February 11th, 1936 - November 8th, 2012

Books

Q&As

Research Surveys

I conducted a Survey on Extramarital Affairs through my Website, seeking information from those whose spouses had had affairs. There were 1,083 participants responding to the survey. In addition to gathering demographic information and establishing the current status of their marriage and whether they had children, each participant answered 35 multiple-choice questions about various aspects of their experience.

Note: The information gained from the responses to this survey will be useful not only for therapists in more effectively dealing with this issue, but also for those who are currently struggling to recover from a spouse's affair.

The primary goals of the survey were:

-- To discover the factors involved in whether or not marriages are likely to survive.
-- To determine the factors involved in whether or not people are likely to personally recover from this experience.

Statistical analyses of the results indicate:

-- The amount the affair was discussed with the spouse and the extent to which the spouse answered questions were significantly associated with the current marital status and quality of the marriage.
-- The amount the affair was discussed with the spouse and the extent to which the spouse answered questions were significantly associated with recovery.

Below are the Results of 2 of the 8 Statistical Analyses:

1. Hypothesis: A couple is more likely to stay married when they thoroughly discuss the whole situation.

x2 (2, N = 1083) = 78.30, p <.001

55% of those who discussed the situation very little were still married (and together)
78% of those who discussed the situation a good bit were still married (and together)
86% of those who discussed the situation a lot were still married (and together)

2. Hypothesis: A couple is more likely to stay married when the spouse answers their questions.

x2 (2, N = 1083) = 66.58, p <.001

59% of those who refused to answer questions were still married (and together)
81% of those whose partner answered some of their questions were still married (and together)
86% of those whose partner answered all their questions were still married (and together)

The findings clearly show that getting answers to questions and thoroughly discussing the details of the affair increase the likelihood of maintaining and rebuilding the marriage. (Other results clearly show the same kind of increase in the likelihood of recovering from a spouse's affair.)

These survey results are consistent with what I have been told repeatedly through the years: "nothing is worse than not knowing." For a more thorough discussion of this, see The Need to Know.

The eBook contains all the responses to the 35 questions, both as a whole and broken down by gender.

Below is a list of the questions included in the survey:

1. How long did you date your spouse prior to marriage?
2. How did you (as a couple) deal with attractions to others?
3. How did you as a couple deal with the issue of monogamy?
4. Did you suspect an affair?
5. What was the primary factor that might have warranted suspicion?
6. Did you confront your spouse about your suspicion?
7. How did you find out about the affair(s)?
8. How long ago did you find out?
9. How long had you been married when you found out?
10. How long had the affair(s) been taking place when you found out?
11. How many affairs did you find out about?
12. How MUCH did you and your spouse discuss the whole situation?
13. How LONG did the talking continue?
14. Was the talking helpful?
15. Did you want to know details about the affair(s)?
16. Did your spouse answer your questions?
17. Who did you talk to?
18. How MUCH did you talk to friends/family/others (NOT including professionals)?
19. Was it helpful to talk to friends/family/others?
20. How long after discovery was there a decision as to whether to stay married or get a divorce?
21. What was the decision?
22. Do you still dwell on the affair(s)?
23. Do you feel a sense of forgiveness/resolution?
24. Have you healed?

(For those who had Children)
25. What were the ages of the kids when you learned of the affair(s)?
26. What did you tell the kids about the affair(s)?

(For those who Stayed Married)
27. Has trust been rebuilt?
28. Has the relationship "improved" compared to pre-affair days?

(For those who got a Divorce)
29. Who initiated the divorce?
30. Have you been able to trust enough to develop another intimate relationship?
31. What is the quality of any new relationship?

(For those who had Counseling)
32. How many counselors did you see?
33. Was the counselor helpful?
34. Did the counselor encourage honest communication about the affair(s)?
35. Did the counselor focus directly on the issue of affairs?

While you can read the responses to ALL 35 questions if you download the Free PDF, I want to go ahead and share the striking responses to the last 4 questions about the experience with counseling.

Below are the responses to the last 4 questions about the experience with counseling:

How many counselors did you see?
27% - One
26% - Two
47% - Three or more

Was the counselor helpful?
57% - No, mostly frustrating
23% - Yes, but not as much as I'd like
20% - Yes, very helpful

Did the counselor encourage honest communication about the affair(s)?
23% - No, encouraged us to quickly cover highlights, then move on
45% - Yes, but on a limited time frame and to a limited degree
32% - Yes, very supportive of ongoing honest discussions

Did the counselor focus directly on the issue of affairs?
59% - No, mainly focused on general marital problems
28% - Yes, but not as strongly or clearly as I'd like
13% - Yes, very directly dealt with this issue

Unfortunately, a large segment of the therapeutic community has reinforced the idea that it's not wise to ask too many questions or do too much talking about the affair. The rationale is that the more a spouse knows, the greater the pain. However, this thinking is contradicted by the results of this Survey.

I hope the results of this survey—demonstrating the connection between honest communication and both staying married and recovering—will help the professional community (and all those struggling to deal with this issue) better understand the importance of answering questions and thoroughly discussing the entire situation.

This book not only reports "problems" with therapy - but also offers some "solutions."

Upon submission of the completed questionnaire, each participant was invited to add their Comments - on an open-ended basis. The specific question they were asked to address was:

"How could therapists be more effective in dealing with affairs?"

The "Help for Therapists" report includes many pages of the raw comments from participants. I have included a few of them below - followed by my effort to organize all of the hundreds of suggestions into a "list" of about 11 key points.

-- Deal with the pain, sense of loss, sense of aloneness, overwhelming sense of disillusionment. In other words, first-aid and damage-control first, please. Therapists need to look for it: the damage, the personal trauma; it may not be apparent.

-- I was suicidal and put in the hospital, totally worthless. I felt worse than when I went in. After being betrayed by my husband, I was treated like a prisoner with no rights. Counselor was very uncaring and rough. I needed to know I would survive this great pain.

-- I needed immediate help on the healing of the pain inflicted upon me. Every counselor or therapist I visited started with the basics of my early childhood and why something like this would hurt me. I became very frustrated during the whole experience of therapy and finally stopped after 1 year.

-- I feel our counselor is on my husband's side; she hasn't offered or told my husband to hold on to me when I feel bad or cry. He has left the house to get away to deal with it, and to let me think about it. I feel he is just running away. When I cry he says I just want sympathy; I feel betrayed by the only person I thought I loved and loved me too. She wants to see me alone to help me deal with the situation. Well I feel she should also tell him how to help me feel wanted and loved again if he really wants to stay with me. We are the victims here but we're the ones that need help? Something sounds wrong with that to me. I'm the one that's hurting and need love, not therapy. Just help to deal with the feelings of betrayal and feeling unloved that another younger girl took away from me.

-- A counselor should try to help talk through the pain and let the faithful spouse realize he/she is not the only one going through this pain. It doesn't help that person but at least there is reassurance that they are not alone. I think at this same time, the counselor should make the unfaithful spouse knowledgeable about what kind of emotions follow this type of pain.

-- Really wish my therapist had focused on how to deal with lingering anger and hurt! He focused more on my personal growth, but I need help with the marriage more at the time.

The following comment was submitted by a participant who also happens to be a therapist:

-- I am a trained psychologist, familiar with personal relationship research and counseling myself, and I only now realize how little professional counselors and even marital therapists know about affairs and how to deal with them. Like friends and relatives, professional helpers essentially seem to base their interventions on stereotypes, generalizations and folk wisdom about affairs, rather than on sound research. It is extremely painful if your partner had (or has) an affair to be confronted with the axiom that "something must have been wrong with the spouse or with the relationship" to explain the affair happening. It is like blaming a rape victim for having seduced the rapist, and it feels very wrong. Dealing with the affair of a spouse is a traumatic event, and clinically is very comparable to a post-traumatic stress disorder. Professional help would probably be much more effective if counselors would deal with the issue as a trauma and draw on the literature on the treatment of PTSD, rather than to systematically regard affairs as signs of underlying relational problems.

Note: As you can see, one of the key messages from the participants was a desire for therapists to deal with the emotional impact of the affair, not just focus on general marital issues. I hope that by sharing the specific words of some of those who responded, therapists will be able to recognize the importance of dealing directly with the pain of this situation.

Finally, here is an overview of the major points from the "advice" from the 1,083 people who responded to the survey in response to the question: "How could therapists be more effective in dealing with affairs?"

1. Deal directly with the affair, not just ordinary marriage counseling.
2. Deal with the emotional impact of the affair.
3. Don't "blame" the affair on the hurt spouse.
4. Be supportive of those couples who want to try to save the marriage.
5. Don't keep secrets or too quickly believe the lies of the one who had an affair.
6. See both parties together.
7. Be aware of the impact of your gender/beliefs/experience on therapy.
8. Don't expect the hurt party to forget the affair or "set it aside and go on."
9. Help clients connect with others who have "been there."
10. Be well-informed about affairs and provide good information.
11. Encourage honest communication and answering all questions.

Podcast Interviews