What is the probability of a second affair after a man has cheated once?

I often hear from women dealing with infidelity who admit that, in a perfect world, they wish they could one day save their marriage. But of course, almost everyone has reservations and doubts. One of the biggest concerns I hear is the fear of repeat cheating. It’s completely normal to worry that the very second you allow yourself to trust him again, he’ll cheat on you again and completely tear you apart. The fear is so great and so real that some people consider not trying to save the marriage for fear of the second adventure.

Someone might say, “I need to know the probability that my husband will cheat on me again. He swears he won’t. He’s saying and doing the right things. And yet I can’t bring myself to trust him completely. I’m always on my guard. Trying to get through this process has taken everything from me. It has shattered what I thought I knew about my husband and my marriage. I am suspicious of everyone and everything. I see the world as a hostile place. now and never before. It has put a dark cloud over everything. I’m trying to recover slowly, but it’s been crippling. I can’t do this again. My husband swears he would never put himself in this position again. I want to believe him. But he found a way to cheat once. time, so who’s to say he won’t cheat again?What do the statistics say about the likelihood of a second fling?

If you have looked, you have surely seen that the statistics vary. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an agreement. I have seen three sets of stats. One indicated that only 22 percent of people cheated more than once. Another contradicted him, saying that up to 55 percent of people repeat cheats. In addition, there was an online survey of people who had affairs and 60 percent of them said that they had been unfaithful more than once. (I’d take this with a grain of salt, as people who are online and willing to talk about their infidelity may be a different subset from people who just want to get on with their lives.) However, as you can see, the statistics vary widely, but can go as high as about half of cheaters will cheat again. And you can get as little as 1/4.

I understand why you want to know about statistics. I can drop a lot of statistics on issues and their recovery because I did a lot of research due to my own experience. But I can tell you something else. You can read statistics all day long, but in truth, they have no impact on your life. Just because a certain number of other couples have an experience, that doesn’t mean you will.

The best indicator of whether you will face another affair is not what happens with other couples, but what happens with your husband, with yourself, and with your recovery. I can tell you something else that I learned. You can only do as much as humanly possible and there are no guarantees yet, but it gets better. Time is a wonderful tool with this. Early in our recovery, I was always worried about the slightest perception of cheating. Most of the time, it was just my suspicions working overtime. But over time, you begin to see that your first fears are not coming true and you allow yourself to relax a little more. And one day, you realize that if you do the counseling, if you insist that your husband take responsibility and be rehabilitated, and if you work on yourself and become as strong as possible, then at some point you just have to take a breath and know that you can’t control this completely. You can and should make your marriage and recovery as strong as possible. And you should always be alert. If my husband were to start acting strange tomorrow or showing disturbing behavior, of course I would be concerned and look into that. But I no longer want to live my life always on guard. My husband and I work long enough and hard enough that I feel safe releasing just a little. If my husband’s behavior made it necessary for me to change, then he would, but I got tired of living my life for fear of tomorrow.

You are at the beginning of this process, so you haven’t had the advantage of time yet. But if you are still involved in your marriage, then you can only make sure that you get all the help you need and do everything you can to get yourself and your husband back on track. You can be clear about your expectations and you can make each of them come true. And at some point, you just have to exhale and know that if the worst comes to the worst, then you’ll handle it, but you’re not going to compromise the rest of your life by always living with suspicion and walking on eggshells. Only you will know when you have reached this point. Usually a little healing is needed first.