How Long Do Affairs Last? Make Your Spouse’s Affair End Sooner
Every day your spouse’s affair continues is one day it takes away from your marriage. You haven’t left because you still have hope, but how long can you hold out? And should you? Four key factors will help you know how long the affair will last, and what is required to end it.
For more than three decades, I have been helping people to end their spouse’s affairs and to rebuild their relationships. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it can’t be done. It is done every day and you can have success reconciling, as long as you love your spouse enough not to be vengeful, but are also strong enough not to be taken advantage of.
That is easier said than done, but with good methods and God’s help, there is a lot of reason for hope.
You are not to blame for your spouse’s affair
You are not responsible for your spouse’s affair. No matter your circumstances, your spouse had other choices. If your spouse blames you for his or her affair, it is just his or her way of avoiding responsibility for it. Your spouse’s blame is not an indication of your wrongdoing. And, even if you did some things wrong, your spouse still had other choices than to cheat on you, like going to counseling or separating as an intervention.
No matter how justified your spouse feels about his or her affair, two wrongs don’t make a right. Your spouse is NEVER justified in having an affair. Don’t be gaslighted into believing you caused the affair.
No one-size-fits-all solution for affairs
Reconciling doesn’t always happen in the same way. Not all affairs happen for the same reason. And, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for ending affairs. You will need to use a way that is right for your situation.
Although there may be a thousand thoughts in your head which are competing for attention, fortunately you only need to consider four key factors. That doesn’t mean your path is an easy one, but it is not the ball of confusion and overthinking you may be doing now.
Your approach will depend on four factors
It’s important to find a strategy that fits:
- Your security level (how much you fear losing your spouse),
- the main reason your spouse is having an affair,
- your spouse’s personality, and
- the amount of pre-affair relationship damage.
Each of these factors impacts your chances of ending your spouse’s affair. It also impacts how long your spouse’s affair is likely to last.
Security is necessary to be able to use boundaries
If you fear losing your marriage so much that you can’t bring yourself to use healthy boundaries that would make your spouse upset, you are stuck. Boundaries always make people upset because they prevent others from being able to continue to hurt us. And, boundaries prevent them from being able to have their cake and eat it, too.
When someone comes to me for help in ending their spouse’s affair, their willingness to use boundaries tells me whether reconciling is even possible. A client who says, “I would rather divorce than continue to be married to my cheating spouse” has the potential to reconcile.
Security helps us to be consistent
For people who are overly fearful of their spouse’s rejection, there may be an initial attempt to use boundaries, but then complete surrender when their spouse threatens divorce. Until they give in on their boundaries, they may not realize how insecure they are. Boundaries are often not a first step, but they are a necessary step.
If you are too fearful to risk rejection in order to save your marriage, you have self-work to do. If your fear is financial, consulting with an attorney could be a good first step. If it is related to childhood abandonment trauma, then individual counseling would be a good way to start to get help. You must get to the place where you love your spouse, but don’t need your spouse.
The time that it takes to become this way is one of the biggest determinants of how long it will take to end your spouse’s affair. You can’t neglect this self-work if you need it, because otherwise you won’t be able to use boundaries and will be stuck with a somewhat improved marriage, which still has cheating going on.
Why is your spouse having the affair?
Whether your spouse’s cheating is characterological or situational has implications for ending the affair and the likelihood of repeat affairs.
The supplemental affair
When sex, love, or emotional connection are missing from a marriage, especially after repeated attempts to establish them, affairs are much more likely. This is one reason the Bible tells us to both love our spouse and not deny our spouse sexual intimacy.
The hungry person who steals food is easier to empathize with than someone who just likes to steal. An affair can be a way of getting from someone else what we have been unable to get from our spouse.
This happened to my client, Randall, although it came as a complete surprise in what he had considered a very good marriage. The problem was that he had prioritized taking care of his wife’s physical needs by working very hard to be a financial success. He hadn’t understood his wife’s complaints about their lack of any real connection until she found it with a coworker. Randall had to learn to be a better emotional provider and not just a physical one in the process of winning his wife back.
Most people with supplemental affairs do not want to risk their marriage or disrupt their family, and because of that, they are secretive. They are trying to make both relationships work.
Because of this, a supplemental affair can be ended fairly quickly as long as you can provide what was missing from your relationship. After rebuilding, good boundaries will prevent your spouse from being able to continue with you and the affair partner.
The selfish affair
All affairs are selfish, but some are more selfish than others.
Some people have affairs because they have the opportunity, want to, and don’t believe they will have serious consequences for it. It is not a matter of supplementation–it is a matter of greed. Like the supplemental affair, such people are also secretive because they are also not wanting to disrupt their marriage, families, or financial situation.
It takes longer to end selfish affairs because it is not a matter of their missing something.
You will have to be tough
Besides boundaries and connection skills, you must not show fear to your spouse because it will be used to manipulate you. I tell you this not because I believe you should reconcile, but to let you know it is possible. Although I am pro-marriage, I am not anti-divorce. Some situations merit it.
Mia’s husband had first cheated on her while they were engaged to be married. She thought that his remorsefulness at that time, plus the fact that they were getting married, would mean that he wouldn’t cheat on her again. It wasn’t until they had been married ten years that she discovered he had at least four affairs, the most recent one lasting two years. He blamed them all on her.
Selfishness is an ugly thing when we see it clearly, which helps us to get away from it.
The replacement affair
Yet other people have affairs because they are preparing to end their marriage. Although still legally married, they consider the marriage to have been over for some time. So, they don’t think what they are doing is in any way cheating.
Ending this kind of affair involves not only being secure, it also requires rebuilding much of the marriage before boundaries can be used. That’s because if you use boundaries with a person who no longer cares, they won’t be effective. Most of my clients whose spouses are having affairs have this situation.
If you are already secure, that reduces the time required, but the relationship still has to be rebuilt a lot before boundaries can be used. Your spouse will, for a while, be able to have his or her cake and eat it, too. Until you are the better emotional choice, making your spouse choose is not going to result in reconciling.
Personality: Is your spouse high or low empathy?
You may realize that people with selfish affairs are low-empathy people, caring only when they get caught. They are harder to connect with, although they may be very successful and good business partners.
People with more empathy are caring and easier to connect with, though they may be very walled off if they have been repeatedly hurt. Their walls can come down if you can do a good job of earning their trust. Consistency is key, as inconsistent behavior or words will keep them walled off.
How good was your marriage before the affair?
The more damage there was in your marital relationship prior to the affair, the longer it will take to end the affair, if it can be ended at all. A spouse who has burned out on a bad relationship is not going to care at all about boundaries. He or she will have no fear of losing the relationship.
If the marital relationship was close and strong, the time to end the affair is much shorter. No one wants to lose a good thing. If you have had a good marriage and have good boundaries, ending the affair does not take as long as with other situations.
All of these factors interact, making each situation different
You can work through all the possible combinations of these four factors. There are 24 of them!
Shortest reconciling, longest reconciling, and in-between
Fastest reconciling happens when: You are secure, your marriage was already good, your spouse is supplementing your marriage, and he or she is empathetic and insecure. Reconciling still takes at least three months because trust needs to be rebuilt.
Longest reconciling happens when: You are insecure, your marriage was bad before the affair, your spouse is selfish, low empathy, and secure. Reconciling won’t ever happen unless you can become secure. Working on becoming secure should be your top priority.
Between these two extremes, there are 22 other possible combinations of these four factors. What worked for others will work for you only to the extent that these four factors are similar.
It is your life, and you are the one in control
You may not feel in control of your situation, but you as long as you have choices, you have control. You are in control of whether to work on reconciling or not. You are also in control of how you will work on it, if you do. There is no need to feel like a victim as long as you can take action to improve your situation. Making a plan would be a great step toward a better situation.
Which approach fits your situation?
Going through all the different possibilities can be confusing. If you have been struggling with what to do, or if it is even possible to reconcile, I recommend a coaching consultation. A one-on-one consultation can give you more clarity and the best first steps toward ending your spouse’s affair and reconciling.
If you are trying to be patient and loving, don’t wait for your patience to run out before you take action. With God, all things are possible, but we still have to do our part.
FAQ
How long do affairs usually last?
There is no set timeline because the length of an affair depends on several factors. These include your level of security, the reason your spouse is having the affair, your spouse’s personality, and how damaged the marriage was before the affair began.
Can I shorten my spouse’s affair?
In many cases, yes. The right combination of connection skills, emotional strength, and boundaries can make it harder for your spouse to continue both relationships at the same time. But the right approach depends on your specific situation, so copying what worked for someone else may not work for you.
Why do some affairs last much longer than others?
Affairs last longer if the cheating spouse’s personality is more narcissistic. Affairs also tend to last longer when the betrayed spouse is too fearful to use boundaries, or when the marriage had serious problems before the affair began. Reconciling requires more steps in these cases.
For further study:
Russell, V. M., Baker, L. R., & McNulty, J. K. (2013). Attachment insecurity and infidelity in marriage: do studies of dating relationships really inform us about marriage?. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 27(2), 242–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032118
