It may sound counterintuitive, but in some cases, having an affair can actually help save a struggling marriage.
In my own experience, having an affair ended up being the wake-up call my husband and I needed to finally address the issues in our relationship and work on rebuilding our marriage.
At the time, my husband and I had been together for over a decade and had two young children. Like many couples, we had fallen into a routine and had stopped putting effort into our relationship. We barely spoke to each other, and when we did, it was often about mundane things like bills and household chores. We had lost the spark and intimacy that had brought us together in the first place.
I was unhappy and unfulfilled, but I didn't know how to fix things. That's when I met someone else. It started as a friendship, but quickly turned into something more. I felt alive and happy for the first time in a long time.
But as much as I enjoyed my time with this other person, I knew deep down that I didn't want to leave my husband and children. I cared about them too much. So I decided to use my affair as a way to get my husband's attention and to try and fix our marriage.
I sat down with my husband and told him everything. It wasn't easy, and he was understandably upset and hurt. But to my surprise, he was willing to work on our relationship and try to rebuild the trust I had broken.
We started going to therapy together and made a conscious effort to reconnect and communicate with each other. It wasn't easy, and there were many setbacks, but over time, our marriage started to improve. We rediscovered the love and passion that had brought us together in the first place.
Looking back, I realize that having an affair was the wake-up call that my husband and I needed to finally address the issues in our marriage and work on fixing them.
It wasn't the ideal solution, and I would never recommend it to anyone else. But for us, it ended up being the catalyst for positive change.