How Do Most Affairs End? 7 Most Common Reasons

Commitment and loyalty are often two major aspects of a romantic relationship. Unfortunately, in some relationships, one of the partners decides to not honor this commitment. And that’s how affairs are born.

While the cheating partner may claim a number of different excuses for their affair, it is always a decision they make that ends up causing the most harm to their significant other. It consumes the cheating partner with guilt and causes the injured party to experience symptoms similar to PTSD. But how do most affairs end? Let’s find out.

How Do Most Affairs End? 7 Reasons

1. The Affair Is Discovered

This is perhaps the most common answer to how do most affairs end.

Discovering sexy texts on the phone, suspicious spending, the lover’s perfume lingering on clothes, or a confession driven by guilt — there are just a few of the many giveaways that scream infidelity. Sometimes, if the affair partner feels spurned or has fallen in love with the cheater, they could get in contact with the cheater’s significant other and spill the beans.

Affairs never stay hidden. Somewhere along the line, someone is going to mess up.

More often than not, once the affair is discovered, it will end. Either the injured partner may decide to give the cheater another chance or the cheater may feel riddled with guilt and shame and want to stay away from their affair partner.

2. The Affair Makes The Cheater Want to Invest in Their Marriage

As bizarre as it sounds, sometimes, an affair can make a marriage come out stronger. This is because a cheating partner often starts comparing their significant other with the affair partner. And they may start realizing that their significant other is the one person they want to stay with, thus appreciating them more. It’s not ideal but it can be a path to healing.

Many marriages do survive infidelity and the road to recovery is long but it’s worth the effort if both partners decide to commit to their relationship. Rebuilding the lost trust will take time and lots of counseling, and couples might even go through brief periods of separation before the relationship gets back on track.

This process can be grueling, but having a neutral third party can help make it linear.

3. The Breach of Trust Leads to Divorce and Loss of The Relationship

When an affair is discovered and the cheating partner has hurt their spouse beyond redemption, it could mean one of two things: a divorce or divorce and loss of a relationship.

The marriage may end in a divorce because the spouse has had enough of all the lying and cheating or has fallen out of love. After the divorce, the affair couple often ends up marrying and it typically ends up with one of the partners starting another affair. As they say, once a cheater always a cheater.

On the other hand, if the lover did not know about the significant other, the cheater may lose the affair too. In this case, all parties will go their separate ways and possibly continue to hold contempt for each other.

4. Feelings of Guilt and Regret Consume You

If the cheating partner has the smallest shred of conscience, they will be drowning in feelings of guilt, shame, and regret about what they have done to their significant other. This may even manifest in their behavior.

For example, the cheater may go out of their way to be nice to their significant other, showering them with gifts and date nights, or even offer excessive justifications to cover their infidelity.
Over time, this sketchy behavior will either reveal their affair or become a reason for them to call off the affair.

5. The Involved Pair Doesn’t Really Know Each Other

Spontaneous hookups may feel exciting, but you don’t truly know the other person outside of momentary pleasure. You see their fun parts, not having to share any real-life worries with them, so there’s a lack of an emotional connection.

This is because the cheater often sees their affair partner as an escape. The moment they see them as more than just someone who caters to their needs, they start losing your attraction toward them.

This inevitably leads to the end of an affair.

6. The Novel, Exciting Feeling Becomes Commonplace

Affairs are sneaky and secretive, which leads to an adrenaline rush or a feeling of thrill. The excitement of doing something you’re not supposed to entice most people to continue the affair.

As excitement releases endorphins (the feel-good chemical), it makes you feel on top of the world — as if you can get away with anything.

However, this feeling doesn’t last long.

Once you spend more time with someone and get used to them, the novelty wears off. There is no excitement anymore, things seem repetitive, and even the sex seems bland — reality sets in, the very thing you were running away from by starting the affair.

7. The Relationship Was Built on Negative Emotions

Marriages can be a lot of work; they can sometimes leave you feeling miserable and unwanted. When that happens, many people want to vent, feel like they’re heard, to get that heavy load off their chest. And when they find someone who listens and claims to understand them, which could be because they themselves are in an unhappy marriage, some attraction develops.

The cheating partner starts rationalizing that this other person is doing for them what their spouse isn’t. So, instead of working on their marriage, this temporary escape from the stress of their marriage becomes appealing, and before you know it, they’ve started an affair.

But this excitement and giddy feeling that comes with a new relationship will soon disappear because the only thing that was binding the affair couple together is a shared misery. And trash-talking each other’s partners or venting about marriage frustrations can only last so long.

Eventually, they start noticing faults in each other and the affair ends.