If you recall, in the last post that I wrote about moti­va­tions and affairs, I men­tioned that I had worked with a cou­ple that had been impacted because of infi­delity. In this sit­u­a­tion, sadly this affair had great con­se­quence for this woman and her hus­band. After con­fess­ing to her hus­band what had hap­pened, they both sought help for their mar­riage. Just as they were mak­ing some sig­nif­i­cant progress in coun­sel­ing, they learned that she had become preg­nant and the child was not her husband’s. As you can imag­ine, this became a daunt­ing obsta­cle to face for them as a cou­ple. When God directs, “You shall not com­mit adul­tery” (Exo­dus 20:14), He does so for good rea­sons. There are sig­nif­i­cant social, psy­cho­log­i­cal, phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual con­se­quences to hav­ing an affair. We will look at a few of these.

Per­haps the great­est cost to hav­ing an affair is a divorce. An affair that is dis­cov­ered does not have to lead to a divorce, but too often it does. Lis­ten to this sta­tis­tic: About two-thirds of cou­ples in which an affair occurred usu­ally divorce. That is a sober­ing sta­tis­tic and when you con­sider the costs of divorce to indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and chil­dren, there is great dam­age left in the wake of an affair.

With this aspect of divorce, a sad fact is that too often once an affair occurs, with one of the spouses, there is a slow ero­sion with their rela­tion­ship with their chil­dren. Whether or not there has been infi­delity, when chil­dren expe­ri­ence divorce, they often feel like they have to choose between their two par­ents. If the child knows about the infi­delity, this is exac­er­bated with regards to the rela­tion­ship with their par­ents. Over time, chil­dren in these cir­cum­stances often begin to dis­tance them­selves from the par­ent who had the affair.

Often the impulse for a per­son purs­ing an affair is that they believe that the grass is greener on the other side. How­ever, a recent study found that the divorce rate among those who mar­ried those with whom they were unfaith­ful was 75 per­cent! When an affair occurs, you are found­ing a rela­tion­ship in which both indi­vid­u­als are in unhealthy places in their lives. This, of course, is not how you want to begin a com­mit­ted relationship.

Also for those who think affairs are going to be “fun and excit­ing,” here are some of the sto­ries I have heard:

• One man who left his wife got involved with a woman who was very vio­lent. She would some­times go into rages and one time, broke a beer bot­tle over his head. On many occa­sions, she threat­ened to hurt his wife and daugh­ter. When he ini­tially met this woman, he recalled to me that she seemed “very kind and sweet.”
• This has been a com­mon story I have heard: a woman becomes involved with another man. After she leaves her hus­band, and moves in with him, he becomes phys­i­cally abu­sive to her on a reg­u­lar basis.
• Here is the most recent one that I heard: a man had an affair and after a cer­tain point wanted to break things off and work on his mar­riage. After this, the woman would often con­tact him say­ing that she was going to com­mit sui­cide if he didn’t return to her. Con­fused, he sought advice from her coun­selor. The coun­selor pro­ceeded to tell him that he should stay in rela­tion­ship with her for her safety. Thank­fully, he was not swayed by both of their manip­u­la­tions and pur­sued restor­ing his rela­tion­ship with his wife and family.

The psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences are sig­nif­i­cant to hav­ing an affair and we often don’t think of this cost. Peo­ple who pur­sue an affair, whether mar­ried or not, often do so for self-esteem needs, and often these peo­ple come from very bro­ken places in their lives. Here is a truth I have seen time and time again in my work with those who got caught up in an affair: If you pur­sue another per­son, you never really know who they are, but over­time you real­ize that this new per­son you are in rela­tion­ship with has some sig­nif­i­cant psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems. Again, I can­not tell you how many times I have met with a man or woman and the per­son they had an affair with will not leave them alone even though they want to save their mar­riage. This extra per­son in the mix is often the one who brings the mar­riage to a break­ing point. Too often we can for­get the truth that hav­ing an affair is never a “fun and excit­ing” rela­tion­ship in the long run.

To end, there are, of course, spir­i­tual con­se­quences to affairs. We grieve God by our actions when we are unfaith­ful. Just as he is faith­ful to us; he desires that we learn what it means to be com­mit­ted as well.  One of God’s great­est direc­tives to us is that we be faith­ful in our sacred com­mit­ment of mar­riage. Mar­riage, in a cer­tain sense, is a micro­cosm of our rela­tion­ship to him. He says, As I am faith­ful to you in every cir­cum­stance, be faith­ful to the one you have made that pledge to be faith­ful.

By doing so, in my pur­suit to be faith­ful, I learn through expe­ri­ence just how com­mit­ted He is to me.