Lana Staheli - Affair-Proof Your Marriage: Understanding, Preventing and Surviving an Affair

I want to thank Lynn Taylor Staheli, M.D., who coaxed me to do this project and taught me how to organize my material and thoughts. He shared his computer knowledge and equipment. He is an inspiring teacher who is intelligent, creative, principled and altruistic. Lynn is my best friend, my lover and husband. He is a truly generous and extraordinary man.

Three friends were essential in producing Affair-Proof Your Marriage . They gave of their extraordinary talents and expertise without hesitation, time after time. They are Greg Hawes, Judy Dreis and Jeanne Brunette.

I appreciate the love, support, and advice of my family: Mildred Ribble, Letha Staheli, Todd Staheli, Diane Staheli, Linda Staheli, David Abramowitz and Bruce and Kim Ribble.

I am grateful to those who generously donated their time and energy to help me create this book: Mary Jane Hansen, Charlene Butler, Deb Healy, Suzanne Peterson, A. Jean Crawford, David McFadden, Sharon Lee, Linda Kowalski, Lee Ellis and Alan Edelson. I appreciate our son, Todd, for making sure all the graphs accurately reflect the data.

Everything in our life works better because of our life-support system: Juli Verdieck, Sue Chadderton, Emily Wilson and Jay Wente. Marc Weinsteins work in research support was very valuable.

I thank my freelance team: Angela Turk, Brandy Poirer, Charles Reidy, June Rugh and Gary Graf for their technical and creative efforts on the first edition of Affair-Proof Your Marriage .

I want the information in Affair-Proof Your Marriage to be accessible to people and toward that goal I am indebted to Carey Quan Gelernter, Seattle Times staff reporter, who wrote a very informative article, When the Heart Strays , which was syndicated by Knight-Ridder and appeared in newspapers throughout the country.

I appreciate the work of my editors, Diane Reverand and Meaghan Dowling, and the others at HarperCollins who worked on Affair-Proof Your Marriage . It has been a pleasure to work with these extraordinarily talented people. I am delighted with the work of my agent, Patti Breitman, who is warm, efficient and effective.

I hope the information in Affair-Proof Your Marriage will give you perspective on love, sex and infidelity. I explain why affairs happen and offer advice on how to avoid or resolve this painful situation. My book offers advice to affairees on what and what not to expect from an affair. I also suggest how to affair-proof your marriage!

Nearly everyone knows someone who has had an extramarital affair. Affairs touch over 60% of all marriages. Most people do not believe they or their spouse would have an affair, but the facts say otherwise. Anyone can be a casualty of an affair. No one is immune.

Sixty percent of marriages are affected by extramarital affairs. We all need to know the facts.

Men and women, singles and couples alike, should know the facts:

• Those who have affairs are more likely to divorce.
• 80% of those who divorce during an affair ultimately regret their decision.
• Affairees rarely marry one another, and those who dodivorce again.

Single men and women should know that waiting for a married lover to divorce leads to disappointment and heartbreak. Those who are happily married should know that marital happiness does not eliminate the possibility of an affair. Those who are even mildly unhappy should take heedaffairs are commonplace, easy and devastating. If you are unhappy with your marriage, it is far better to work to resolve the marriage problems or end the marriage before starting a new relationship. Affairs do not solve problems.

I wrote Affair-Proof Your Marriage because marriages all around me were being rocked by affairs. In the course of one year three of our friends divorced and in each situation one of the spouses was having an affair. In my counseling practice ten couples were struggling with affair-related problems. Affairs do break up marriages. For instance, our friends Ed and Lisa seemed to have a strong, loving marriage. Then Ed met Sarah during a business trip. They chatted over a drink and agreed to have dinner the following night. After dinner Sarah invited Ed to her room. They had the most incredible sex Ed had ever experienced. Six weeks later Ed asked Lisa, his wife of fourteen years, for a divorce. Ed was consumed with thoughts of Sarah and could not imagine his life without her.

Lisa had always feared divorce. Her life was so much better than she ever expected that she thought it could never last. Her fears led her to be quick and aggressive in pursuit of the divorce she didnt want. She explained, I cant just stand by and let this happen to me. I have to do something. Every day is agony, and the nights seem to last forever.

We watched as our friends lives were shattered. Lisa was gripped by depression and anxiety. Sarah was worried that Eds friends would turn him against her so she insisted he choose between them and her, creating loneliness and alienation for Ed.

Four years after their divorce Lisa has rebuilt her life. She says, I miss Ed desperately. It is still hard for me to believe this has happened to us. I dont even know what to regret, because I dont know what went wrong. I thought we were happy. We had our spats but we were good friends.

Lisa has dated a few men over the past years but finds it difficult to have confidence in a man or in a relationship.

Ed has gained a lot of weight and spends most of his time working. As for Sarah, her friends say she worries that someday Ed will leave her . Sarah entertains several times a week trying to make new friends and keep Ed busy.

As much as I wanted to help my friends, I could not refer them to any facts on what usually happens, on what to do, how to cope or how to fight for their marriage. I dont know if divorce was the right choice for Ed but I am sure the way he went about it was more destructive than necessary.

I wrote Affair-Proof Your Marriage to provide a condensed review of the research facts with the hope that it will save you from the agony Ed and Lisa experienced. Some facts are clearer than others. It is clear that most affairs last between two and three years. On the other hand, no one knows exact numbers when it comes to peoples sexual behavior. A sampling of studies shows that the number of people who have had extramarital affairs ranges from 25% to 72%. Studies reflecting the general population show a lower frequency of affairs than those drawing from a more affluent population. For example, when upper income subscribers to Playboy or New Woman are queried, a higher incidence of infidelity is reported. In her 1989 book Women and Love , Shere Hite, Ph.D., reported that 70% of women married more than five years had admitted to extramarital sex. The respondents to this survey were more affluent and better educated than the American population as a whole.

CHART 1 Results from Surveys on Percentage of People Who Have Extramarital Sex

The Kinsey Report found that the first time people were asked if they had been unfaithful 30% admitted they had. When they were questioned more thoroughly, another 30% confessed to extramarital sex, bringing the total to 60%, indicating a reluctance to admit to infidelity even for a scientific survey. While I dont know the exact percentage of marriages affected by infidelity, I think the percentage of people under 60 who have affairs is 50-60% for men and 40-50% for women.