The "in-love" stage of a love affair typically lasts six to 18 months, and occasionally as long as three years, says Denise Bartell, PhD, psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. But it does wane at some point.
How Do Affairs Usually End? Affairs usually end in one of three ways: divorce and remarriage, divorce and relationship loss, or the recommitment to the relationship that was betrayed. Each of these resolutions to an affair has its own pros and cons.
Cheating rarely ends well. Only 5% to 7% of affairs result in a marriage—and roughly 75% of the unions that started as affairs end as divorces.
Longer-term affairs usually last from six months to approximately two years. For both men and women, longer-term affairs can arise from an unhappy marriage where one or both partners feel underappreciated or undervalued by their significant other.
Most affairs last between one month to about a year. However, about a third of affairs survive longer than two years. The duration of the affair often depends on how the affair dissolves. The majority of affairs start with friends or coworkers, although infidelity can happen anywhere and with anyone.
An affair can become long-lasting love when both parties are in love and are ready to do right by each other. This often happens when the person being cheated with seems to outperform the present partner. You might get confused if you are really in love or not.
“Couples do and can stay together after an affair, but it takes a lot of work to repair broken trust.” Klow says most couples don't recover when one cheats but “those that do can emerge stronger from having gone through the process of recovering from the affair.” It takes time, however.
According to WebMD, the “in love” stage of an affair lasts 6 to 18 months, on average. And around 75% of marriages that start as affairs end in divorce. Considering only 5 to 7% of affair relationships lead to marriage, that's a grim statistic for couples hoping their affairs will last forever.
If you're considering staying after infidelity, it's probably because you still love your partner and you want to be with them. And this is perfectly okay! There's nothing wrong with you. You may share life events, children, memories, special moments, etc.
An affair is generally a sign things aren't right with someone's relationship. Without the necessary skills to heal the issues, a partner may engage in an affair as an ill-equipped way of attempting to have their needs fulfilled – whether these be for intimacy, to feel valued, to experience more sex, and so on.
In fact, “80/90% of the couples we see rebuild from an affair and most have a better relationship than pre-affair,” says psychotherapist and relationship expert Tom Buckland from The Relationship Centre.
A study of 495 people revealed eight key reasons: anger, low self-esteem, lack of love, low commitment, need for variety, neglect, sexual desire, and circumstance. 1 It's important to understand that these reasons arise within the cheater and are not the responsibility of the betrayed partner.
Oxytocin eventually drops.
This is built into evolution, the need for both parties to stop staring into each other's eyes and get back to work. When this happens, sex drops off, the passion and glow begin to fade. This is especially derailing for affairs initially built on physical chemistry.
In fact, the study, which looked at data from the General Social Survey in the U.S., found that 20 per cent of married people over the age of 55 have engaged in extramarital sex, while only 14 per cent of couples under 55 are said to have cheated. Those in their 50s and 60s, however, were the most likely to cheat.
“Findings indicate that while affairs do tend to make respondents happy, a number of factors influence perception of life satisfaction during an affair, including a belief that an outside partner is required to remain in a primary partnership, a desire to remain in the primary partnership, at least biweekly sexual ...
Infidelity can have lasting impacts on partners and children the couple may have. Grief, brain changes, behaviors down the road, and mental health conditions such as anxiety, chronic stress, and depression can result. Some families have been able to move past infidelity with time and therapy.
The most important thing to remember is what cheating says about a person. They're insecure, impulsive, selfish, and immature. Sometimes, it's a chronic problem that likely won't ever be fixed, just be sure not to ignore the warning signs.
Research in the field of infidelity reveals that there are three distinct personality types correlated with a higher likelihood of cheating: sociopaths, narcissists, and lonely hearts.
According to a survey of 1,000 people on how affairs get exposed, 39% of the respondents said they were caught when their partner read a message or two on their phones.
For the betrayed spouse, stages of an affair being exposed can involve everything from denial, shock, reflection, depression to finally taking an upward turn.
Here, experts explain this phenomenon and dispel other popular cheating myths. Fact #1: Most men are still in love with their wives when they cheat. Men who cheat haven't fallen out of love; they've become unsatisfied with the current state of it.