relationship.

i seriously doubt it. you put too much of yourself into this relationship, this marriage, just for your spouse to go throwing it away in a moment of weakness. If they do have an affair, clearly their heart was not in it as much as yours and they did not care as much about you as you cared about them.

moment of weakness = cop out!!! cos that would be the easy way out, instead of having to tell them, "i just felt like fucking someone other than you".

i doubt i'd ever be able to look at Healer if he cheated on me and if it were the other way around, i dont think i'd ever be able to live with the fact that i hurt the one person who means the most to me in the whole wide world as much as i did.

We had an interesting conversation after watching "He's Just Not That Into You" over the weekend (a trade-off for me making her watch "The Name of the Rose"). For those of you that haven't seen it, one of the couples deals with an affair.

My own marriage would suffer greatly. I don't know if it would end, but it would not be what it was. It really doesn't matter who cheated (honestly, it would probably be me since I'm the weaker of us), but the trust we have in one another would evaporate, at least temporarily. Depending on the circumstances (how long it went on, what the reasons were, etc.), everything could be over. I suspect that the immediate default would be for divorce proceedings to start, but I like to think that reconcilation is possible.

But in the end, the real answer, for me at least is "I don't know and I don't want to find out."

While my marriage didn't end "because" of an affair - there were some suspicions that he was having one before we got divorced. I think that, while he would never admit to it (the evidence was pretty damning), my trust in him became almost non-existent and over time, things just got to be more difficult/miserable for either one of us to be happy together anymore. Had he owned up or had a logical explanation for everything I learned, things might have been different. But since I felt he was no longer being honest with me, I found myself questioning everything else he said and did. I do, however, think every situation is different, so who knows.

I could not live with that kind of betrayal a 2nd time in my life. I thought it was hard when I was a young adult, but I don't think I would survive it this time around. No, the relationship would not survive, and probably neither would I.

new there and would like to comment, my first marriage didn't last but not due to infidelity, that happened during the separation, actually, the sex was good before she slept around during the separation, she actually wanted group sex no swap but same room sex, I agreed, however, later found out she had been messing around with the guy we had the same room sex with...I might have taken it better if she was honest or included me MFM...Today I'm remarried, as you get to know me you'll find there is alot of "closed doors," with my current partner...I don't think our marriage would make it if there was an affair...there's just to much garbage in my current partners past...Its just not worth it...