This post is part two of the eight-part series on affairs and how to save your marriage. If you haven’t read the first part of the series, the link is below! Before reading Andrew G. Marshalls book, How Can I Ever Trust You Again?: Infidelity: From Discovery to Recovery in Seven Steps
- The Accidental Affair
- The Cry For Help Affair
- The Retaliatory Affair
- The Self-Medication Affair
- The Don Juan and Doña Juana Affair
- The Tripod Affair
- The Exploratory Affair
- The Exit Affair
The Cry For Help Affair
These types of affairs are very different than an accidental affair. One key difference is that the couple is aware that there are problems in their relationship, whether the problems have been around for a couple months or even a year. The tendency in these relationships is one of the spouses will ignore the problems and hope they go away, and the other spouse is feeling alone and abandoned in the marriage.
This emotional distance and isolation is the perfect way for an affair to happen. It could be something as simple as a friend flirting with you to start the affair. These affairs are not planned and malicious, but more come from
The unfaithful partner in this marriage is not covering their tracks, they aren’t being hidden or planned about it. In fact, they might even want to be caught. These
With this type of
The faithful spouses are often shocked because in these types of affairs the unfaithful is not acting like themselves. They are not the type to be unfaithful, which adds to the shock
How To Save Your Marriage
Once these affairs have taken place, there are ways to save your marriage. This affair is the second to lowest on the severity of affairs, meaning there is a higher chance to save your marriage. These affairs are a poor way for a spouse to send a message to the faithful spouse to notice them, or to see there are problems in the marriage.
If you and your spouse post discovery are willing to work on your problems, saving your marriage can be achieved. Taking a hard look at each of the spouse’s behaviors, the issues within the marriage and individual issues each has is the first step. If you can address the root causes of the marital distress, there is hope for your marriage. Get into marriage counseling.
Addressing the root issue is key because once the problem is out in the open, it doesn’t have as much power over the couple. Even in recovery from addictions, they always say, “you’re only as sick as your secrets” so once the secret problems are brought out to the open, that is half the battle.
The one caveat to this affair is that the issues do need to be addressed for healing to occur, for both spouses. If the unfaithful spouse sees that there is no effort to face the issues head-on, and the faithful remains in an avoidant state, then this unfaithful might make this affair behavior apart of their pattern to self-medicate their pain. So addressing the issues is very important once this affair comes out. Addressing the problems now, rather than finding out your cry for help affair partner has escalated their unfaithful behaviors to more severe affairs like a tripod affair, which will be covered later in the series.
Good point Savannah in that a cry for help gets the problem out in the open. No mystery or confusion. Then couples can tackle it head on to stay in the marriage if both people can move forward together, or in the equally freeing but painful case, splitting up when both people know it is time to move on. Saving or preserving your long term happiness wins over saving a marriage, every time, if if a couple simply isn’t on the same page anymore.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Ryan
Glad you enjoyed the article! It’s true once a problem is in the open, the couple can tackle it head on if they feel healing is possible, or they can decide to move forward separately if they feel there is no way to overcome the hurdle of an affair.
I’ve seen too many sites claiming so many types of affairs, but what about when a person is in an open or polyamory thing? Are affairs always indicative a problem in a marriage? Isn’t it possible to be happy in your relationship and still feel drawn to others and even have an occasional crush? Monogamy is something that you do and the people in the relationship have to decide what types of intimacies are just between them. Even then some people might cheat because they feel entitled or as long as they don’t get caught. It’s more complex then putting affairs into categories-romance and sexual, that is.
Millennial focuses on relationships that are monogamous, and the “affair series” I have written has come from the book by Andrew G. Marshall.
There is a difference I believe between a couple who agrees to be monogamous (where they define their own boundaries about what constitutes as cheating) and a person in a polygamous relationship.
Crushes aren’t necessarily bad. Finding another person attractive is inevitable. We see people every day of varying attraction levels to us, it’s the acting on it that constitutes as breaking a boundary/fidelity.
People who cheat because they feel entitled, in my opinion, probably should look into relationships that are not monogamous. If an individual thinks that they should be able to have sex or emotional relationships with many people at once, that doesn’t fit with a monogamous style relationship.
People have preferences, some people want a monogamous relationship and other’s don’t -which is perfectly fine!
The problem is when an individual is breaking a boundary/agreement about the level of fidelity that was agreed upon. In polygamous relationships, there might be certain boundaries set, and if that person violates the boundary the individual might feel deeply betrayed because the other went against the boundaries set for that polygamous relationship.
I think that even if you’re in an open or poly relationship that people have boundaries. For example, if I wanted an open relationship I might say that we can have an open relationship as long as you don’t have another relationship with my female best friends. If that person breaks that boundary then they’ve broken trust and created a sense of betrayal in the other person.
Yeah, I’m familiar with Andrew G. Marshall. It’s a good idea to be open minded because I’m not too sure if I’d take everything that he says to heart-even he has biases that stem from a culture steeped in monogamy as the standard. Romantic relationships and sexuality are complex. Have you noticed many articles on the Internet generally assume there is an issue with the relationship in order for any affair to occur? What if it isn’t though? How traumatic for the faithful spouse. Anyway…
I agree! Sexuality is complex and that everyone has their right to have the relationship they want. I personally like monogamous relationships, but I know of others who are in poly relationships and they make it work. I think it’s great that people can figure out their own preferences and comfort zones for themselves, rather than what society expects.
If an individual is being unfaithful, in my opinion, that stems from the individual’s lack of skill to handle the situation appropriately. The spouse is never to blame for another spouse cheating. Sure there may be issues in the relationship (but really, what relationship does not have issues?) but that is never an excuse to cheat. In my opinion, leave the relationship rather than cheating. The psychology of cheating is pretty extensive and has a lot of interesting points. Esther Perel is one of my favorite psychologist’s that delves into infidelity and what that means and says and the reasons behind a person’s actions.
It is extremely traumatic! The spouse is already betrayed and might be going through betrayal trauma, the last thing they need is someone saying “if you had/hadn’t done this….they wouldn’t have cheated.” It’s complete crap and lets the unfaithful escape the responsibility of their actions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yummy-mummy-club/discovering-an-affair_b_2716337.html How I Discovered My Husband’s Affair
Felt so bad for this wife. I know there is limited info in this article, but I think this husband is happy in his marriage but cheats out of a sense of entitlement. It’s as if he admitted to the bare minimum (which is probably a lie) just to stave off his wife’s anger and keep his marriage together. It makes you wonder how many affairs he’s had. He’s not into monogamy the way his wife sees it and he misrepresented himself to his wife somewhere along the way. If emotional and physical fidelity is important to this wife, then she’s married to the wrong man.
Holy crap, I didn’t get past the first two paragraphs before I felt nauseous and my heart racing. I know that feeling. It’s soul crushing. That moment of discovery… changes your life forever.
Reading that I feel the husband is in his forties, so maybe mid-life crisis?? Maybe he is scared of commitment, as it mentions his parents divorced due to infidelity. This is why I wrote an article on Parents Hidden Influence in Your Marriage.
These stories are always heartbreaking to read, but hopefully there is peace at the end of the tunnel. In our experience, the lies are often far worse than the act of cheating itself.