Can an affair be good news?

Last month Radio Wiltshire interviewed me about the impact of affairs on relationships.

Their interest had been generated by some astonishing statistics published by the Nationwide in Swindon. These showed that men and women tend to spend more on their lovers at Christmas than they do on their husband or wife.

Once an affair is out in the open, there is no escaping the fact that it has a wide-ranging impact on the people involved. And sometimes this can be for the good. It can be a wake-up call for people who had been letting their relationship drift. Or it can be the catalyst for change that needs to happen - my radio interview was closely followed by another with a lady who is now married to her lover. She was honest enough to say that she found their affair intensely exciting. Both she and her new husband were in relationships that were without love, which came to a natural end when the affair was exposed.

However, I don’t want to paint an unrealistically rosy view. For most couples an affair is devastating and a symptom of a deeper problem with their relationship. If they work to sort out the deeper problem, there is every chance their relationship will recover. Taking this route isn’t easy: it demands absolute commitment from both parties; it is hard work / takes time; the affair must have ended completely; the ‘guilty’ party must understand the impact their affair has had on their partner, and work to re-establish trust; both parties must be really open with each other - about their feelings as well as what they are doing.

How to have Sex after Marriage

Have you watched this fascinating Channel 5 TV documentary?
Each week a couple who for a variety of reasons have discovered their sex life isn’t what it used to be, are encouraged by three experts to score their partner for emotion, appearance and sex.

All the couples we watched are to be congratulated for their great honesty in saying where they are. Even more importantly - they all showed tremendous courage in trying out something different in order to recapture the passion in their lives. The drive for a fulfilling relationship is very strong and the programmes we watched confirmed our belief that you need both commitment and continuing effort to keep your passion alive.

One week we watched a couple who were continually arguing. It seemed he could do no right, while she was constantly frustrated she was doing the major share of household tasks. Both of them had lost the closeness of their early relationship - just a few years previously.

At the beginning of a relationship you cannot imagine that you will ever disagree about anything. In getting to know each other we often explore our views on the ‘big’ topics, so it’s fair to say there are reasonable grounds for this expectation. However, we tend to overlook the little things, the day-to-day living together things that can lead to frustration or annoyance that eats away at a relationship over time.