This is part five of the eight-part series on how to save your marriage after an affair. If you haven’t read the first four parts of the series, the links are below!

Before reading Andrew G. Marshalls book, How Can I Ever Trust You Again?: Infidelity: From Discovery to Recovery in Seven Steps (affiliate), I wasn’t aware there were so many different types of affairs. Today we are going to be talking about the “Don Juan & Doña Juna Affair.”

1. The Accidental Affair
2. The Cry For Help Affair
3. The Retaliatory Affair
4. The Self-Medication Affair
5. The Don Juan and Doña Juana Affair
6. The Tripod Affair
7. The Exploratory Affair
8. The Exit Affair

The Don Juan & Doña Juana Affair

These types of affairs are the ones where there are multiple infidelities. Named after Don Juan, a well-known womanizer, these people who have these types of affairs often have had many affairs, might find excuses for them, make them seem innocent. Females can also commit these types of affairs. Being the faithful partner of someone who has these types of affairs can be excruciatingly painful and hard to live with. On the surface these cheaters can be charming, outgoing, fun, and are found to be very attractive.

People who have these types of affairs in the beginning often seduce their target with gifts, attention, compliments. Usually, the person the cheater is pursuing is overwhelmed with the attention and are “swept off their feet” with the desire. Often they feel like they are living in a movie because of how romantic and over the top the affection and attention is. 

The people that have these types of affairs often are avoiders of conflict. They rather walk away than confront an issue and will use sex to release the stress. They want to escape reality, supress anything uncomfortable or distressful, and they use sex as a means to achieve the feeling of escape. 

These people may seem confident to everyone around tem but they truly have low self-esteem and want approval from those aroundthem. These people can have many one night stands and even have a couple affairs at the same time. 

As I mentioned earlier, these people don’t often see how their actions are affecting those around them. They can’t see reality and clearly that their actions are destroying the person they claim to love. They view their sexual indiscretions as their own private thing or think that their partner/spouse is overreacting. They often justify their behaviors in a couple ways, one being that “sexual release is a need.” 

If a spouse confronts the unfaithful, they will become angry and defensive or they might even become tearful as a way to gain sympathy. Sadly, there is no long-term commitment to changing the behavior. 

How To Save Your Marriage

Ending a marriage or relationship with these types of unfaithful can be very difficult as they often promise change and often the beginning of the relationship with them was so great. Just because the past might have been wonderful, that does not mean the present is. The reality is these types of affairs are extremely damaging.

In Andrew G. Marshall’s book, he says,

“If you have been dating a short time and have just discovered your boyfriend or girlfriend’s DJ-style infidelity, my advice is to learn and move on.” (p. 91)

For married individuals, the faithful spouse often realizes how horrible the behavior is but seem to just “turn away” from the reality. Sadly this is no way to deal with the problem. As a faithful, stand your ground, set boundaries, show your pain. If you have actually tried to address the problem, maybe you have threatened to leave, maybe you did leave but were seduced back with words of promise to change the behavior. Sadly, the words they say are empty, and most likely, you know this from experience.

These types of affairs are on the high end of being almost impossible to save the marriage. The unfaithful in this situation has so many people they’ve been with that luckily they don’t turn into a “Tripod Affair.”

I always recommend couples counseling if any infidelity has occured. Getting the right help is essential to saving the marriage but the thing is both people must want to save the marriage and the unfaithful has to want to change. Last post, I talked about Affair Recovery as a resource. I recommend you check them out and also go to Psychologytoday and see what therapists are in your area that specialize in infidelity.