Dr. Glass, in Not “Just Friends”: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity” cites many
reasons that efforts to recover from an affair and rebuild the basic trust in a
marriage may not succeed. Separation and
divorce may be the final result when:
Sometimes
the unfaithful partner is seeking a way out of a marriage that has died a long
time ago and the affair is an exit route.
Sometimes the unfaithful partner makes a clear
choice to leave the marriage to be with their lover. Sometimes the betrayed partner is not able to
re-develop basic trust in their partner’s honesty and fidelity.
Sometimes one partner cannot sustain their effort during the period of attempted
recovery.
Sometimes the unfaithful partner did not end the
affair.
Sometimes the affair was very intense with a
combination of powerful emotional attachment and intense sexual
involvement that is not possible within the marriage, so that the marriage has
limitations that are not livable for the unfaithful partner.
Sometimes both spouses had been involved with
someone outside the marriage.
Sometimes a younger wife, with no children in
the marriage, realizes that the marriage was a mistake and wants release.
Sometimes an older husband in a long-term
marriage chooses/desires greater emotional involvement with another woman that
is not feasible within the marriage.
Sometimes either or both spouses have a lower
commitment to rebuilding the marriage.
There are many other reasons that efforts to
rebuild a marriage may not succeed. This
is a difficult choice that each spouse and the couple must make for themselves,
free of whatever bias or preference a therapist might have. If a sustained effort is made to rebuild trust and recover from
infidelity is made, even without final success, the partners are more able to
separate with greater peace of mind, knowing that a genuine effort has been
made.