Can An Affair Ever Turn Into An Honest, Healthy And Long-Lasting Relationship?

There’s that old saying that goes, “once a cheater, always a cheater.” No matter how you put it – cheating is cheating and most people can no longer fully trust their partners once they learned about their affairs. Although forming a serious relationship with someone you cheated with is not ideal, the truth is –it happens. And rarely, there’s a happy ending to it.

Despite the fact that infidelity is a subject that’s highly frowned upon, there are couples — famous celebrities, for instance — whose long-lasting relationships started out as an affair. You might also know someone personally who have the same story, which makes you question, “can an affair ever turn into an honest and healthy relationship?”

It is often assumed that affairs won’t last long.

Many believe couples who met through cheating will always have trust issues.

Despite the stigma surrounding infidelity, many couples have successfully managed to turn their affairs into a healthy, lasting relationship. Actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s romance, for instance, is proof that not all affairs end up badly. The two met when Newman was still married to his first wife. He left her for Woodward, with whom he had three children.

Newman and Woodward stayed married for 50 years until his death in 2008.

Experts say that having an affair doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship is doomed to fail. What matters is how the couple can make sure that the same thing will never happen again.

Relationship expert and The Breakup Bible author, Rachel Sussman, reveals that the main problem for affair couples is their fear of having history repeat itself.

“Your relationship started out with some deceit, with some lies and a big problem affair couples have is they tend to be jealous and suspicious of each other because they know that person is capable of cheating.”

Couples who met through an affair should get to the root of why they’d cheated with their exes in the first place if they want their new relationship to last. Although, in general, cheating is not ideal, the circumstances of why people had been unfaithful make the difference.

Sussman noted that someone who cheated for the reason that he or she was treated badly or heavily neglected in the previous relationship has better chances of finding long-lasting love with the person he or she cheated with compared to someone who cheats out of sexual boredom.

Experts agree that the key to making an unhealthy affair blossom into a healthy lasting relationship is communication.

It is important for couples to openly discuss, with or without professional help, why they resulted to cheating in the first place. They need to figure out what went wrong in the previous relationship, what can be done to prevent it from happening again and how they can make things much better this time.

Do you know of anyone who’s successfully turned an affair into an honest relationship? What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below.