Affairs and EAs during long marriages- stats

[leopardandspots]

There are a couple of new threads recently with the same elements-cliched old DHs following their scripts, all jeopardising long term marriages with loyal partners due to flirtations and more with younger work colleagues regardless of the length of their 20 and 30 year old marriages.

Having been there, five years’ ago with my ex DH, I always identify with those now having to face this.
My ex is now allegedly very unhappy (quelle suprise) so I just did some research to see how many of the straying partner’s relationships work out statistically. …

There’s loads of varying info but the trends from the studies and UK data are similar:
• relationships that start as affairs have a very low success rate (some estimates suggesting that only 1.7% to 10% of such relationships turn into long-term, lasting partnerships)

• other stats say long -term survival rates suggest less than 2% to 3% of relationships that begin as affairs last longer than 5–10 years

• Initial Separation Rate: Of those who do leave their partners for their affair partner, roughly 34% report that the new relationship lasts only 0–6 months

• Only about 3%–5% of people who have affairs end up marrying their affair partner anyway.

• People who leave to be with an affair partner are 350% more likely to cheat again in their new relationship.

• Approx 1 in 5 British adults admit to having had an affair

Hopefully it’s of some comfort to know that, by contrast, the spouses who leave a straying partner achieve higher relationship success than both their straying former partner and the general population. I found references to this although I haven’t found an actual percentage.

Thought these stats were interesting and of some comfort. Even if only vaguely true they still underline how stupid the perpetrators are- imposing all that hurt on their loyal partners and children for such a low % success rate.

i cant help but imagine people who cheat on their spouse have poor empathy, I can’t see how else you visit that utter trash and agony on someone whose soul you promised to be gentle with. Which makes me wonder if these people were never good spouses if they had that ability to be cruel for the sake of a fondle.

Can’t imagine stats bother them
though.

OP, I get where you're coming from and I'm interested in this too but I have to ask - what are your sources? I looked into it a few years ago and couldn't find reliable studies. None with a rigorous methodology accounting for a range of factors (e.g. impact of demographics like age and sex, statistical tests comparing to non-affair relationships, how to count couples who have no interest in marrying but are in a happy committed relationship etc.).

I've seen numbers from the book "Just Good Friends" quoted on here but was disappointed when I read it. The author's sample is so biased that it can't be applied to a broader population (it's basically anecdotal data on couples she worked with - i.e. where both husband and wife wanted therapy/to stay together - a situation wholly unlike a lot of affairs).

I take peer-reviewed research and statistics seriously, I work in this field and I'm sorry, but it bothers me to see unverified numbers presented as facts. I would love to read a proper analysis though, if you have links?

The marriages where you stay with a cheating partner almost always fail too. 85% within five years when it was discovered and not confessed to.
And I thought the stat about them being likely to cheat again wasn’t confined to ‘in the relationship with the new partner’. It’s just generally.

A cheating partner is not thinking about how long the relationship will work. They are either in love with another person, or so aroused by the prospect of a shag that they couldn't care less.

I found it oddly comforting that my exH and his affair partner got married. They both broke up their families to be with each other and it would have felt like such a waste if they hadn’t actually made a go of it. That said, I’m no saint and they’re both cheats so I won’t be shedding tears for either of them if their marriage doesn’t last.

I think the 1 in 5 adults admit to having an affair isn’t accurate. I am 64 and of all the couples I know and have known throughout my adult life, there’s very few that separated due to affairs. Also what constitutes an EA, is it just receiving/giving attention to someone else outside your partnership, or it when it becomes a problem. I also know 2 couples who took their DH”s back after affairs and are still together 20 years later.

Those “stats” sound like the sort of thing that people have made up to feel better about being cheated on to be honest.

The best revenge is to live well, rather than wishing misery upon the person who has wronged you.

I know quite a few people who have had affairs and lived happily ever after. It doesn’t make what they did right.

Thank you for the replies.Yes I know what you mean Turtle you almost think if the affair partner works out it at least provides some limited justification. But the statistics suggest otherwise. Thishorse I will type up a list of my main sources for you in another post.

I expressly caveated the stats with the comment that, even if the percentages from the different books and articles have a wide margin of error - they still underline the cheaters’ low prospects of success.

I guess where I am coming from ( 5 years post divorce) that I believed in my lifelong commitment and marriage vows wholeheartedly. I feel I delivered on my side. I remained loyal, carved out time for dates with DH whilst delivering a stable loving family life with lovely DC, plus ‘a cuddly dog, family hikes, multiple picnics and BBQs on the beach’ etc.

Even though ex DH repeatedly gaslit me, making me doubt my sanity, I kept working on the marriage- continuing to plan happy times, bouncing back and addressing issues with therapy etc.

So I really tried hard - stupidly in retrospect. I guess my interest in the stats comes from a lingering disbelief that all the cheating examples on MN would throw away something valuable for an unknown which in many cases will at best be similar to ( or worse than ) what they had before!

The cheaters’ justification is often that the pain is worth it as they have now found ‘ the one’. Clearly the affair partner does sometimes work out, but ultimately the prospects of long term success seem to be in single digits in most of the stats you can find.

I was with my partner for 24 years until last year. Married 17.

I caught him out last year (messages to an ex) and for some god knows why reason he decided to come clean about all his misdemeanours as I asked him to leave anyway.

These were as follows:

2 physical affairs (one within a year of our daughter being born)
4 Emotional affairs. (Spread out over time- one lasting 4 years!)

I didn’t have a clue about any of this! It taught me that however much you think you know your partner/husband, they are all capable of it. This revelation completely shocked me.

I’m single from now on.

God @Brissa I am so very sorry. How are you and your DD doing now? A year is early days still.

As promised for @ThisHorse here is a summary of the main sources. The stats I found are variable, although one at least, is based on surveying 4,000 people and the trends from the USA studies and UK data seem similar.

• The UK Infidelity rates (20%) comes from YouGov and Relate in The Way We Are Now. 32% of straying partners say their affairs were never discovered (Nickerson et al., 2023) 39% according to (Dumitru et al., 2022). (Flippantly I wondered if the growth of things like Love Island encourages or reflects infidelity, with its promotion of ‘testing’ your relationship and so on.)
• The 1.7-10% success rate for the affair relationship comes from psychiatrist Dr Frank Pitman in Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Confidence. His data is based on his clinical experience with his patients, not research of the wider population. Multiple studies though, suggest single-digit percentage success rates for relationships with the affair partner. Jan Halper’s book Quiet Desperation surveyed 4,000 executives revealing a very low percentage success rate. Also, of course, Dr Shirley Glass 'Not Just Friends' finding only about 3-5% of people who engage in affairs end up marrying their affair partners. Also google Kathy Nickerson’s findings.

There is also:

• Janus & Janus (1993) 42% of people who were divorced had more than one affair while they were married.

• 2022 YouGov survey of 2,000 people found 35% of people who cheated reported having more than one affair (Dumitru et al., 2022)

• The 350% more likely to cheat again in their new relationship comes from Archives of Sexual Behavior Kayla Knopp et al 2017 and Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater? Serial Infidelity Across Subsequent Relationships- pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28785917/

• Around 38% of straying partners surveyed reported their affairs were with with coworkers (Nickerson et al. 2023)

• Interesting other findings include between 60% and 75% stay with their original partners at least after the first infidelity (Solomon & Teagno, 2006) and (Nickerson et al., 2023)

My conclusion is that even allowing for variable research, and giving a generous margin of error, there are low success rates for long term relationships with the affair partner.

My non-substantiated instinct (as posted on another thread recently) is that it’s the cup- half- full people who tend not to stray! If they have dips, they work on their relationships. It’s mostly the cup- half- empty people who dominate the statistics who stray. As they feel miserable inside anyway, they are more dissatisfied due to their internal demons... so maybe they feel that the hurt they cause doesn't matter as they live with their own permanent hurt anyway.

I am so sorry for those going through it now. You do recover, although clearly the cheaters' motivations remain a mystery.

I also found this which doesn't have stats but I found it interesting:

Love and Infidelity: Causes and Consequences: Ami Rokach and Sybil H Chan (2023)

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10002055/#:~:text=Grøntvedt%20et%20al.%2C%20opined%20that,are%20sparse%20in%20the%20literature.

That may well be true but I don't think marrying the OW/OM can be a measure of success, a bad marriage would put people off doing it again surely. Ticking boxes for date nights and picnics does not a happy marriage make. The amount of women on here tying themselves in knots to keep a man shows that.

They call it an exit affair for a reason, quite often. people too scared to take the leap without blowing things up and taking others down with them.

this is so very sad
I have never put any effort doing a date night or a picnic. Do men really find picnics arousing

Interesting how this thread started as an attempt to look at statistics and patterns in partners leaving long marriages, particularly off the back of a couple of 20–30 year affair threads.

Even when trying to look at stats somehow a default narrative seems to creep in that the sex life wasn’t arousing enough or something must have been missing at home, so endorsing the cheater’s classic justification script.

What I was trying to say (using a bit of hyperbole because it’s hard to fit an essay on here!) is that in many of these long-marriage posts, the faithful partner has upheld their side of the vows: the birthdays and Christmases, the family life, the loyalty, the support through unemployment or illness, the domestic grind, and yes intimacy , so all the for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer stuff.

Yet the other partner still preferred the pull of something unknown, which in many cases will end up the same ( or worse) than what they had before.

It seems both statistically and anecdotally that the grass rarely is greener long term. Sometimes it is, but not the majority. The strayers who are tempted by the younger colleagues etc, don’t appear to end up demonstrably happier; in fact, many go on to have further failed relationships. This suggests the issue was not that the marriage had something missing but that the main issue was something unresolved in the person who left.

Whilst I’m sure it can be soothing for people who have been cheated on to believe their ex is going to be unhappy and have failed future relationships, the data probably needs to be seen in context. Relationships generally have a surprisingly low success rate: only about 30% of new relationships however they began last more than a year (and the rates are much lower for young couples, where one or both parties has a health problem, or where one or both parties has children already); the average length of a relationship is about 4 years for somebody beginning one in their twenties, and about five years for somebody beginning one in their thirties. Second marriages have a failure rate of almost 70%. I’m sure that people who cheat are more likely to go on and cheat again, but I don’t think it’s so much the case as “people who cheat will go on to mostly experience failed relationships” as “most people mostly experience failed relationships.”

I always find the sheer level of importance people place upon cheating astounding tbh. And by that I mean I read about some truly deplorable relationships on MN, where it’s clear the OP and her partner have been miserable for years, resent each other, are casually disrespectful to each other constantly, rarely have sex or show each other affection so on - and yet apparently it’s only when she suspects he might be porking another woman that she gets indignant.

I think I actually don’t know what I think based on the statistics (!) even having been through the whole gaslighting script thing and come out the other side.
I oscillate between being completely mystified why people would discard partners who sound ( from their posts) loving, faithful and good partners. Ultimately I do not understand why burning 20-30 years of shared family, shared grandchildren, shared memories is worth it for something that (at best) has only a low statistical hope of being as good.

Then in parallel I do wonder (if it weren’t for children’s stability) it would be better to reframe our approach to the whole thing. Would it be better to just accept that longevity in relationships is too ambitious and it would cause less pain to pragmatically accept that whilst you want to be in a relationship now, you will likely move on in a few years’ time once the relationship has run its course.

I found this article which was interesting discussing renewable ten year marriage contracts, at least then expectations would differ…https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/margaret-mead-right-marriage-should-temporary-vicki-larson?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via..

All men will cheat given the chance. They are programmed by nature to default to sex, when it is available. Nature doesn’t care about people’s feelings, it wants procreation to be as effective as possible. This is why you get a pattern of behaviour in older men shaking up with younger women - who are still fertile.

Harsh reality - millions of years of human evolution have prioritised the continuation of the species over moralistic standing. Nature doesn’t care about morals, hurt feelings, modern sensibilities. Pitted against primal programming morals lose, every time

Many many women too.
It’s natural to want sex with others for both sexes. I don’t commit to one person as I know I can’t.
And all the domestic bliss and fun outings will not help if someone isn’t into someone anymore.
There’s no point going over the stats OP. Just try and be happy.

@Disturbia81

Agree - I have also noticed non-monogamy becoming more prevalent as a consensual lifestyle choice in the dating world. It’s about time too; many many people are not able to commit to a lifetime of monogamy as the trail of heartbreak shows - so it’s important that people have the means to be upfront about their choices alongside others who share the same values.

Traditionally, marriage and the act of coupling has always been about exclusivity and monogamy. This one size fits all approach has played its part in breaking hearts over centuries of enforced expectation. If you are the monogamous type then marriage is for you - but now that people have other ways of coupling beyond the traditional route I think this will help people identify what/how they choose to live as more choice is available to them. People who want marriage will have a better chance of finding a mate with shared values, and vice versa.

Yes brilliantly said, cheating is so prevalent, it’s part of the plot of every show and film nearly.. it’s a human thing. People need to be honest upfront and choose their own relationship style. Too many people still follow tradition and then end up heartbroken.
My mum has so my stories of her friends cheating and this was in the 80s/90s, nevermind now.