Infidelity is not a rare event. According to a widely recognized survey as many as 37% of men and 20% of women have been unfaithful in marriage.1 While infidelity often feels like a marriage-ending event, it can be the beginning of building a much deeper, more intimate relationship.2
78% of marriages survive infidelity in the United States, so there is reason to believe that the relationship can be saved.3 As a couple’s therapist I actually breathe a sigh of relief if a new couple tells me that an affair is the reason they have come to my office, because experience has taught me that therapy will work and they will have a better relationship than they did before, as long as they are both willing to hear what I have to say.
Can a Marriage Be Saved After Infidelity?
While at first an affair may feel like the worst thing you’ve endured, but if you get proper help, your relationship can be better than ever before. Affairs are more of a symptom than a disease. If we can diagnose the underlying disease that led to the symptom then we can make some amazing changes for couples and they can go on to thrive. My experience as a couples therapist echoes author Dr. Tammy Nelson, who wrote in her book The New Monogamy, “Lots of couples told me that the affair was the best thing that ever happened to them.”4
It’s important not to think of infidelity and emotional affairs as a destination that a couple just arrives at randomly. While in the beginning many couples find this hard to hear, the truth is that blissfully happy couples don’t have affairs. Couples who are under strain, who have drifted apart, who keep secrets from each other, who no longer feel close, or who have shifted their priorities to things other than their partner (kids, work, etc.) breed affairs.
In the end, there are many reasons people cheat on their partner. Of course, an unhappy partner could always have chosen to communicate their unhappiness in another way. They chose to act out in an affair and that is their responsibility. Research has shown us clearly that affairs are traumatic events that can damage a person for many months or even years.5 But if an affair occurs, the marriage wasn’t in good shape to begin with. If we can fix the problems that predated the affair, then both parties will be happier in the future. This also has the benefit of “affair-proofing” the relationship going forward. Most couples will need help to do this, which is where marriage counseling comes in.
How Does Marriage Counseling Work?
Marriage counseling is where a therapist with specific training sits with both partners in the office (or virtually) and works on their relationship. Couples therapy is more likely to focus on how partners treat each other versus, say, how an individual sees the world. For example, in couples therapy, a client’s depression is seen as something that impacts the partner, not just the client. Discussions of one person’s depression will more likely be about how the depression is impacting the quality of the connection between the two people versus how it’s affecting just the individual.
Does Marriage Counseling Help After Infidelity?
If you are considering counseling after an affair, the most important thing to do to prepare is for both of you to commit to at least a handful of visits—this ups your chances of success in counseling. No therapist can fix anything in one visit. It will take the therapist time to understand the broader scope of the relationship problems and start helping you both grow in these areas. I have often seen people be able to heal from affairs after 6-9 months of consistent counseling as long as both parties are really committed.7
While everything won’t be fixed after a few visits, if after 3-4 sessions you don’t have any confidence in your counselor, then you need to move on and find another one. Make sure that you work with a counselor who has experience with affair recovery. This should include understanding the PTSD that occurs from infidelity because this may require specific techniques for healing. Attachment theory can also be extremely helpful in understanding affairs, so a therapist who is familiar with attachment styles can also be a good fit.6
Interestingly, affairs don’t seem to doom couples to unhappiness. One study looking specifically at factors that help save marriages after infidelity found that, in couples where there was infidelity but they stayed together, those couples had equivalent marital stability and relationship satisfaction to couples without infidelity at a five-year follow up.8,9,10
Another study found specific benefits to couples who survived affairs including closer marital relationships, increased assertiveness, better self-care, placing a higher value on family, and prioritizing marital communication.11 Couples who utilize therapy to help with affair recovery also have reduced psychological trauma symptoms and greater levels of forgiveness.7,10,12
Making sure that the affair is disclosed prior to entering therapy will improve your odds of staying together. Studies show that if the affair is revealed before therapy rather than being discovered during sessions, the couple improves more through therapy.12 It can be terrifying to admit to an affair, but if you want your relationship to survive it may be the single best thing you can do aside from entering counseling.
The Benefits of Marriage Counseling After an Affair
Part of what is so destabilizing about affairs is that it creates a rift in our version of reality. A betrayed partner may have had a concept of their spouse as trustworthy, moral, and virtuous, and all of a sudden they are left wondering if their partner has not just had this affair but embezzled money from their company, cheated on the taxes or lied about their identity. It can completely unmoor a person to experience this kind of betrayal.
Here are six ways that marriage counseling can help after an affair:
1. Understanding How the Affair Came to Happen
As stated in The Handbook of Clinical Family Therapy, “As long as injured partners do not have a clear sense of why the affair occurred they cannot trust their partners not to hurt them again.”13 Couples therapy can help the betrayed partner (as well as the perpetrator) to understand how the affair came to happen so it no longer seems like a random, unpredictable event. The more that a person can feel that their life is predictable and makes sense the more they will be able to roll up their sleeves and get to work on starting the recovery process.
2. Fleshing Out Problems in the Relationship
Couples therapy post-affair can start to really flesh out what those problems were that lead to the affair so that those patterns can be changed. If couples had stopped sleeping in the same bed, stopped having regular sex, or stopped sharing their deepest fears or concerns with each other, then those patterns can be reversed. If one partner had started to fear being shamed by the other or felt perpetually judged, this can be explored and worked on to build healthier patterns of interaction.
3. Reigniting Intimacy
There are actually specific biology-based “hacks” that can help couples address issues around not feeling close. For example teaching couples to greet each other every time they come home with a full body hug for at least 60 seconds can reboot both nervous systems so that they come into alignment14. When two people’s nervous systems are aligned they are far less likely to mis-read each other and spark conflict. So if a couple has had a bad habit of not doing these “reunions” when one comes home a couples therapist can spot that and do some coaching.6
Another biology-based hack that can improve intimacy is skin-to-skin contact, even if it’s not sexual. Many couples with children enter into a bad pattern where they are dividing and conquering with the kids in the evenings and they miss out on time to touch each other. Physical touch, done skin-to-skin, releases oxytocin, which is our bonding and caretaking hormone.15 By listening to a couple talk about their patterns, a sharp therapist can hear that they are not utilizing oxytocin to keep their bond feeling deep and close. Then the therapist can coach them in ways to reinstate these touch-sessions, for example holding hands while they watch Netflix or throwing a bare leg over your partner while reading in bed together.
4. Unlocking Old Wounds That Are Hindering Present Progress
Good couples therapists can also look for childhood wounds that might have contributed to the affair. For example someone who grew up a latch-key kid may feel particularly wounded if their partner starts coming home late a lot and they are left in an empty house for a few hours after coming home from work. By finding these childhood pain points a couples therapist can help the other partner minister to them and this increases the value of the partner because they are literally healing wounds from the past.14 When a spouse doesn’t know about these childhood wounds and instead trods on them constantly, it leads to feeling like you want to avoid your partner, which is fertile ground for an affair to develop.
5. Figuring Out Both Partners’ Involvement
A couples therapist is also going to look at how each partner failed to protect the marriage, consciously or unconsciously. We can fail to protect our marriage from interlopers by ignoring our partner’s needs, being preoccupied with our own issues, or over-investing in our kids or jobs such that our partner always feels like they are playing second fiddle.
We can also make our partners vulnerable to the attention of others if we act like we don’t need them for anything. I have seen a number of couples where one partner was overly-competent and never allowed their partner to help them in any way. Over the years, the other partner starts to feel like an unwanted appendage, flapping about with no purpose. If a couples therapist sees this kind of overly-developed independence, they can coach that partner on the value of letting their person “do” for them. We all need to feel needed.
6. Considering the Role of Other Substances
Substance use is another thing that a couples therapist can inquire about. It’s not rare to have couples who come in with histories of intense fighting and lo and behold all of the fights happened when both had too much to drink. This pattern can lead to unresolved hurt feelings which can then lead to avoidance and create that vacuum of affection and safety where an affair can develop.
Or, if our partner is over-using substances even when we are not, we may feel disconnected from them.16 This can lead to us feeling lonely and enjoying the attention of others outside of the marriage. Again, a couples therapist can educate the couple on the destructiveness of the problem at hand and help them build a more solid and healthy pattern.
What To Consider When Starting Marriage Counseling After Infidelity
The first thing I would tell couples post-affair is not to wait to get help. While it can be very painful to open up to a complete stranger about something so personal, the pain will go away much faster with professional guidance. There are many possible pitfalls during the recovery process, and without help couples can accidentally make things harder on themselves.
Be prepared to take some responsibility for your side of things regardless if you are the cheater or the person cheated on. A good couples therapist is going to want to look at all sides. Try to be open to delicate questions like how often were you having sex or whether you stopped being attracted to your partner. These things are hard to talk about but can be part of a larger picture of avoiding difficult conversations that you will need help with.
The therapist will probably want to see you regularly at first, so plan on going weekly until the dust settles (which can be a few months). Then to really get the most out of the therapy studies suggest that you stay for at least six months.17 Some couples therapists will want to see you together as well as separately. Other couples therapists believe that this can accidentally reinforce the idea that some things can’t be talked about openly with your partner. You should inquire about the stance of the therapist on this point before you get started so everyone is clear.
Since trauma is a very important part of affairs, it’s important to find a therapist who understands trauma—not just how it impacts a person’s mood but also how it impacts the brain.18 Ask the therapist how they plan to address that component of the affair recovery.
For more thought on questions to ask a therapist and how to prepare for your first sessions, read more about what to expect from couples counseling.
How To Find The Right Couples Counselor For You
If you have had an affair occur in your relationship and you are looking for help, the easiest place to start is with an online directory for a marriage counselor. If you want a more personal touch and are willing to confide in a family member, friend, physician, or religious leader, they may know someone in your area with whom they have had positive interactions.
Local professional organizations for psychologists, social workers, marriage and family counselors, or licensed professional counselors also tend to have directories with information about their members. Remember to make sure that you check to see that the person is licensed as that will increase the chances that they have been properly vetted by someone. Years in practice can also be helpful because, like most things, therapists get better with experience. And don’t be afraid to ask if they have worked with affairs before and what their success rate is.
One interesting variable most people might not think to ask is what the couples therapist’s position is on telling couples to divorce. Some couples therapists see this as a part of their job and do it regularly if they think a couple is not healthy. Other couples therapists see this as such a personal decision that they won’t weigh in. It’s good to know the stance of your therapist before you see them.
Therapists trained in the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT) take the position that they will tell you what you both need to do in order to have a healthy and secure relationship but they won’t tell you if you should stay together.19 Then, it’s up to you to decide if you want to do the work to have that bond or not. You may want to get clear on which position the therapist takes on this point so that you know what to expect from them.
If addictions are involved in the picture you should also check to see if the couples therapist has experience with them. Sex addiction, pornography addiction, alcoholism, other substance addictions, gambling and the secrecy and shame that addictions breed can be a part of the reason that affairs happen. If addictions are part of the picture it’s important to have a therapist who is well-trained in these areas so that they can be properly addressed.
Another option for couples considering divorce but who are experiencing some ambivalence is discernment counseling. This is often brief work with a therapist that’s focused goal of gaining clarity and confidence in a path forward so as to move beyond a state of limbo. Regardless of the exact approach you move forward with, finding a therapist you trust is key. An online therapist directory can be an excellent place to begin your search for a supportive, experienced therapist.
When to Walk Away From a Relationship After Infidelity
While some therapists are comfortable telling clients that they think the relationship is not salvageable, some are not. In either event, it is ultimately up to the people in the relationship to make that choice. Sometimes one partner is not behaving in ways that signal that they are ready to change.
Signs that your partner may not be ready to do the work are:
- Refusing to attend therapy
- Attending sessions but not participating fully or canceling sessions frequently
- Continuing to see the person they had the affair with or continuing to act out sexually outside the marriage
- Refusing to hear your side of the situation and only wanting to talk about their own pain, feelings, or needs
- Using any kind of threat (verbal, physical, emotional, financial) to keep you in the relationship or to get you to stop talking about the affair
- Continuing to be evasive when asked direct questions such as “why were you home late last night?” or, “have you seen that person since you told me?”
- Refusing to turn over passwords to accounts, refusing to have GPS monitoring on their devices, refusing to be fully transparent in an effort to restore trust
- Refusing to undergo testing for sexually transmitted diseases
- Blaming you for the affair without acknowledging any of their own responsibility
- Minimizing your feelings of betrayal (using sayings like, “it was only once,” or, “I don’t love that person”)
Final Thoughts On Marriage Counseling After Infidelity
Quite simply, the research is on your side. Most couples survive infidelity and actually report levels of happiness that are as good if not better than couples who sought help for other problems.8,9,10 While it can be painful to talk about betrayal and admit the ways in which we may have contributed to the problems in our partnership, the rewards are substantial. Loss is painful and losing a relationship in such a messy way can lead to years of mistrust, grief, and difficulty moving on.
Healing the betrayal and learning healthier ways to manage problems can lead to a sense of pride for both partners, and the benefit of staying in the relationship you have already invested so much in. When marriages are troubled, the only true win-win is to rehabilitate it and make it better than ever. With the help of a qualified couples counselor, the odds are in your favor.
