Affairs can ruin a marriage, breaking the trust and the foundation that love once stood on. But for one couple, an affair actually brought them closer together. Charity Craig credits her husband's cheating for ultimately saving their marriage and making it stronger.
Valentine's Day in 2013 was her first date with her husband, Matt Craig, after he cheated on her during their marriage. And since then, the couple have been thriving. Charity, who is now a marriage coach, uses her platform to share their story and paint a different picture of how affairs don't have to end a marriage.
“It was awkward, but it was part of a healing process,” Matt said of their first date after his affair. “You can’t expect things to go back to the way they were. And I didn’t want things to go back, and neither did she.”
After her husband's affair in 2012, Charity said it made her start to work on herself more. “It dawned on me he’s not my enemy," she said. "We’re both just humans with deep wounds, and that’s where we started healing.”
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Through the advice she's shared on her platform, the marriage coach stresses that focusing on "the other woman" gets in the way of actually healing. “Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum,” Charity said. “Once you heal yourself and your marriage, 10,000 women can walk past my husband, and he’s not going to blink an eye because he’s not looking for an escape.”
Dr. Talal H. Alsaleem, author of Infidelity: The Best Worst Thing that Could Happen to Your Marriage, agrees with Charity that infidelity can be a result of circumstances that often have little to do with "the third party." Three main factors that he says can lead to cheating are 1) if the person has a personality disorder, sex addictions, or past trauma; 2) environmental issues, such as a stressful career; and 3) how happy the person is with their partner.
"It's like having a heart attack. The trauma of infidelity forces the couple to look at those issues that led them to this point," he said. "Either they address those issues in a healthy, successful way or realize this is a relationship they should have exited a long time ago."
He also added that couples should refrain from going public with their situation if they decide to stay together. Charity agrees that others got in the way of her and Matt's healing, wanting them to just get a divorce. “They acted more hurt and betrayed than I did,” she said. “People hate seeing how broken and shattered you are.”
After Matt's affair, he left for about six months before the couple decided to try to work things out. Charity started with therapy, then both used therapy. They also started dissecting the whys of what led to his cheating.
“You want life to be perfect, but life is life and people are people,” Matt said. “You are going to run into the same issues when you run from yourself. We talk about the affair in a more retrospective way now. We’ve actually been married longer after the affair than before it.”
