Surviving Infidelity: What Didn’t Work For Unfaithful Spouses

This week we’re exploring “The least productive actions taken by the unfaithful spouse after the infidelity came to light?” As mentioned in last week’s article, pouring fuel on a burning fire can be quite harmful. In our recent survey, those who had been unfaithful identified certain courses of action that also proved to be unproductive or even harmful.

The question, “What was the least productive thing those who were unfaithful did after the infidelity came to light?” was structured with seven categories we provided followed by an opportunity for participants to make other suggestions. The provided categories were as follows:

27% withheld information too long from spouse

25% maintained contact with my affair partner

19% wanted my spouse to just get over it

17% acted defensive

7% believed / acted on bad advice

5% refused to get outside help

Survey participants also had the opportunity to identify other courses of action that proved to be unproductive. Three of these stood out.

I wouldn't take the risk of reengaging my mate and give him/her a chance for fear of misleading him/her.

Focused on trying to be perfect rather than authentic.

Made it about me and my guilt and shame rather than my mate's recovery.

Why were these courses of action unproductive? Let’s see if we can discover some of the reasons.

27% withheld information too long from spouse

29% of the unfaithful men and 26% of the unfaithful women agreed that they had withheld information too long from their mate. If there is one thing that delays healing after the affair it is stringing out the discovery process. It’s tempting to try to control the reaction by controlling the flow of information, however to reestablish trust, the unfaithful spouse has to first trust their mate with the information. The longer the details of the affair are dribbled out, the more difficult it becomes to reestablish trust as well as to move beyond the discovery stage to the tasks of grieving and forgiving.

If you are currently in the discovery stage with your mate, take a lesson from those who’ve gone before. Let go of the information so that you can use the time productively and make progress in your recovery.

25% maintained contact with my affair partner.

33% of the unfaithful men and 18% of the unfaithful women reported maintaining contact with the affair partner was the least productive thing they did during recovery. The number of respondents in this sample is small so this may not be statistically significant, but I would suspect, if all things are equal and the same percentage of men and women maintained contact with affair partners, the larger percentage of men may be due to the men having more interest in saving the marriage than the women. It’s been my personal experience that when women have an affair, they’re less likely to want to save the marriage.

19% wanted my spouse to just get over it.

17% of unfaithful men and 22% of unfaithful women identified wanting their betrayed spouse to get over it, as the least productive thing they did during recovery. As mentioned before, being able to process what occurred during the affair is one of the key success factors to healing after the affair. A possible explanation for the men who “wanted their mate to get over it” might be a lack of empathy. They failed to see how they wounded their mate. Empathy is crucial in surviving infidelity., Conversely women, in my experience tend to have more shame and this might explain their attitude. But regardless of their motivations, it’s interesting that this category was second in least productive actions. Giving the hurt spouse space and time to heal is obviously necessary. Additionally it’s important for the unfaithful spouse to take responsibility for what they’ve done and to join their mate on the healing journey.

17% acted defensive.

29% of unfaithful men and 7% of unfaithful women identified acting defensive as their least productive action. It’s interesting that women tended to be less defensive. This may be due to the fact that the women take more personal responsibility as the unfaithful spouse for the decision to have the affair. All too often when men have affairs they’ve given little thought to their motives beyond the fact that they’ll never get caught. This might explain why they tend to be more likely to be defensive about what they’ve done. Perhaps it’s their attempt at justifying their behavior after the affair.

7% acted on bad advice

12.5% percent of unfaithful men and 4% of unfaithful women said they acted on bad advice. Sad to say, everybody has an opinion as to what they would do if they were in your situation, yet people actually walking through recovery seem to always report surprise at how they responded when the infidelity came to light. Most of us believe if we are cheated on, we will be out of there, but other factors come into play and influence our decisions. Hopefully, the people we listen to are those who have successfully navigated the recovery process.

6% refused to get outside help.

0% of unfaithful men and 11% of unfaithful women reported not getting outside help as their least productive action. Personally, I believe infidelity tends to be more shameful for women than for men. This shame might account for why these women were less likely to get outside help. It might also be the fact that the men were more likely to want to salvage their marriage and therefore had more motivation to get help from the beginning. Regardless, not getting help didn’t help these women.

Out of the other suggestions that participants made as to least productive items three stood out:

I wouldn't take the risk of re-engaging my mate and give him/her a chance for fear of misleading him/her.

For those who feel they lost their desire for their mate before their affair, re-engaging in the marriage is difficult. Frequently, there is ambivalence as to whether to continue in the marriage after the affair. Some feel no hope for change in what they considered a miserable marriage. Others doubt whether or not their marriage can be restored-; they fear their mate could never forgive them or wonder if they could ever rekindle feelings for their mate.

People who have low desire for the marriage may avoid re-engaging to avoid giving false hope. It’s interesting however that this approach was identified as one of the least productive actions for unfaithful spouses. Without taking the risk of re-engaging, it’s impossible to determine the possibilities for healing and for a meaningful life together. Re-engaging is essential to surviving infidelity.

Focused on trying to be perfect rather than authentic.

All too often people have affairs because of intimacy avoidance. They are too focused on trying to please their mate rather than being honest with their mate. If an individual’s goal in recovery is to “save the marriage”, then authenticity is not pragmatic. You will tell your mate only what you think your mate wants to hear in order to motivate them to continue in the relationship. However, this leads to a performance-based relationship and, as always, we discover that it’s never really enough. The ensuing dissatisfaction can lead to more temptation to have an affair. It also fails to resolve the issues that were present in the relationship prior to the infidelity.

Intimacy in marriage almost always creates short-term instability. When we are authentic with one another, it highlights the differences. The most severe consequence of trying to be perfect rather than authentic is how it robs us of love. I can never be loved unconditionally as long as I only conditionally let my mate know who I am. What convinced me of my wife’s love wasn’t the fact that I was perfect, but it was the fact that she chose to love me in spite of my imperfection. Authenticity is crucial to surviving infidelity.

Made it about me and my guilt and shame rather than my mate's recovery.

I found this comment to be particularly interesting. It’s certainly easy to make recovery about our failure with little or no consideration as to how our actions affected another. While it has the appearance of humility, to be focused on our shame, is still 100% self-centered. Love is concerned about others, not about what others think about us.

If you’re in the in midst of recovery and surviving infidelity, I hope you’ll learn from those who’ve gone before. It’s not time that will heal you, but it’s how you use that time. Are you making decisions that bring new life and health, or are you still stuck in a spiral of destruction? I hope you’ll choose life.

I want to thank everybody again who took the time to fill out the survey. Your help is valuable to us. Our goal is to help people find an extraordinary life on the other side of infidelity. I pray the materials we provide will speed you on your journey.