Extramarital affairs: clinical approaches in marital therapy

Extramarital sexual relationships constitute one of the most common problems encountered in marital therapy. They present both of the marital partners with highly emotionally charged dilemmas that must be resolved. Once believed to occur because a married person was weak, immoral, or neurotic, they are now understood to occur because of a variety of reasons. While almost a third of these cases end in divorce, others respond to appropriate treatment so that the marriages may be maintained, although with varying degrees of happiness for these couples. Countertransference issues for therapists are major issues in treating these couples and may require special referral procedures.