Dr. Linda Helps - Ann could not believe she allowed the affair to happen. She risked losing her 10-year marriage over a man she didn't love. He was Ann's co-worker and his flirting made her feel sexy and desirable, two things she felt were absent in her relationship with her husband. Ann ate up the attention, the intimacy grew, and she found her attraction to this co-worker growing. Late at work one night, she gave in.

Approximately 25 percent of women have engaged in at least one extra-marital sexual experience (Glass and Wright, 1992). Usually, these women feel their physical and emotional needs are not being met in marriage. With more independence, economic power, birth control, and opportunity, women can find themselves in compromised positions.

Unfaithful women tend to have lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression compared to women who remain faithful. An affair can result from intimacy problems, difficulties at work, dissatisfaction with life, fear of aging, birth of children, family problems, low self-esteem, and loneliness. Sometimes, women have affairs for fun or sexual experimentation. In a few cases, affairs are retaliatory stemming from a wish for relationship revenge, anger, or fear.

Affairs are damaging to any marriage. Women, like men, must be careful to guard their hearts and not fall prey to extra-marital relationships.

10 Tips to Help You Stay True to Your Vows

• Do not cover up or hide a conversation, action, or flirtation from your spouse. Confess it!
• Stop seeing the person to whom you are attracted. Refuse lunch dates. Do not meet for breaks. Avoid his work area.
• If you cannot avoid the person all together, only be with him in a group of people.
• Stop all communication: no e-mails, letters, phone calls, etc.
• Be accountable to another woman about your feelings and struggles. Have her pray with you and encourage righteous living.
• Do not act on your feelings. When someone meets unmet needs, it feels good. Think with your head not your heart.
• Consider individual and/or marital therapy to get at the root of your dissatisfaction. Solve the problems in your marriage.
• Focus on the positive aspects of your marital relationship. Befriend those committed to faithfulness.
• Stop fantasizing and begin to think of the negative consequences of your actions.
• Stay intimate with God. Do not be deceived. Guard your heart and mind through prayer and reading the Word.

Dr. Mintle – author, professor, Approved Supervisor and Clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – is a speaker and media personality, as well as a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years in psychotherapy practice.

For more articles and information, visit Dr. Linda Mintle's Web site.