Ashley Willis (speaking in a YouTube video) explains how extramarital affairs typically begin: small emotional connections formed during marital hardship can escalate through familiarity and mutual comfort into feelings and then physical affairs. She advises proactively protecting marriages by finding a trusted, same-gender friend who loves God and the spouse and who will support the marriage and provide accountability.
Chapters
I can't tell you how many times there's someone who comes to us and they're like, I, I went and had an emotional affair or a full blown physical affair with someone else, you know, at work that I met. And I just never thought I would get myself here. And really what it happens when we hear the whole story, it starts with the littlest thing where they're in a hard time in their marriage and they start talking about it with this cute person at work and that person, so you don't know how it's going to land on that person sees an opportunity and they don't always, but I mean, sometimes, you know, just the familiarity that happens and the comfort level that happens can lead your heart to kind of open up even more. And then, and then you're having feelings and then maybe even physically, you know, showing those feelings. And before you know it, you've had a full blown extramarital affair. And so you want to avoid that at all costs. You need to find a trusted friend who loves you, loves God, loves your spouse and is for your marriage. And that friend needs to be your same gender, okay?