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Couples therapists will tell you that trying to gain any traction in couples therapy is difficult to impossible when one of the partners is actively involved in an affair. However, in discernment counseling, it’s entirely possible to do good work while an affair is going on because the contract with the couple is not for therapy. Having said this, active affairs present a special challenge because in many cases more than one discernment process is underway: (a) discerning about the future of the marriage but also (b) discerning about the future of the affair relationship. in contrast to regular couples therapy, where the couple typically goes to therapy after the affair has ended and they are try- ing to put back the pieces of their marriage, in discernment counseling you are likely to see active affairs in various stages of discovery (known and unknown).

Current extramarital affairs pose a challenge to traditional couples ther- apy because it is almost impossible to work on the marriage or primary love relationship when one of the partners is involved romantically with someone

WHen one Partner HaS an affair

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000029-010 Helping Couples on the Brink of Divorce: Discernment Counseling for Troubled Relationships, by W. J. Doherty and S. m. Harris Copyright © 2017 by the american Psychological association. all rights reserved.

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else. further, if the affair is held in secret by the therapist, whose job it is to assist both partners with connecting with one another, it can distort the therapeutic relationship. finally, it may be too much to ask of one partner to risk being emotionally open and vulnerable both inside and outside of therapy when there is another person, a rival, waiting in the wings. imagine one partner opening up in a vulnerable state to his or her partner who has a fantasy relationship brewing on the side. How likely is the affairing partner to look at his or her vulnerable spouse as someone he or she wants to invest in when the affair partner does not seem to be as encumbered or weak as his or her spouse? We believe that comparing a long-term marriage or other commit- ted long-term relationship with an affair relationship is like comparing apples and oranges; the two are different and exist for different reasons. therefore, we encourage distinct discernment processes, one for the affair relationship and one for the marital relationship. this chapter describes the strategy involved. throughout the chapter, when we refer to an extramarital affair we mainly mean a sexual affair, but the principles and strategies apply equally well to emotional affairs.

HoW iS DiSCernment CounSeling aPProPriate for an aCtive affair?

recall our mantra that the goals for discernment counseling are not about improving the marriage initially; they are about gaining greater clarity and confidence in the decision about the direction to take the marriage, based on a deeper understanding of what has gone on in the marriage. if the affair is known to everyone, the goal of discernment counseling is to help the affairing partner (usually a leaning-out spouse) to discern whether she or he wants to stay in the affair relationship or turn back to the marriage. for the other partner (usually leaning in) the discernment process centers on the decision of whether to keep trying in the marriage despite the affair. if the affair is unknown to the other partner, the discernment counselor can keep it in confidence because the sessions do not involve conjoint efforts to improve emotional bonding. furthermore, the short-term nature of discernment counseling makes it an ideal venue for helping a leaning-out, affairing spouse determine whether the affair relationship is a direction for a long-term future or whether Path 3 therapy, with the affair ended, is a better option to see whether the marriage can be restored to health. to be clear, our ground rule for handling affairs in discernment counseling is that the Path 3 decision must involve ending the affair and disclosing its existence if it had been a secret during discernment counseling. otherwise, the subsequent couples therapy will be undermined by the secret shared by the affairing partner and the therapist.

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DiSCernment CounSeling StrategieS for aCtive affairS

Undisclosed Active Affairs

Secret affairs require a different approach from that taken when the affair has come to light. in practice, of course, secret affairs are often suspected by the partner, either because of an atypical emotional pulling away or a discov- ery of something that made him or her suspicious of an affair. in some cases, a previously disclosed affair may be presumed to be over but, in fact, has con- tinued. regardless of the type of secret affair, it often only comes to light in discernment counseling during an individual conversation. Sometimes the client discloses directly, and sometimes the therapist inquires on the basis of a clinical hunch that there may be an ongoing affair.

one red flag for undisclosed affairs is that the leaning-out partner’s divorce narrative is predominantly laced with the language of self-fulfillment or a vague sense of being let down by the marital relationship, combined with few specific serious complaints about the spouse. this was the case for mike, married for 12 years to Heidi and raising three children together. they came to discernment counseling with leaning-out mike saying he had lost his love for Heidi, although he admired her as a wife and mother. Heidi ranged back and forth between efforts to be more affectionate followed by anger that he was pulling away from her without giving her a chance to fight for the mar- riage. their divorce narrative was filled with ordinary marital issues: drifting apart after the children came along, not dealing directly with conflict, sex becoming lackluster, and arguments over in-laws—all “soft reasons.” they had tried couples therapy a few years before and learned some helpful skills but dropped out after five sessions because of scheduling issues. now they were on the brink, with mike saying he felt no spark of emotional connection and no passion. When i (Doherty) explored with them the Path 3 option, saying that lots of couples with these problems benefit from couples therapy and find a way to be intimate again, mike kept saying he couldn’t commit to therapy because he had no energy left for the marriage.

Suspecting an affair, i posed the question this way:

mike, in my experience working with couples in your situation, when someone has mostly positive things to say about their spouse but feels the love is gone, it’s common that there is someone else in that person’s life who is filling a void, someone who is being compared with the spouse. Sometimes it’s a sexual relationship, and sometimes it’s a strong emo- tional connection, but either way there is a spark there that is not felt at home. So i’d like to ask you if this applies to you. is there someone you feel close to and are comparing your marital relationship to?

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Mike: [Pauses for a few seconds, looking rueful ] Yes, there is. it’s not physical, but there is a woman friend from work i have cof- fee with most afternoons. We talk about everything, and i’m always excited to see her.

Counselor: and you haven’t mentioned seeing her to Heidi, i imagine.

Mike: right.

Counselor: i’m really glad you were honest with me about this. it sounds like what we call an emotional affair—an important relationship with a potential romantic partner that is kept secret from one’s spouse. Do you think this relationship fits that definition of an emotional affair?

Mike: Yes, i’m sure it does.

Counselor: Would it make sense for you and me to explore this relation- ship in terms of what it means to you and what it might mean for your marriage?

Mike: i’m oK with that. She’s in a bad marriage, and i’ve been supporting her through that. i never complain about my wife to her, but she knows i’m unhappy. But realistically, i don’t see a future for us—she’s a lot younger than me, and she has a lot of baggage to sort out in her marriage. and we’ve only been close this way for 6 months or so.

Counselor: oK, we can explore all of that. i’ve learned in doing dis- cernment counseling that it’s best to discern about one relationship at a time, starting with the outside relation- ship, because it doesn’t work to compare how you feel about having lattes in the afternoon with someone fresh in your life, with coming home from work to a wife and a houseful of kids, animals, and bills to be paid. Does that make sense?

Mike: Yeah, i know this other relationship is not really real, but my marriage is so lacking.

Counselor: again, we can talk about your marriage too. now there’s something i want to ask you that will be hard. are you will- ing to tell your wife that you’ve been having an emotional affair with a coworker?

Mike: that really scares me. i don’t want to hurt her.

Counselor: and have her get angry at you?

Mike: that too.

Counselor: it’s up to you. i won’t tell her about this, and i won’t force you to tell her. But your emotional affair, i believe, is an

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important factor in your marriage right now, a missing piece in the puzzle. i’m not saying that this relationship led you to feel disconnected from Heidi—that started some years ago. But your wife is confused about why you won’t try to work on the marriage, and i was a bit puzzled until you told me what’s going on. one other thing: Wives often sense that there might be another woman in the picture, so this might not be such a surprise to her.

Mike: oK, i’m worried about doing this, but i think i will actually feel relieved, to be honest about this. i’ve been feeling guilty.

Counselor: i’ll do my best to help her understand this and be as con- structive as she can be. But be prepared for hurt and anger.

in this case, and as a general rule, we encourage affairing spouses to be honest with their partner about the affair, especially in the context of discern- ment counseling, where getting accurate information is important to both persons’ discernment process. to this end, we talk with affairing partners about disclosing this information to their spouse. We process their reluctance as well as the possible benefits of doing so. We emphasize that the stakes are high for both partners and that it is not a good time to be holding back infor- mation or investment in the discernment process. and of course, there is a good chance that the affairing partner’s spouse already suspects something is going on. if affairing partners continue to be reluctant to share the secret but want to keep the Path 3 option alive, we emphasize that although we will keep the affair confidential during discernment counseling, Path 3 will require full disclosure so that they can begin their work without deception and with both spouses knowing about this recent threat to the relationship. We sometimes add that we do not want to be a secret bearer about some- thing this important during couples therapy. finally, as in the conversation with mike, we offer support during and after the disclosure. We can lessen the surprise of the fallout from disclosure by predicting how the partner might react.

When mike told Heidi, he simply said that there was another woman who had become important to him, that he saw her only at work, and that he felt bad that he had kept it secret from Heidi. Heidi then named the woman, to mike’s surprise, and said she was glad he was being honest with her about this relationship.

Because the sharing and reaction usually do not go this smoothly, it is important to help affairing partners figure out exactly how to tell their partner about the affair. Sticking with the facts is important, but disclosing too much, particularly in a sexual affair, can introduce a level of relational trauma that may be difficult to recover from. there are plenty of good resources available

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that provide guidance for how to disclose an affair and highlight the dangers of disclosing too much. for the work of discernment counseling as opposed to therapy for healing from an affair, we encourage the following steps:

1. if they are willing to disclose, help them with how to do it. 2. With both partners present, allow a brief response from the other

spouse, then talk with that person alone to sort through his or her reactions.

3. if the affairing partner is not willing to disclose for now, ask for an agreement to keep discussing this in discernment counseling.

4. move the conversation to discerning about the affair first, before discerning about the marriage. this is a critical stage because discerning about the marriage will be difficult if one partner is under the novel and hormonal influence of a new and exciting romantic relationship.

5. Keep the connection going between Path 3 couples therapy and disclosure: Being serious about working on the marriage would mean disclosing the affair because it has been such a prominent part of the current marital relationship.

Disclosure of an affair often induces a crisis in the relationship. few people are prepared for how they are going to react to this type of revelation. it is important not to assume that because an affair has happened that it signals the end of the marriage and to reassure the couple that it is possible to recover from an affair. furthermore, each partner’s understanding of the affair will change as the pieces to a relationship puzzle begin falling into place. Dealing with letting go of an affair signals a loss to the affairing partner, and hearing of a partner’s affair represents a similar loss. Be prepared to think about it this way and to educate your clients about stages of grief, the importance of stay- ing with the discernment counseling process, and avoiding making a rushed decision about the future of the marriage until both partners have had some time to digest the information. again, it is important to keep in mind the boundaries of discernment counseling: this is a time for identifying chal- lenges and deciding how to move forward (with some emotional first-aid), but not for working on healing from affairs. that is the job of Path 3 couples therapy when both partners sign on for that work.

the way mike and Heidi handled the disclosure of the emotional affair was a turning point in their discernment counseling. on their own, they began to put new energy, both negative and positive, into their relationship. mike committed to ending the competing relationship and to embarking on Path 3 couples therapy. Heidi and mike both signed up to work on the passiv- ity that had led them to turn away from working on the conflict and friction, which is necessary to sustain intimacy in a marriage.

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Disclosed Active Affairs

listening with a nonjudgmental ear is critical to the success of this approach. When you are working with affairing spouses, be prepared for some defensiveness on their part. there is a good chance that they are already judg- ing themselves pretty harshly and may feel horrible for how they’ve been acting. most people we work with who are having an affair regret it at some level, even if they feel their marriage has been dead or dying for some time. acknowledge the fact that the affair is happening and that when anyone has an affair they ultimately have a learning experience. most people we work with who are having an affair talk about how “alive” they feel or how they feel that something has “awoken” in them that they thought had long been dormant. they often take this feeling to mean that they are in the “wrong” marriage and that the relationship they have with the new person is “really what a loving relationship should feel like.” this opens the door for deep conversations centered on meaning making.

What does the affair mean? What are they learning from this experience? How did they get to this place where they became vulnerable to the affair? What prevented them from telling their spouse about it before it reached that level? Help them contextualize the affair and sort out their role in taking it to the current level. affairs do not happen to passive recipients but always involve moments of intentionality, moments of turning toward or away from a potential romantic partner or turning toward or away from one’s own spouse. in some cases there can be a great desire to attribute blame to one’s spouse for the affair (e.g., if she was more interested in sex, if only he would have been more willing to talk to me). regardless of what has been going on or not going on in one’s marriage, we invite the affairing partner to take responsibility for his or her actions.

meaning making and self-responsibility were both important in the dis- cernment counseling work with nathan and Betty, who had been married for 28 years with grown children. nathan had taken up a sexual affair with a woman who had been a close friend of both of them, and Betty asked him to move out. they came to discernment counseling 6 months later, with nathan leaning out but paralyzed with a decision on whether to be perma- nently with his new love or return to Betty. Betty, though hurt and angry, was still leaning in, hoping that the affair would burn out and her husband would return to her. the underlying marital dynamic was one of amiable compan- ionship for decades but with little spark and little honest communication of feelings and needs. they both admitted to being responsible for having indirect communication and settling for parallel lives.

in conversation with nathan, it became clear that he was experiencing a sense of connection and sexual passion with his new partner, along with direct

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communication with her about his painful dilemma over a direction for his two relationships. i (Doherty) acknowledged the power of this transformation for him and helped him discern that this woman was a potential new mate for him, not a one-time affair. But he remained paralyzed, partly by guilt and partly by fear of how his adult children would respond if he left his wife for good and married his new partner. i helped him see that he was a people pleaser who did not want to hurt anyone, but of course, he was doing so anyway.

With nathan, i kept in mind the importance of accepting the client’s guilt and not trying to wipe it away with psychological or relational inter- pretations. acknowledge the guilt feelings—he had betrayed and humiliated his wife by having an affair with her long-term friend who was married at the time—and allow the client to sit with the guilt and let those feelings lead to constructive change, in this case to become clearer about the future of the affair relationship and the marriage. Sometimes the guilty feelings are not about having the affair at all but are more connected to lying to a spouse about it. Sometimes the client is using the affair as the sole reason to leave the marriage instead of being honest about all the other reasons.

in terms of promoting self-responsibility, do not let the affairing partner get by with saying that he or she was driven to the affair by a bad marriage. it was also a manifestation of that person’s approach to solving problems, such as by turning away, distancing, and turning emotional energy to other places without being up front with what was going on. if someone thinks the affair is merely an artifact of an unloving or unavailable spouse, he or she will miss an opportunity to see the role he or she played in the development and maintenance of the affair. ultimately, he or she will carry these thoughts and behaviors into the next relationship. now is a good time to own his or her own part. in the case we are discussing, nathan was open in discernment counseling to my challenges about his responsibility for turning to the affair without being honest with his wife about his feelings in the marriage and what he needed at this stage in his life. But he remained paralyzed, without clarity or confidence in a path.

Two Discernment Processes

as mentioned, an ongoing affair requires the sequencing of two distinct discernment processes: one related to continuing the affair and one related to a path for the marriage. this two-part process may involve going beyond the usual five-session limit. the idea is that it is not productive to do dis- cernment counseling between an affair relationship (with its early-stage and nondomestic accoutrements) and a marital relationship (with its inevitable habituation and tensions). imagine a psychological pros-and-cons list for an ongoing affair—a relationship typified by intrigue, excitement, passion, clan- destine meetings, taboo disclosures, and electric sex versus a marriage of, say,

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10 to 15 years. the marriage is typified by everyday arguments, bills, snoring, dirty diapers, some past good times, the realities of managing a house and kids, and both partners having logged many years of inattention and neglect that are typical of couples on the brink. give the affair relationship enough time and the same type of effort as has been put into the current marriage and the client is apt to see a similar marriage 10 years down the road. When some- one is having an affair, his or her thinking is influenced by a neurochemical cocktail that is designed to wear off over time. What he or she is experiencing is real and exciting, and it is how humans respond initially to feelings of attrac- tion, but they typically do not experience that intensity over a long period of time. We are not designed that way.

it’s the responsibility of the discernment counselor to articulate the ratio- nale for discerning the future of the affair relationship before that of the mar- riage and to stick with this sequencing despite the inevitable pull from the client to compare the two relationships. nathan was clear he could marry the affair partner. they had known each other for many years, and he was deeply in love with her. But he could not bring himself to pull the plug on his marriage.

Working With the Affairing Partner

as mentioned, an important component of discernment counseling with the affairing partner is to honor the connection he or she has felt with the romantic partner as an “awakening” that has occurred in the affair. unless you join the client in acknowledging the “good” of the affair, that person may not be open to hearing what else you have to say about it. to repeat: our experi- ence in discernment counseling, especially with leaning-out partners, has been that the counselor can never go wrong with expressing an understanding of the situation and what clients may be getting out of the affair relationship. Doing so does not jeopardize our ability to also challenge them on the downside and realities of the affair. When we do so, we specifically point out the temporary nature of the good feelings associated with the affair and the apples to oranges nature of comparing the affair with their marriage. less often, as in nathan’s situation, there was more depth to the affair relationship, but it was still not comparable to a married one. and nathan had no illusions about how well his grown children were going to accept his new partner if he married her.

at this point, leaning-in spouses are likely to be angry and hurt about the affair, but also feeling unsure of just how upset they can be without push- ing their spouse into the arms of another person. the best the leaning-in partner may be able to muster is cool distance, despite earnestly wanting to save the marriage. imagine the conflicted feelings of the leaning-in partner:

i’ve just discovered my husband is having an affair, but i can’t get mad at him, or he’ll leave me. But i can’t take this silently as if to say i condone

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what he has done. i’m stuck. i want to rip him apart, but i don’t dare say anything because he’ll leave me for her. i also want to desperately hang on to him, but i’ll come off as pathetic. How can i be with him at this time?

later we discuss how to help this partner cope and maximize the chance of preserving the marriage.

in Betty’s case, she went through this whole range of feelings and reac- tions and was then set on seeing whether discernment counseling could move nathan to reinvest in her. She was past her acute anger and was able to express her sadness and hope now that they were talking more honestly. But she felt she had to be emotionally cool lest she be too vulnerable; after all, at the end of the session he still went home to the other woman, with whom he was living.

the leaning-out partner, in response to this coolness, may be inclined to think his wife doesn’t care much about the marriage because she doesn’t seem to have much of a reaction to the news of the affair. You can see that it could be a confusing time for both partners and a time of high emotional reactivity. this is one of the reasons we stress the importance of honesty in this process and giving voice to the multiple sides of what someone may be experiencing.

at a point such as this, it would be important for both people to know that Path 3, the reconciliation path, would have to involve building a better, healthier marriage, not merely ending the affair and returning to the pre- affair marriage state. if the affairing partner decides to end the affair and shift focus to discerning the future of the marriage, the regular discernment coun- seling strategies for leaning-out partners apply—with the important addition that there is often (normal) slippage back into longing for the affair partner.

Working With the Nonaffairing Partner

mostly, but not always, the nonaffairing partner is leaning into the rela- tionship, but sometimes this person switches to leaning out when the details of the affair come to light. this is why it is so important to allow each spouse to move between leaning-in and leaning-out status throughout the discernment counseling process, as opposed to trying to lock them into one role. time is the great mediator in this process because people’s thinking and discerning change when they find out more about themselves and their relationship.

the main task for the discernment counselor with leaning-in spouses whose partner is having (or has had) an affair is to support them in their desire to preserve the marriage while helping them hold onto their self-worth in an extremely difficult situation. You can help them articulate to their partner their hurt and sadness around the affair as well as their interest or willingness to rebuild the marriage and get it to a healthier place if the affair ends. Part of this process will entail helping leaning-in partners look at their contributions

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to the problems in the marriage. However, it is important that you do this without blaming or holding them responsible for the affair. this can be done by focusing on those things that were unhealthy in the marriage before the affair. they can be coached to tell their partner, during the summary times, that they are interested in being in a different marriage from the one they have been in. You may also have to help leaning-in partners to not merely settle for a sincere apology and a tacit agreement to return to the way things were.

Setting appropriate boundaries will be key to the success of this approach. remember, you do not yet have buy-in from both spouses to work on the rela- tionship or to do the healing work typically required after an affair has taken place. So it’s important to help the leaning-in partner set personal boundaries during the discernment process. an example is a leaning-in partner, threat- ened by the thought of losing a spouse to a rival, being tempted to become more sexually available out of desperation. this new interest will probably not be trusted by the leaning-out partner (“oh, now you want to have sex?”), and it runs the risk of setting a harmful precedent in the marriage (“if i threaten to leave or have sex elsewhere, i get what i want”). Setting appropriate boundar- ies can prevent communicating the wrong message in these situations.

Betty had set a boundary that nathan could not return home unless he ended the other relationship, and she was not open to a sexual relationship until then. this was difficult but necessary for her sense of having integrity while still relating positively to nathan and being in semiregular contact at family events and occasionally lunch or coffee. their money was still inter- twined, and there were the logistics of the house to deal with.

Sometimes the work done at this stage is about discerning the differ- ence between what someone can tolerate and bear in the present, such as accepting that the affair will continue for now, versus things that would not be tolerated in the future if the relationship is to be restored. for example, sometimes the leaning-in spouse, while holding to a condition that the affair must end, decides not to blow up the possibility of reconciliation after learn- ing that there is still contact via texting or e-mail. Discernment counseling can help this spouse understand that affairs can be like addictions that many people do not end suddenly and for good; it can take time for all contact to cease, and in the meantime, it is enough to have disclosure of these contacts. a challenge will be how to accept the unacceptable while friends, family, and others close to him or her are all weighing in with their opinions and advice telling him or her to leave the affairing partner. in the discernment process, and depending on the situation, you may be able to help him or her see that the affairing spouse is in a crisis and is making decisions that are out of character. this is the time when many of our discernment clients, in an attempt to find a reason to stay in a difficult situation, recall marital vows and say, “for better or worse—i guess this is the worse they were talking about.”

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of course, it would be untenable to expect someone to put up with cheating long term, but it really should be the client who determines how long he or she could put up with those behaviors. it is probably a good idea to investigate just how long a client is willing to be patient in these situa- tions. then, help the client articulate the limits of his or her patience to the spouse. it is important that this is not given as an ultimatum or deadline but as a sincere declaration of one person’s limits in the relationship and that the limit is about self-respect and preservation.

With nathan still not willing to make a decision on pursuing Path 2 or 3, Betty used the discernment sessions to empower herself to make this call: if he were still in the other relationship at the beginning of the summer months (3 months hence), she would see that as a decision not to return to her, and she would file for divorce. that was how it played out. they had an amicable and constructive divorce, and nathan later married the other woman. nathan, a perennial pleaser, could not make the decision to divorce, but he was relieved when Betty did. on her part, although grieving, she felt good about having given her marriage its best chance to be restored and then ending it.

We like to say that the only failure in discernment counseling is if no one learns anything. a by-product of the four discernment sessions with nathan and Betty was that after the sessions they had the most honest conversations of their married life, and they came to understand how they cocreated a mar- riage that had good features but lacked real connection. Betty later told me that she remarried well and that nathan and his new wife were still together. nathan sent the following e-mail to his referring attorney after session three. He gave us permission to share it.

the [discernment] process has forced me to confront some unpleasant truths about myself and my own conduct. . . . after each session, [my wife] and i have had difficult, but very honest conversations about how we are feeling—and about how we felt about a lot of things during our 28-year marriage. even if we don’t have an ending in which everyone lives together “happily ever after,” i think the calm, truthful, and respect- ful tone [of this work] will be of great value in the future. it will definitely enable us to move ahead with the knowledge that we have explored all possible alternatives and that we have carefully considered the pros and cons of the potential outcomes.

ConCluSion

active affairs can be some of the toughest cases in discernment counsel- ing because of the high emotional content and reactivity involved. affairs are powerful. they offer a respite or escape from a seemingly lifeless marriage.

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they offer a distraction from the individual work that each partner would have to do to make their marriage healthier. they represent a threat to stabil- ity and security in a marriage; engaging in affairs is high-risk behavior. they also offer a learning experience to all involved. What does it say about me that i had an affair? What does it say about my marriage? What stopped me from turning away from the affair? is there a way to get, in my marriage, some of the feelings of passion and connection that i was getting in the affair? many couples who survive them talk about the pivotal role the affair, and especially the turning back to the spouse after ending the affair, had in strengthening their marriage. Discernment counseling can offer a way forward for couples during the crucible of an active affair.

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