The Hidden Cost of Affairs

Affairs don’t just break trust - they come with a price tag. And it’s higher than most people imagine.

• A study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that infidelity is one of the top predictors of divorce — and divorce itself costs Australians, on average, $14,000–$20,000 in legal fees alone (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022).

• Emotional costs are harder to measure, but they’re immense. Infidelity is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms in the betrayed partner (American Psychological Association, 2018).

• Families feel it too: research shows children exposed to high-conflict breakups or affairs experience long-term impacts on emotional security and attachment (Journal of Family Psychology, 2019).

And here’s the paradox: the couples who survive an affair also invest the most - in therapy, in raw honesty, in rebuilding from the ground up.

Those couples sometimes create a stronger, more intentional relationship than the one that was broken.

So when people ask me, “Is an affair worth it?”, my answer is simple: The cost is almost always higher than you think.

Reflection Question:

What do you think: Is the emotional cost of an affair greater than the financial one?