Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. English Standard Version (ESV)

"Men and women have affairs for many different reasons, but a common complaint of both sexes is the lack of praise and the abundance of criticism from their spouses."

“Getting in touch with true feelings and being able to communicate them to the spouse is a key to recovery and comprehensive restoration of the relationship.”

“It is inevitable that conflict will arise between the two of you in the future, regardless of what happens to the marriage. The less able the two of you are to resolve your own differences, the more fractured your children will be. Unresolved parental conflict causes children to take sides, a destructive pattern.”

“While the type or extent of the adultery may vary—the one‐night stand versus the entangled, emotional relationship versus the sexual addict or predator—the bottom line is the same: You have been sinned against. You are suffering.”

“No matter how well you know your Bible, in the coming days you will need fresh servings of daily bread. Don’t rest on past grace. Believe that God wants to meet with you now in new ways.”

“If you are going to live together in harmony in the future, you need to live together differently. It’s time to start over. … The most sacred aspects of this marriage have already been violated. Now you both have to begin to rebuild.”

“In most cases it will take the spouse as long to recover as it took the infidel to get into and out of the affair.”

“The infidelity itself changes the way members of the family relate to each other; they begin to keep secrets from each other or develop unbalanced relationships … Overall, with affairs, no one in the family is left untouched—that’s how devastating the breaking of the marriage vow is.”

“The initial revelation of the affair produces a crisis experience. The natural response—indeed the healthy response—is anger. There are both positive and negative aspects of this anger.”

“Because an affair produces so much turmoil, it is difficult to spell out an ideal process that works for every family. The bottom line is that you are trying to make the best decision in a very bad situation. … It’s easy for the well‐intentioned but emotionally uninvolved people around you to provide simplistic answers. There is no perfect solution to every lousy situation.”

“As you and your mate restructure the intimacy in your marriage, realize that it’s going to be two‐steps‐forward, one‐step‐backward progress. … It won’t happen overnight; in an ultimate sense you’ll never be completely over the affair. Trauma always changes people, and it should.”

“Hedges will protect your marriage from the intrusion of external temptations as well as provide internal support structures, keeping the bad things out and the good things in. ‘A man planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it’ (Mark 12:1).”

“At discovery, the spouse’s emotions are usually intense. The anger, hurt, bewilderment, betrayal, and numbing shock are almost overwhelming. … If denied, that anger goes underground and eats away at the innermost spirit of the person. It is very important for the violated spouse to be free to express the rage that he or she feels.”

“It’s a lot easier to trash the marriage and for both parties to flee the difficulty of reconstructing the relationship. Yet to divorce now means that you only take all this unfinished business with you. It will require you to work on this by yourself. Should you refuse and try to bury it, it will contaminate all future relationships you might develop.”

“Adultery or any form of sexual immorality should be viewed as a serious breaking of the covenant of marriage … Few adulterers want to do much more than patch a leaky boat … He should be under the careful and passionate eyes of a mature group of believers and a therapist.”

“In marriages that have suffered an affair, it is critical during the recovery process for both partners to develop close, same‐sex relationships to supplement the marriage relationship. Those outside relationships can provide much of the nurturance, empathy, mutual support, and affirmation that both individuals need.”

“Emotional adultery is unfaithfulness of the heart. It starts when two people of the opposite sex begin talking with each other about intimate struggles, doubts, or feelings. They start sharing their souls in a way that God intended exclusively for the marriage relationship. Emotional adultery is friendship with the opposite sex that goes too far.”

“I know several couples who experienced adultery in their marriages, but because in each case there was a wife who was willing to pray and a husband open to allowing God to change and restore him, the marriages are still intact and successful today.  Only prayer, a submitted heart, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can work those kinds of miracles.”