Hard Problems

The Triple A Problems: Affairs, Addictions, and Abuse

There was a time when divorce was rare, and when it happened, it was almost always for one of what I call the Triple A problems: affairs, addictions, or abuse. Someone was chronically unfaithful. Someone was repeatedly drunk. Someone was physically violent. In 19th century America there was a fourth reason too, desertion, when a husband simply went west and never came back.

I think of affairs, addictions, and abuse as the “hard” reasons for divorce, because they represent behaviors that reach into a spouse’s, and often a child’s, basic dignity and safety. In their fullest form, they’re intolerable to live alongside and still have a healthy life. But as I’ll get to, the presence of one of these problems doesn’t automatically mean the marriage is over. There’s often still hope.

We now live in the era of the “soft” reasons for divorce. In my own research, and in work that echoes it, the most common explanations people give are growing apart (55%), difficulty talking together (53%), money (40%), a spouse’s personal problems (37%), not feeling enough attention (34%), sexual problems (24%), and mismatched tastes or preferences (23%).

None of that is trivial. These problems cause real pain. But they sit at a distance from the Triple A’s. Some couples learn to live within these limitations and build a genuinely healthy life together. Others get help and see real improvement, provided both spouses are willing to do the work.

What I want to focus on here are the hard problems, because they remain common. In my research, infidelity was named by 37% of divorcing people, substance problems by 22%, and physical violence by 13% (including 18% of wives). That’s a significant number of marriages, and it’s safe to assume most of them are carrying the soft problems too.

Most of what follows is about trying to save the marriage. But there are situations where leaving now is the right call:

If you’re in danger of being hit, or living under coercive control, meaning your spouse unilaterally restricts who you can see, what you wear, or where you go.
If your spouse won’t commit to ending an affair.
If your spouse flatly refuses to address an addiction that has reached the point of undermining their ability to function as a spouse, parent, worker, or friend.

Here’s the deeper point, though. It isn’t really the presence of one of these problems that dooms a marriage. It’s the unwillingness, or inability, to commit to changing it.

Affairs

There’s a common belief that an affair ends a marriage automatically. You’ve likely heard someone say, “If my spouse ever cheated, I’d be gone.” But affairs vary enormously. Some are a single lapse the person deeply regrets and is unlikely to repeat. There’s little reason to end an otherwise strong marriage over that. Some affairs have less to do with the marriage itself and more to do with a personal crisis, a kind of self-medication for pain the person hasn’t found another way through. And some are part of an ongoing pattern the unfaithful spouse isn’t willing to give up. What matters most, again, is whether there’s real motivation to change.

I once spoke with a British lord who reflected, half amused, on how fragile modern marriages had become. “A frightful thing these young people are doing,” he said, “throwing away a perfectly good marriage simply because they fall in love with somebody else.” It was an old-world instinct: if your spouse strays, slow down before you dismantle everything, and see whether the marriage can still be repaired.

Here’s something worth knowing. Research shows infidelity doesn’t predict whether marriage counseling succeeds, and its presence doesn’t make the average divorcing spouse any less open to reconciliation. It’s deeply painful, of course. But many couples recover, if both are willing to do the work of healing. Affairs become fatal only when someone refuses to try, or gives up trying. Plenty of marriages come out the other side stronger.

Addictions

The same holds for addiction. Effective treatments exist, and many people go on to build healthy lives and strong marriages after recovery. What actually destroys a marriage isn’t the addiction itself so much as the addicted spouse’s denial, blame, and refusal or inability to follow through with treatment and support, something like AA.

On the other side, what destroys marriages is the non-addicted spouse’s inability to reckon honestly with how distorted their own patterns have become around the addiction: enabling, codependency, forming coalitions with other family members against the addicted spouse. Both people have to commit to real change. When that happens, it can become something remarkable, a marriage built on unusual honesty and intimacy.

Abuse

Abuse is the most complicated of the three. The danger can be immediate, and abused spouses, women in particular, often carry an unearned sense that they deserved it. My view on responsibility is simple: the choice to be violent or coercively controlling belongs entirely to the person who makes it. Even in a difficult relationship, and every relationship has its difficulties, there is always another response available besides hitting or intimidating a partner. If you’re in that situation, you need to seek help and decide you won’t accept it any longer. If asserting that puts you in danger, then leaving is the right call.

Research distinguishes two forms of intimate partner violence: ordinary partner violence and intimate terrorism. The latter involves one partner, usually a man, dominating and intimidating the other through coercive control, with or without physical violence. It accounts for roughly 10% of abusive relationships.

Ordinary domestic violence looks different. It typically involves both partners, and it grows out of poor impulse control and an inability to manage conflict before it escalates into screaming, insults, and eventually violence. Both people usually feel remorse afterward, and there tend to be long stretches without incident. Coercive control is largely absent. Still, this form of violence is genuinely dangerous, emotionally and physically, and it can leave lasting harm on adults and children alike. That’s why it belongs among the hard problems.

If you’re facing intimate terrorism, most experts agree there’s little choice but to leave, as safely as possible, using every resource available to you.

If what you’re facing is ordinary domestic violence, there’s more room for hope. Research tells us these marriages can be restored to health. As with the other hard problems, what matters most is the level of motivation both partners bring to getting help and making real changes.

Steps to Save Your Marriage in the Presence of a Hard Problem

Start by asking yourself honestly whether the infidelity, addiction, or abuse in your marriage is compromising your own well-being, or your children’s. If the answer is yes, ask a second question: do you want to try to save the marriage? If yes, here’s how I’d suggest proceeding.

First, convince yourself that real, major change has to happen, and that you won’t remain in the marriage without it. That conviction is what will let you put everything on the line honestly.

Before you talk with your spouse about the changes you need, do two things:

Take an honest inventory of your own contributions to the relationship’s problems. This isn’t about taking responsibility for your spouse’s dysfunction (you didn’t cause the drinking), but it is about recognizing that every long-term relationship carries shared patterns.
Identify a concrete professional resource, and ideally find out what getting started would actually involve.

Then prepare to deliver what may be the most important conversation of your life, along these lines:

I want to say some important things, and I’m asking you to hear me out before responding.
I love you and I want to stay married to you.
I can’t continue while you are doing [the specific behavior].
I know I contribute to problems in our marriage, and I’m willing to work hard on my part. (Don’t get specific here. Naming your own flaws in detail invites your spouse to redirect the conversation toward them instead.)
I need a real commitment from you to change your part.
That means we get help together, or I don’t believe anything will change enough.
I love you, I want us to stay married, and things have to change.

Your spouse’s response will likely fall into one of a few patterns: defensive (“I don’t have a problem”), critical (“you’re the one with the problem”), placating (“sure, I’ll do whatever you want”), or honest and open, which often looks somewhat defensive and critical at first before settling into a real willingness to get help.

Listen. Resist the pull into a detailed argument, about how much they drink, whether the affair was really sexual, whose fault the last violent episode was. Return, in different words, to what you already said.

At the end, ask directly whether they’ll get help with you. That’s the action you’re actually looking for.

If you don’t get agreement the first time, end the conversation there, and ask them to think about what you’ve said. Bring it up again in a few days, in the same spirit. This repetition matters. It’s how your spouse comes to understand you’re serious.

Don’t attach a specific ultimatum date, but do increase the intensity of the conversation over time. Keep returning to the fact that you can’t continue this way, and that you don’t feel heard.

If, in the end, you don’t get real buy-in, tell your spouse you’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Stay open to the possibility of a turnaround even at this late stage, but don’t count on it.

This approach is meant to do two things at once: help you stay grounded and healthy inside an unhealthy situation, and give your marriage its best possible chance in the face of a problem you can’t keep living with as it is.