The Silver Lining behind Extra-Marital Affairs: Is there a Positive Impact?

At the outset let me clarify that this article does not advocate having an extra-marital affair. In all the past articles in this series, we have looked at extra-marital affairs from different angles and emphasized upon the importance of staying away from marital infidelity.

In this last article in the series, we want to acknowledge that despite your best intentions, an extra-marital affair may happen and when it does, how to move on. If we were to learn anything from the past few articles, it would suffice to say that an extra-marital affair can happen rather easily, is fairly common and often starts unknowingly without the intent of getting into one. And if it does so happen that an extra-marital affair creeps into your relationship, and you & your partner decide to keep it in the past, it would help to be aware about the positive ways in which an extra-marital affair may impact your existing relationship.

• Forging a stronger bond: Sometimes a setback is all that we need to open our eyes and see what was going wrong or rather what was missing. So while there is no justification for marital infidelity, when an extra-marital affair happens, it forces couples to reassess their relationship and see what could have been done differently. Couples tend to start doing more and more things together, learn to spend quality time, and overall learn to value each other’s worth in their life more than before.
• Increased consciousness: Couples also tend to be more conscious of their actions and words, on a daily basis post an affair. This is particularly true for those actions which directly concern one’s marriage. It is advisable to communicate openly with your partner when you feel stuck or find it difficult to navigate through some aspect of your relationship.
• Reduced dependency: Once the initial shock of your partner’s infidelity is lifted, several realizations come to the conscious mind. One of which could also be the awareness that perhaps there was an excessive amount of dependency on one person; that you were only turning to one person for all your needs, whether physical, emotional, and spiritual, etc. and thus, the shock may jolt you into acknowledging the importance of having a strong social support system. This, in turn, may propel you to rebuild the bridges with old friends and close family members.
• Your spouse may value you more: Although this sounds a bit cliché, it is highly possible that due to the experiences in their extra-marital relationship, your partner may just start valuing their relationship with you more. We often tend to gravitate toward the same kind of people, and also tend to behave similarly with different kinds of people. Therefore, it is quite possible that your spouse may experience similar issues in their extra-marital relationship. And it will thus make them analyze their relationship with you from a completely different and more reflective lens.

So if you decide to move on in your relationship, keeping the past behind, do remember these points which highlight the silver lining behind an extra-marital affair.