Often in my work here at Ada Bible Chuch, I hear sto­ries of those who have fallen to unfaith­ful­ness. In a four part series, I will be writ­ing about some dif­fer­ent aspects of adul­tery: the sta­tis­tics, the moti­va­tions behind an affair, the con­se­quences of hav­ing an affair, and finally, ways to pro­tect your mar­riage. I would love to hear your sto­ries in how you have helped some­one, how you have pro­tected your mar­riage, or how you have been impacted because of unfaithfulness.

Some of the Statistics

First, in a recent Barna study, 4 out of 10 Amer­i­cans believe that adul­tery is morally accept­able. For Chris­tians, that num­ber was 1 out of 10. Per­haps there is no rea­son to won­der why adul­tery is on the rise?

When read­ing research about those who have affairs, the sta­tis­tics can vary greatly. Most researchers come to this gen­eral conclusion:

That over a third of mar­ried men will cheat on their wives;

That nearly a quar­ter of all mar­ried women will cheat on their husbands;

And that more than 50% of all mar­riages will be impacted by one of the spouses being unfaith­ful. Grim sta­tis­tics if you think about them.

Here are some other inter­est­ing facts that we know:

Back in the 1960’s it was usu­ally the hus­band who was unfaith­ful. Today, researchers are find­ing that women are just as likely as men to have an affair.

As a way of com­par­i­son to how adul­tery has become more preva­lent: a 1983 study found that 29 per­cent of mar­ried peo­ple under twenty-five had had an affair. By com­par­i­son, only 9 per­cent of spouses in the 1950s under the age of 25 had been involved in extra­mar­i­tal sex.

Ten per­cent of extra­mar­i­tal affairs are “one night stands;” ten per­cent last more than one day, but less than a month; half of all affairs last more than a month but less than a year; and 40 per­cent last two or more years (Lampe, 2000).

Per­haps you are think­ing, “This  can’t be a prob­lem in the church. Cer­tainly the moral stan­dards of Chris­tians are higher.” There is grow­ing evi­dence that adul­tery is also a tremen­dous prob­lem in Chris­t­ian cir­cles. One could site many studies—the most recent from Chris­tian­ity Today shows that 45 per­cent of Chris­tians indi­cate hav­ing done some­thing sex­u­ally inap­pro­pri­ate, and 23 per­cent hav­ing extra­mar­i­tal inter­course (Ander­son, 2000). These num­bers pretty much mir­ror the national averages.

There is grow­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal evi­dence that adul­ter­ous behav­ior in par­ents dra­mat­i­cally affects chil­dren when they reach adult­hood. Research also tells us that just as divorce in a fam­ily influ­ences the like­li­hood of the adult chil­dren to con­sider divorce, adul­ter­ous behav­ior by par­ents seems to beget sim­i­lar behav­ior by their children.

Here is maybe the most impor­tant statistic—a recent Uni­ver­sity of Chicago study dis­cov­ered that a third of all mar­riages end in divorce because of an affair.

It is vital that we under­stand how adul­tery hap­pens and effects indi­vid­u­als, mar­riages and fam­i­lies. Count­less times I have sat with cou­ples or indi­vid­u­als who been swayed into being unfaith­ful to their spouse and then have to face the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of those choices. And I am not immune; in my own life, I have seen this same strug­gle and temp­ta­tion. I too am bom­barded by the mes­sage of my cul­ture, “You are your own. You don’t have to answer to any­one. Go ahead…No one will know.” While I have been faith­ful up to this point in my mar­riage, I know that with­out being inten­tional and walk­ing a nar­row path, I too, could just become another statistic.

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