What percentage of marriages or relationships will be affected by infidelity?

Our best estimates, which come from studies done in the last five to ten years, reveal that 45-50% of married women and 50-60% of married men engage in extramarital at some point in their relationship. So somewhere around half of all Long-Term Love Relationships (LTLRs) are marked by this ultimate betrayal.

Sometimes when people engage in an infidelity they tell themselves that they had no choice, that their marriage was so bad, that their spouse drove them to it. But that is never true. There’s always a choice, and infidelity is never the right one. It has a shattering, destructive effect on the LTLR, even when the infidelity is kept secret. Of course, in those cases where the infidelity is revealed or discovered it has a heartbreaking effect on the betrayed spouse. And whether an infidelity is discovered or not, it does serious damage to the integrity and self-respect of the betraying partner.

The author of Intimacy after Infidelity: How to Rebuild and Affair-Proof Your Marriage (2007, New Harbinger Publications), Dr. Solomon received his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (Los Angeles). He has been in private practice in San Diego and La Jolla, California for more than 20 years.