Many different things can lead to a couple deciding to bring their marriage to an end. One of these things is infidelity. However, infidelity doesn’t always prove fatal to a marriage. A recent study indicates that there is one thing in particular that may make a couple more likely to be able to patch things up after an incident of infidelity: the perpetrator of the infidelity coming clean about the incident.
Researchers from the University of Washington and UCLA conducted the study. The study’s subjects were 134 married couples. The couples received various forms of counseling and the researchers tracked the couples for five years.
During the study, 19 of the married couples had infidelity incidents occur. For about three-fourths of these couples, knowledge of the infidelity was out in the open. For the others, it was kept in secret.
The researchers found that, by study’s end, 80 percent of the couples that had infidelity incidents that were kept in secret were divorced, whereas only 43 percent of the couples that had infidelity incidents that had been confessed were divorced.
Researchers postulate that having infidelity confessed can put a couple in a better position to work through their issues than would be the case if it was kept in secret and later discovered, and that this might be what was behind the study’s results.
Of course, there are instances in which married couples simply aren’t able to work things out after infidelity. When a couple gets divorced in relation to infidelity, emotions can run very high. An important thing to remember is that, in any divorce, it is vital to keep a level head when going through negotiations and proceedings regarding the various legal issues of the divorce and not let anger rule one’s decision-making regarding these issues, as what happens when it comes to these issues can have significant effects on one’s post-divorce life.
Source: The Huffington Post, “New Study Reveals Secret To Saving Your Marriage After Infidelity,” Taryn Hillin, April 22, 2014