Why Stay Together After an Affair?

The Pew Research Center reported that 90 percent of Americans consider an extramarital affair to be morally wrong (Evans & Corichi, 2026). Yet, according to data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS), 16 percent of married people surveyed had at least one affair (Davern et al., 2022). The Institute for Family Studies found that 75 percent of the men in their study had a larger number of sexual and sexual/emotional-combined affairs, while 56 percent of the women respondents had emotional-only affairs (Dew, 2024).

Repair

Despite the painful and often traumatic side effects of an affair, a recent study found that 75.5 percent of those who had been unfaithful ended their affairs and reconciled; 79 percent of those cheated on remained with the partner who had been unfaithful (Nickerson et al., 2026). These couples preferred to salvage their relationships to preserve the integrity of their families, please parents and grandparents, or spare children the stress of divorce. Some also stayed for cultural and religious reasons, or because they were in love. Many faithful partners who choose to stay do so for reparative reasons—that is, to give the relationship a chance to survive and thrive. A reparative commitment is evident both in and out of treatment by a sincere desire and effort to improve the relationship.

Retaliate

There are, however, retaliative reasons that faithful partners choose to stay in a post-affair relationship. But these individuals do so at the risk of bringing the relationship into a nihilistic, sadomasochistic cycle. For example, a faithful partner may become obsessed with the affair and repeatedly bring it to the transgressing partner’s attention for an “extended” time—maybe even years after the transgression. While the unfaithful transgressor must tolerate a certain level of anger from his or her faithful partner, if the deluge drags on without any new insight, especially on the part of the faithful partner, the post-affair relationship may begin to reflect the cause of the affair.

The partner cheated on may also insist on bringing up the transgression at certain events such as a family wedding, public event, or even in an intimate setting. Such maneuvers are designed to inflict humiliation or evoke shame. During sex with his wife, a husband suddenly stopped the lovemaking and angrily asked if his sexual ability compared favorably to that of her ex-lover.

Not all retaliative behaviors are conscious or easy to identify; many are in fact passive. For example, a faithful partner may withhold sex from an unfaithful partner. While this can be a symptom of posttraumatic depression, it may also reflect an underlying aggression or rage toward the unfaithful partner. A woman I treated admitted she consciously stopped making her adulterous husband breakfast or supervising his medication routine. Another man chose to respond to his wife’s affair by curtailing her freedom. He admitted that he did not fear another affair as much as he felt his wife merited a “grounding” for her transgression and so he chose to punish her as he would one of the couple’s unruly children.

I have found that faithful partners who cannot let go of an affair may have experienced a form of infidelity in past relationships or experienced adultery in their families of origin (e.g., father cheating on mother). Others may have narcissistic qualities (e.g., “No one cheats on me”). Regardless, a pre-existing internal rage might have already been in place and awaiting detonation.

Unfaithful transgressors who stay for a good beating may have sufficient guilt and feel they deserve it. Certainly, they must take responsibility for their adulterous behavior and learn a new and effective way to communicate their relational unhappiness. If they too, are not sincere in their desire to better the relationship - and this includes setting appropriate limits with the amount of punishment they absorb - they might eventually cheat again.

Summary

No doubt, in certain contexts, the impact of an affair might suddenly unveil a posttraumatic response from a faithful partner. A movie or song may do the same. But again, how long these reactions persist, whether the faithful partner can consider the entire system that produced the affair, and whether he or she is sincerely interested in getting the help needed to manage the trauma, are crucial in distinguishing reparative from retaliatory reasons to stay in a relationship. Although not the focus of this article, the unfaithful transgressor must learn to communicate his or her dissatisfaction with the relationship. He or she should also gain access to any residual internalized feelings that may have contributed to or be behind the transgression to avoid acting out again.