marital inidelity

Should I Leave My Spouse for My Affair Partner? What the Research (and Real Life) Say Happens Next

In the late 1980s, Dr. Jan Halper ran a study that asked 4,100 successful men—executives, entrepreneurs, professionals—the kind of question you can’t answer without shifting in your seat: “Did you leave your wife for the other woman?” Only 3 percent said yes. Not exactly a groundswell of romantic rebellion.

But here’s where it gets stickier. Of that small, defiant sliver—those who left the boardroom and the bedroom behind for a shot at forbidden love— another study from Frank Pittman shows 75 percent of their new marriages ended in divorce. Surprisingly another researcher discovered most of them didn’t even make it past year two.

It’s not just a fluke. It’s a pattern. And as someone who’s spent years sitting across from couples trying to stitch their lives back together after infidelity, I can tell you: the data is just the beginning. What it doesn’t explain is why. Why do these relationships, born in heat and secrecy, so often crash and burn once the dust settles?

The 6 Stages of Limerence: How Obsession Disguises Itself as Love—and Destroys Relationships

Most people in limerence can recall the exact moment it hit. A smile across the room. A laugh that lingered too long. A text that shouldn’t have felt like anything but somehow felt like everything.

That’s Stage One.

We like to believe affairs are plotted, deliberate things. But limerence doesn’t ask for planning. It sneaks in through the cracks. Through mild discontent. A low-grade loneliness. A sense that something—anything—needs to change. Then someone new offers attention, and the world tilts. Not because that person is extraordinary. But because the feeling is.

Why Affair Partners Won’t Let Go After the Affair Ends: The Love Trap You NEED to Know!

If your spouse has ended the affair but the other person keeps circling back, it may be because the affair partner is stuck in emotional withdrawal. The affair partner doesn’t just miss your spouse—they feel like they need them. This behavior isn’t about love. It’s about addiction. The affair gave them a high. A sense of being wanted, chosen, important. And now that it’s over, they’re searching for their next “fix”—which, to them, means getting your spouse back and they’ll stop at nothing until they do.

That’s why they keep texting. That’s why they linger. It’s not about your marriage. It’s about their own internal crash.

Why Ending an Affair Feels Impossible: The Limerence Trap Explained

You’d think exposure would be the end of it. The affair is discovered. The damage is done. Everyone’s crying, reeling, making ultimatums. But then—somehow—it continues. Quietly. Secretly. Sometimes even more intensely than before.

Why?

Was It Love or Limerence? Unraveling Your Partner’s Affair and How to Heal

It’s the question that arrives long after the discovery, after the gut punch, after the tears and the text message sleuthing: What did they actually feel for them? Was it love? Was it lust? Was it something else entirely?

Here’s the strange thing about affairs: even the people having them often don’t know why they’re doing it. They talk in circles—about stress, or boredom, or how they hadn’t felt “seen” in years—but push a little deeper and you find something slipperier than desire or dissatisfaction. You find confusion. Maybe even delusion.

Which brings us to a word that sounds like a brand of luxury perfume but isn’t: limerence.

How Depression Fuels Affairs and How to Heal

In the wake of an affair, depression is everywhere. It’s in the betrayed spouse who can’t get out of bed. It’s in the unfaithful partner who can’t explain why they blew up their life. And it’s often in the space between them—thick, invisible, and unnamed.

Here’s the thing most people miss: depression isn’t always the result of betrayal. Sometimes, it’s the setup.

How to Survive the Mental Crash of an Affair: 3 Tools to Reclaim Your Mind and Heart

We’ll walk through four strategies to help stabilize the emotional free-fall—no therapist required. While healing from the trauma of betrayal does require working with a trauma therapist, these are tools you can begin using on your own, starting today.

3 Reasons Why Married People Cheat

Infidelity isn’t always about sex. Marital infidelity isn’t always about falling in love with someone else. Sometimes it’s about escape. Sometimes it’s about belief. And sometimes, it’s about a system that broke down long before anyone noticed it was cracking.

In most cases, affairs fall into one of three buckets:

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