Should she cut all contact with him?
5 min read
Yes, absolutely. Cutting all contact with the affair partner is non-negotiable for genuine marriage recovery. This isn't just a suggestion—it's a requirement if you're serious about rebuilding trust and intimacy with your husband. Any ongoing contact, no matter how "innocent" it may seem, keeps the door open to temptation and prevents the emotional detachment necessary for healing. Your marriage cannot compete with an active alternative. The affair partner must become a complete stranger in your life—no texts, calls, social media connections, or "checking in" to see how he's doing. This total separation creates the space your marriage needs to breathe and recover.
The Full Picture
Let me be crystal clear: there is no scenario where maintaining contact with the affair partner helps your marriage recover. None. The "we can be friends" fantasy is exactly that—a fantasy that destroys marriages.
Here's what continued contact actually does: It keeps you emotionally invested in someone who isn't your husband. It maintains neural pathways in your brain that connect excitement and intimacy with another man. It sends a clear message to your husband that you're not fully committed to rebuilding your marriage. Most importantly, it prevents you from doing the hard work of falling back in love with your spouse.
Every text, every "harmless" conversation, every social media interaction is a choice against your marriage. Your husband knows this, even if he doesn't say it. He can sense when you're still connected to someone else, and it's killing his ability to trust and open his heart to you again.
The affair partner served a purpose in your life—he filled gaps that existed in your marriage or in yourself. But those gaps must now be filled by doing the work with your husband or addressing your own personal issues. The affair partner cannot and will not solve the problems that led to the affair in the first place.
Complete no contact means: Block his number, delete his social media, avoid places where you might encounter him, and refuse any attempts he makes to reach out. If you work together, keep interactions strictly professional with witnesses present. If you share social circles, be prepared to make sacrifices to protect your marriage.
Remember: You cannot rebuild trust while actively maintaining the very relationship that destroyed it.
What's Really Happening
From a neurological perspective, affairs create powerful addiction-like patterns in the brain. The combination of secrecy, excitement, and intermittent reinforcement floods the brain with dopamine, creating what we call a "trauma bond" with the affair partner. Continued contact, even innocent contact, reactivates these neural pathways and maintains the chemical dependence.
When someone maintains contact with an affair partner while trying to rebuild their marriage, they're essentially asking their brain to form competing attachment systems. This creates cognitive dissonance and prevents the neuroplasticity necessary for genuine reconnection with their spouse. The brain cannot simultaneously detach from one person while maintaining connection with them.
Moreover, the betrayed spouse's nervous system remains in a hypervigilant state when they sense continued connection to the affair partner. Their brain interprets any ongoing contact as an active threat, making it physiologically impossible for them to relax into //blog.bobgerace.com/sacred-sexuality-christian-marriage-resurrect-bedroom/:intimacy and trust. This keeps both partners stuck in trauma responses rather than moving toward healing.
The no-contact rule isn't punishment—it's neuroscience. The brain needs approximately 90 days of complete separation to begin breaking down the chemical pathways associated with the affair partner. Only then can the real work of marriage recovery begin, as the brain becomes available to form new, healthy patterns of connection with the spouse.
What Scripture Says
Scripture is uncompromising about the seriousness of adultery and the complete repentance required for restoration. God's design for marriage demands total faithfulness and the elimination of threats to that covenant.
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (Proverbs 4:23). Maintaining contact with an affair partner is the opposite of guarding your heart—it's deliberately exposing it to temptation and contamination.
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality" (Ephesians 5:3). Not even a hint. Continued contact with an affair partner creates much more than a hint—it maintains an open door to further betrayal.
"Flee from sexual immorality" (1 Corinthians 6:18). The word "flee" means to run away quickly, not to maintain friendly contact or try to manage temptation through willpower. God commands us to remove ourselves completely from situations that compromise our marital purity.
"If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away" (Matthew 5:29). Jesus uses extreme language to communicate that we must be ruthless in eliminating sources of temptation. An affair partner is exactly this kind of stumbling block.
"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mark 10:9). Every contact with an affair partner is an act of separation, a wedge driven between what God has united.
"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out" (Acts 3:19). True repentance requires a complete turning away from sin, not managing or minimizing it.
What To Do Right Now
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Block his phone number and delete all previous conversations immediately
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Remove him from all social media platforms and block his accounts
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Delete his contact information from all devices and accounts
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Identify and avoid places where you might encounter him socially
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Tell your husband exactly what steps you've taken to cut contact
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Create accountability with a trusted friend who will ask about your commitment to no contact
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