Can My Marriage Be Saved After an Emotional Affair?

Dear GoodTherapy.org,
My wife has been involved in an emotional affair for seven years. She is planning to move out this week to get space and figure out what she wants to do. She would leave me if he asked her to. I am starting therapy to try to deal with this and I would like to know if my marriage can be saved at this juncture. -Despondent Spouse

Dear Despondent Spouse,

First, it would be important to get to the root of the emotional affair. Seven years is a long time to carry on an affair. I would seek to find out what she was getting out of the relationship with the other person. What are her expectations about marriage? Some people look for the excitement and intensity that comes from the infatuation and newness of an affair that cannot be sustained in marriage. If you can be open to hearing her needs and understanding what she was seeking, you can make some determination of what things you might be able to do now to save the marriage. Ask her what she needs to put her feet back in the marriage. There might be things required of her rather than you. Ask her if she is willing to go to counseling together. Let her know that even if she’s not sure she wants to save the marriage, at least a counselor can help the two of you figure out what happened and why, and how to go forward from here.

The marriage can be saved if:

your wife is willing to cut off contact with this other person
if she is willing to do the work of understanding why she has carried on this affair
if she is willing to work at rebuilding trust in the marriage
if you have the ability to feel safe again in the marriage
the two of you together do the work of improving connection and communication.

Unfortunately, many of these things are not in your control, ie: what your wife is willing to do. This marriage could be saved if she were willing to join you in your commitment to work on it. Your wife needs to take ownership of her own choices, the affair is not your fault. But if you want to get her to turn back toward the marriage, it would be important for you to also take ownership of your choices that had a negative impact on her or the marriage (which does not mean taking blame for the affair).

All the best,
Dana

Comments

Lorne Chadwell November 16th, 2012 at 3:30 PM #1

Total commitment is what is needed, through sickness, for poor’er, till death is what’s needed, not until it gets a little tough start looking for an easy way out, or enjoying someone else’s affections without getting caught, or including one’s self in questionable situations that requires denieabilities that melt away with the light of day…
Vanessa November 18th, 2012 at 7:15 AM #2

ABSOLUTELY! Relationships are ALL about commitment. We need to look CLOSELY again, as a society and see how we have fallen into being SOOO damn desensitized about our level of commitment in a relationship when the going gets rough or how we feel the need to LEVERAGE ourselves away from our partners, off their generosity, love and devotion in the relationship. This era of ENTITLEMENT epecially in love relationships, will be our downfall because as with any foundation that is WEAK, IT WILL CRUMBLE!, eventually. We can no longer deny the necessary of recognizing this as a problem. Personally, my marriage has suffered from these issues and it has been devastating to learn that someone you love and have lived with for over thirty years would DISMISS the relationship, if it did not FEEL RIGHT or they are not longer “feeling me”, after investing years and they SELFISHFULLY have elevated their financial status. Our concept on the VALUE of commitment has changed.