No good moral person gets up in the morning, looks out the window, and says, "Wow, this is a great day! I think I'll go out and commit adultery." But the tragedy is that many good, people do get involved in affairs.

Sooner or later, most of them would like to get out but are unsure of how to do so. Many also have mates who are asking for guidance about how to help their spouses end the affair. Success in helping people get out of an affair depends, to some degree, on which stage of the relationship they are in.

Stages Of An Affair

Affairs tend to follow a general pattern. First is the secretive excitement, the sense that "someone really loves and understands me." For a short period of time, life takes on a powerful exhilaration that is a sharp contrast to the pressures, stresses, and drabness of the previous few months or years.

Then the affair settles into a second phase--routine meetings, letters, and phone calls. In this phase there develops a growing sense that the affair is only meeting part of life's needs. For example, a man writes, "My relationship with this young woman is all that I've ever wanted in a relationship. Yet, if I stay with her, I will lose my children and my friends. I'll experience rejection of my extended family--plus I'll lose some of my business, since I am a marriage and family counselor."

The third stage of many affairs is one of heavy confusion. One part of the person says, "I know it would be best if I would get out of this and work on other healthy relationships--or work on my marriage." Knowing that the affair is sin begins to weigh heavier. The dark side of the personality is being pulled, because the person feels certain needs are being met through the affair. As the song says, the person is "torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool."

Ask yourself, "What are my mate's changing needs? How can I meet those needs so that my mate is a happier, more fulfilled person?"

• Think about changing yourself. Are there things about you that irritate your mate? Are you a growing, thinking person, stimulating to be around? Are there an extra twenty-five or fifty pounds that you ought to shed? Are you living your life out of habit and dull routine when a small change could bring greater marriage satisfaction?
• Become a friend to your mate, not a mother, father, or conscience!
• Help your spouse reduce stress and accomplish the goals that he or she has set for life.
• Forgive your partner! Forgiveness means, "I know what has happened is wrong, and I grant you forgiveness because Christ has forgiven me."
• Now, resolutely leave the past behind. Apply Philippians 3:13: "Forgetting what lies behind, reaching forward to what lies ahead." Leave the affair and all of the misery of the past with God. Don't hold it as a club poised over your mate's head, waiting to pound when he or she doesn't do something that you want.