Or fail at forming one. An affair, if understood at its deepest level, can help a marriage. A marriage where one or both of the partners have unexpressed and unmet needs is not a marriage where intimacy exists. What we learn about ourselves on a sexual detour and are able to integrate into our lives may enrich and strengthen our marriage. When an affair ends, a real marriage may actually begin.
Many marriages begin with intimacy but lose it somewhere along the way.
In an attempt to find it again, we may look for intimacy in an affair. Intimacy, however, is not baggage we transfer from one place to another or one relationship to another. It is built step by step. In forgoing an attempt to rebuild intimacy within a marriage by looking for it in an affair, we forgo the potential intimacy that marriage may have to offer. Sex in the marriage has failed and is over .