Signs of Infidelity
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Contents
The Ten Signs of Infidelity ..................................................................................................................3
May I offer another possibility? ..........................................................................................................4
What are the signs of an affair? ..........................................................................................................5
So how do you save these marriages? ................................................................................................7
More on How to Deal with an Affair in your Marriage .........................................................................9
Ask Yourself This Question ............................................................................................................... 12
Things NOT to Do ............................................................................................................................. 13
Things to Do .................................................................................................................................... 14
Signs of Infidelity
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The Ten Signs of Infidelity
Ten signs that your spouse is involved in an affair…and ten things to do about it
Divorce breaks the hearts of those involved - couples, children, parents, friends, church,
and the heart of God. One of the greatest underlying events destroying marriages today
is adultery. The following is a frank and spiritual message on how to save a marriage after
an affair.
My fervent passion is in saving marriages and making them healthy and holy again. I
encourage you to at least make a commitment not to remain at a disinterested distance
when couples you love have their lives coming apart.
So let's get started.
To better understand extramarital affairs, I sorted them into three categories.
1. The Short-Lived Affair lasts from one night to several months and is primarily
about sex. Subcategories included Revenge Affairs, Affairs of Opportunity (at the
right place at the right time to do the wrong thing), Self-Esteem Booster Affairs,
and more.
2. The Allowed Affair has become more prevalent with the graying of morality in our
culture. It was once called "Swinging" and now its participants just call it "The
Lifestyle."
3. The most difficult kind of affair to overcome is the Relationship Affair. It typically
starts as friendship that evolves into shared emotions and eventually shared
bodies. Those in Relationship Affairs usually are in love with each other. Madly in
love.
This is why so many Relationship Affairs lead to divorce - no matter how strongly you tell
the person that s/he is sinning and no matter how hard the abandoned spouse tries to
save the marriage. Because of such passages as Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9,
churches usually grant the offended spouse the right to start over with a new mate, and
few blame him or her for moving on with life.
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May I offer another possibility?
Wouldn't it be better for everyone - the cheated, cheater, children, church, and
community - if there were a way to rescue the straying spouse, heal the hurts, and guide
husband and wife back to a marriage of love and commitment? We in the marriage
business know that if a marriage survives an affair, it will be stronger and more loving
than it was before the affair.
Salvaging a marriage when a spouse is in love with someone else usually isn't
accomplished by pointing the adulterer to scripture, logic, or consequences. If I had space,
I'd explain why. The short version is that they are driven by strong and compelling
emotions that they're convinced you don't understand. Therefore, they disregard you,
along with your Bible, lectures, and piety. Very often they'll even tell you that God sent
the lover to them.
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What are the signs of an affair?
There are many signs of infidelity. Short of being caught, most are not conclusive in
themselves, but as they begin to add up, they make a strong case that something is
definitely amiss. Though it would be impractical to list every potential sign, these are
some:
1. Your spouse’s appearance (body shape, fragrances, or dress) has improved
recently
2. Money is unaccounted for
3. Time is unaccounted for
4. Cell phone bills are hidden and/or your spouse spends time on the phone where
you cannot hear
5. Facebook or email accounts are protected from you
6. Your sex life recently changed (either more or less),
7. You discovered that your spouse told you they would be one place and you
discover they were in another
8. Your spouse drifts from happiness to sadness to dreaminess to irritableness
9. Your spouse starts telling you that you are “crazy” or confused when you question
things
10. Your spouse gets defensive when you ask about a certain person, activity, or time
period
The first thing to do if you suspect your spouse of infidelity is to discover if s/he really is
or if you are being overly suspicious or paranoid. I recommend the direct approach, “I
need you to reassure me. Maybe I’m just feeling vulnerable, but I’m starting to worry
about our relationship. Will you help me by making everything transparent for the next
couple months so that I can find inner peace? Let me ask questions and see things and
the like. I’m not accusing you; I’m asking you to help me with my fears.” If the spouse
agrees, check bills and locations and those things randomly…but not too much or you’ll
cause other problems with your spouse feeling trusted. If your spouse becomes
defensive, angry, or indignant, it may be wise to start doing some checking on your own.
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If you become convinced that your spouse is being unfaithful, get a wise third party to
help you think through what to do next. Get that person’s opinion of what you’ve
discovered. Before making any accusations, be as sure as you can be that you are right. If
necessary and you can afford it, hire a detective. If you aren’t sure enough to make that
step, maybe you need to rethink what you think you know.
Finally, once you are sure, get together a group to do an intervention. If you intervene,
be sure that you have a course of action in mind as to what should happen next. Successful
interventions conclude with a call to a specific action; for example, “We want you to agree
to go through one of Marriage Helper’s programs,” or “We’ve set up an appointment with
this counselor…” We have an in-depth intervention document explaining .
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So how do you save these marriages?
Based on my experience, I suggest the following to the abandoned spouse and to all
attempting to help:
1. Believe that an affair, even an exceptionally strong Relationship/Love Affair, is not
necessarily the end of a marriage. It may be, but it doesn't have to be. Don't give up.
Keep praying and doing the right things, no matter how hopeless it may seem.
2. Don't beg, cajole, or attempt to manipulate the adulterer. S/he is already emotionally
on edge; emotional actions from you exacerbate the situation. Be firm, but always loving
and calm.
3. Don't try to convince him or her that the lover is a bad person or primarily responsible
for the affair. That might work in a Short-Lived Affair. However, it typically causes a person
in a Relationship Affair to develop an "us against the world" union with the lover.
4. Drag out any divorce proceedings as long as possible. The intense emotions involved
with being "madly in love" last anywhere from six to thirty-six months. Though the
straying spouse may become angry and try to manipulate the abandoned spouse into
divorce ("I'll make things tougher for you if you don't go along with me ..."), the
abandoned spouse should be strong, endure the other's wrath, and drag it out as long as
possible. There is a very real possibility that the abandoning spouse will eventually lose
the intensity of desire to be with the lover. Don't give up!
5. The abandoned spouse should demonstrate his or her ability to survive and prosper
without the abandoning spouse. S/he must concentrate on physical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual health. This accomplishes two things. 1) The abandoned spouse needs this
for him- herself. 2) The abandoning spouse often is drawn back to the abandoned spouse
when s/he continues to be strong and self-sufficient.
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6. In fervent prayer, ask God to bring chaos, financial distress, and anything else He will
do to cause pain as a result of the sinner's actions and to create circumstances so that it
is difficult for him or her to continue in the affair.
7. The abandoned spouse should procure an attorney that will protect his or her rights,
finances, and the like. The attorney should make the divorce as painful as possible -
financially and otherwise - to the abandoning spouse while still protecting the interests
of the abandoned spouse. Expect the abandoning spouse to react with anger. However,
making sin have strong negative consequences is the right thing to do.
8. The church should practice discipline, though in our day and age that hasn't nearly the
effect it had in biblical times. It's so easy now to walk down the street and go to another
church. However, if done in love and compassion, it still may have the needed effect.
9. Practice intervention. Get our ebook for how to perform a successful intervention.
10. Convince the straying spouse to take one last action before ending the
marriage. Sometimes the abandoned spouse does this by offering a concession such as,
"I'll give on this point in the divorce if you do this." Sometimes a friend, church leader, or
even the person's child may convince him or her that, for conscience sake, s/he should do
one more thing to see if there is any hope for the marriage.
In our marriage programs, we have many couples who participate because someone
convinced the abandoning spouse for conscience sake or to get some concession. Over
nearly a decade, we've witnessed one seemingly hopeless marriage after another turn
around, especially during our intensive three-day weekend. They don't have to want to
be there; they just have to be there.
Whether you use our services, your own counselors, or someone else, the message is the
same. We must not give up on marriages because we think that either spouse is beyond
rescuing. Don't give up on the power of God and what He can do if only we do our parts.
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More on How to Deal with an Affair in your Marriage
You suspected it long before you knew it for sure.
Your spouse changed but you couldn't quite explain the changes in a way that seemed to
make sense to anyone else. You thought that you were imagining things, being insecure.
Then you began to vacillate, worrying that you must be right but telling yourself that
surely you aren't. When you asked questions, the answers seemed a little too slick, too
rehearsed.
Sometimes your questions hit harder and your spouse reacted with anger or sarcasm,
telling you that you're paranoid. If you suspected a particular person, your spouse
reassured you that there was nothing going on and that this person is a friend…maybe
even your friend…and it wasn't fair to think that about them.
Finally, you made the discovery. Maybe you checked the cell phone bill, read emails,
found a note or letter in a pocket or purse, or, even worse, someone saw them and told
you about it. When you confronted, denial reigned.
But not forever.
Eventually, your mate told you that it's over between the two of you. He or she is in love
with the other person. Prepare for divorce. Cooperate and they will make things easy for
you. Refuse to cooperate and you will find yourself in a bloody legal battle. Maybe your
spouse cajoled, or threatened, in a concerted effort to keep you from telling anyone what
was happening. He or she did everything possible to keep you from going to your church
leaders, their boss, your family, your in-laws, and maybe even your best friend. Secrecy
helped them, not you, but because you thought there might be a chance to keep him or
her calm and possibly stop this nightmare, you allowed yourself to be manipulated.
Maybe your abandoning spouse had a period of hesitation. He or she tried to end the
affair, and told you that they were willing to work on the marriage. Maybe the paramour
found a way to get to him or her, rekindled the passion and convinced your spouse that
he or she will never be happy without them. If your spouse went back to the affair the
second time, it seemed to have much more power over them than in the beginning.
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By the time you broke your silence, things had evolved to an almost impossible situation.
Your church leaders tried, but had no success in righting the wrong behavior of your
spouse. They found themselves listening to how terrible it is to be married to you, or how
hypocritical they were to tell someone else to do right. They might even have heard the
startling news that God Himself sent the lover and that He wants them to be together.
Or, they might have heard that your spouse no longer believes what they once believed,
so the church folks may as well go bother someone who buys into their malarkey.
Hopeless?
No.
The fact is that even in these situations a possibility exists that the marriage can be saved
and, with time, made good again. That may sound Pollyannaish, but I've personally
witnessed it repeatedly over the last sixteen years. My faith in God tells me through His
power anything can be done. My faith in people has been strengthened by experiencing
God intervening in lives even when a person wanted God to leave him or her alone to do
what they wanted to do.
A straying partner who has convinced herself that life will be wonderful with the new
person seldom decides that before he or she leaves they should take one more run at
saving the marriage. It's much more likely that the abandoning spouse will avoid anything
that might convince him or her to stop the new relationship and heal the marriage.
However, I've witnessed case after case in which those marriages were saved, sometimes
even after the divorce took place. One couple remarried after being divorced ten years!
I don't mean to give false hope. There are marriages that are doomed and no matter what
happens, it will end and never be healed. On the other hand, for many years I've seen the
salvaging of marriages that seemingly everyone else has given up on.
Admittedly, I become frustrated with leaders or counselors who too quickly encourage
the abandoned spouse to accept that it's over and move on. Yes, that advice is sound
when there is no hope. However, my experience is that too often we don't count on the
power of God and, therefore, make premature judgments about how hopeless a situation
might be. I'll make another admission; I've gone through marriage intensives with couples
that at the end I would have predicted there was no way they would heal their marriage.
Yet I saw it work out.
Miracle?
I think that's a fairly good word to use when God's involved.
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For example, recently a couple came through one of our marriage programs for couples
in crisis that shared a remarkable story. Though highly involved in their church, she had
gotten too close to another member and that had gradually led to adultery. Neither
meant for it to happen. No one went looking for that kind of relationship. Like so many
others they didn't understand the danger and forged ahead with a friendship that was
destined to become a passion. By the time they realized they were on the wrong path,
they were so enmeshed with each other that they were convinced that the best thing for
everyone - spouses, children, church - was to divorce their spouses and marry each other.
The night she told her husband her plans, the emotion was so intense that soon she was
in a deep sleep.
He interpreted that as her not caring. The real cause of her deep slumber was the depth
of her emotional state. Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the night praying over her
sleeping body. He prayed that God would convict her heart; that He would somehow
reduce or remove the emotions she had for the other man.
It worked.
The next morning she awakened with the realization that she wanted to save her marriage
and wanted very much to get past the feelings she had for her lover. Shortly thereafter
they were in our workshop to learn how it happened, how to heal it, and how to grow in
love like they never had before.
That's the only time I've heard the story work just that way.
More often the abandoned spouse prays and prays but the abandoning spouse reacts
callously. They don't want to see the error of their actions. They don't want to face the
guilt of their wrongdoing. They seek any counsel, from Christians or otherwise, that
empathizes with their position and gives any encouragement whatsoever.
Does that mean prayer has no power?
Not at all.
It means that sometimes God works directly on a person's heart in ways beyond human
understanding, and sometimes He uses other methodologies.
Praying is powerful. So is doing the right things.
If your spouse has told you that he or she is in love with someone else, I suggest you do
the following things.
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Ask Yourself This Question
Before giving up on a straying spouse, it would behoove you to ask, "Is my spouse a bad
person doing a bad thing, or a good person doing a bad thing?"
Good people sometimes do really stupid things. However, if at heart they are good
people, they are worth rescuing. It's your choice, of course, and you can tell your straying
spouse to leave and never return. Or, if he or she is a good person involved in a bad
situation, you can fight to save your marriage. Our experience is that if a good person gets
straightened out, not only can the marriage be saved, but it can be stronger and more
loving than it was before.
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Things NOT to Do
If you decide to try to save your marriage, immediately stop allowing your spouse to
manipulate you in any way. Don't make things easy for him or her. Slow things down and
drag things out even if it makes them angry.
Time is on your side, especially if you continually pray for God to intercede and bring trials
and tribulations into the sinful relationship.
At the same time, do not cling, beg, whine, plead, or manipulate. It makes you less
attractive and intensifies whatever justification he or she has mentally made that allows
leaving you. Be strong. Make it clear that while you would like to save the marriage, your
life will go on and you will prosper if they don't come back.
This is very, very important.
When a person believes that you are there no matter what they do, they have no
compulsion to do right. When they see that you can live happily without them, you
become more attractive.
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Things to Do
Take care of yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Your life will
not end if your marriage ends. God will still be in heaven. He will still love you. Other
people in your life who care about you will still care about you. No matter how much you
love your spouse, life can go on and be good if he or she leaves you. The time to take care
of you is NOT after the chaos has ended. You must do it now. It benefits you. It benefits
your family. And, believe it or not, it often helps bring the spouse back, though you cannot
do it for only that reason.
When you are sure that your spouse is involved in something, or with someone, that is
wrong, arrange a group to do an intervention. There are time-tested and proven ways to
do interventions. You cannot be part of the actual intervention, so pick people that he or
she respects or cares about. If your children are old enough, add them to the group; they
make great interveners. If you wish to learn more about conducting an intervention, get
our ebook for how to perform an intervention.
Share this link with everyone who will help in the intervention.
Make an offer of some benefit that will come to your straying spouse if he or she agrees
to try at least one thing to save the marriage. Pray for wisdom as to what may motivate
your spouse. Our experience is that they are unlikely to agree to a lengthy counseling
period, but that likely will agree to come to a three-day marriage intensive. People have
come to our workshop to salve their consciences, to get their church leaders off their
backs, to make the children happy, to get a better deal in the divorce, and more. Are those
good reasons to come? Any reason is a good reason. For over a decade our success record
is three out of four couples, even for those who did not want to be there and for those
who came while madly in love with someone else.
Whether you use our services, a counselor full of faith, a minister, or any other help, do
something. If you have a desire to save your marriage, act. Sitting alone while having a
pity party does nothing good for you or anyone else. You cannot make your spouse do
right, but you can make yourself get out of the dumps and back on the road of faith in the
God who speaks universes into existence. He will not abandon you, even if your spouse
does.
Your fullness of life is in Him.
Trust that.