I often hear from women dealing with infidelity who admit that, in a perfect world, they wish they could one day save their marriage. But of course, almost everyone has reservations and doubts. One of the biggest concerns I hear is the fear of repeat cheating. It’s absolutely normal to worry that the very second you allow yourself to trust him again, he’ll cheat on you again and completely destroy you. The fear is so great and so real that some people consider not trying to save the marriage for fear of the second affair.
Someone might say, “I need to know the probability that my husband will cheat on me again. He swears he won’t. He’s saying and doing the right things. And yet I can’t bring myself to trust him completely. I’m always on guard. Trying to get through this process has taken everything I have. It has shattered what I thought I knew about my husband and my marriage. I am suspicious of everyone and everything. I see the world as a hostile place. now and never before. It has put a dark cloud over everything. I’m slowly trying to recover, but it’s been crippling. I can’t do this again. My husband swears he would never put himself in this position. again. I want to believe him. But he found a way to cheat once. time, so who’s to say he won’t cheat again, what do the statistics say about the likelihood of a second affair?
If you have looked, surely you have seen that the statistics vary. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an agreement. I’ve seen three sets of stats. One indicated that only 22 percent of people cheated more than once. Another contradicted him, saying that up to 55 percent of people repeat cheating. Also, there was an online survey of people who had been having affairs and 60 percent of them said they had been unfaithful more than once. (I’d take this with a grain of salt, as the people who are online and willing to talk about their infidelity may be a different subset of the people who just want to get on with their lives.) However, as you can see, the statistics vary widely, but it can go as high as about half of all cheaters will cheat again. And you can get as little as 1/4.
I understand why you want to know about statistics. I can release a lot of statistics about issues and their recovery because I did a lot of research due to my own experience. But I can tell you something else. You can read statistics all day long, but in truth, they have no impact on your life. Just because a certain number of other couples have an experience, that doesn’t mean you will.
The best indicator of whether you will face another affair is not what happens with other couples, but what happens with your husband, with yourself, and with your recovery. I can tell you something else I learned. You can only do as much as is humanly possible and there are still no guarantees, but it does get better. Time is a wonderful tool with this. Early in our recovery, I always worried about the slightest perception of deceit. Most of the time, it was just my suspicions working overtime. But over time, you begin to see that your early fears are not coming true and you allow yourself to relax a little more. And one day, you realize that if you do the counseling, if you insist that your husband take responsibility and rehabilitate himself, and if you work on yourself and become as strong as possible, then at some point, you just have to take a breath and know that you can’t completely control this. You can and should make your marriage and recovery as strong as possible. And you should always be alert. If my husband started acting strange tomorrow or showing disturbing behaviors, of course I would worry and investigate that. But I no longer want to live my life always on guard. My husband and I work long enough and hard enough that I feel safe releasing just a little. If my husband’s behavior made it necessary for me to change, then he would, but I got tired of living my life in fear of tomorrow.
You are early in this process, so you haven’t had the advantage of time yet. But if you’re still involved in your marriage, then you can only make sure you get all the help you need and do everything you can to get you and your husband back on track. You can be clear about your expectations and you can make each one of them come true. And at some point, you just have to breathe out and know that if the worst comes, then you’ll handle it, but you’re not going to compromise the rest of your life by always living in suspicion and walking on eggshells. Only you will know when you have reached this point. Usually a bit of healing is needed first.