While the majority of couples disapprove of infidelity, national surveys show that 15% of women and 25% of men have had intercourse outside their long-term relationship. Those percentages increase when including emotional affairs or affairs that don’t lead to intercourse.1 In general, extramarital relationships can be devastating to a marriage, but couples who face them are not necessarily doomed. Recovery is possible with effort and support.
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Should You Save Your Marriage After an Affair?
Although healing from infidelity is challenging, if you and your partner are willing to put in the work, you can find happiness again. However, you must be honest with yourselves. Is this relationship something you want to continue? There is no “right” decision. Ask yourself whether you have the energy to invest in healing.
Note that even if the relationship doesn’t work out, putting in work can still help you recover and move on. If you or your partner are having a hard time making a decision regarding whether or not to work on the marriage, discernment counseling can help you figure it out. Use an online directory to locate a provider who is trained in this specific type of counseling.
How to Save a Marriage After Cheating
If, after cheating, you and your partner decide to try and save the marriage, there are some next steps to take including seeking couples counseling, practicing transparency, and atoning for betrayal. If you take these steps, you have a good chance of saving the marriage or at least coming out stronger on the other end. It takes time and work, but healing is possible.
Here are eight steps to save a marriage after an affair has occurred:
1. Seek Couples Counseling
Healing from an affair isn’t easy. As such, a couples therapist can help you navigate rough waters and keep you on the right path. This is a crucial first step. Experts claim that trying to fix the relationship without help from a skilled professional is a bit like attempting to perform knee-replacement surgery with a “home kit.”2
It is important to find a couples therapist who has specific training and/or experience with infidelity. Without this experience, they can actually do more harm than good. You want to make sure that you are getting the kind of sound advice that will improve your chances of full reconciliation.
Locate a therapist through a referral source or online directory. Then, call them and ask questions to understand how they work. You can ask about their training, experience, and process of treating infidelity. Of course, you will need to be sure they are a good fit in other ways as well, such as location, schedule, price, etc.
2. Atone
If you are the one that cheated, you must be willing and able to express ongoing remorse without defensiveness or excuses.3 Regardless of the issues in the marriage prior to the affair, the decision to have the affair rests solely with the partner that cheated. The betrayed partner has to see that their partner takes full responsibility for their actions.
3. Talk About the Affair
Many well-meaning people often give the advice that the affair should not be discussed. Although talking about the affair is painful for both parties, it must be done. The partner who had the affair had a whole secret life the betrayed partner did not know about. If these secrets remain secret, the disconnect will continue. The betrayed partner must be given space and time to ask questions about the affair and understand what happened. The partner who had the affair must be willing to provide full disclosure.
The only questions the betrayed partner should not ask are questions about specific sexual acts. Affairs are traumatic for the betrayed partner and many people will experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result.4 These symptoms include intrusive thoughts, nightmares, mood swings, hypervigilance, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, and more. If the betrayed partner hears about specific sexual acts, it can exacerbate these symptoms. All other questions, however, are OK and important to ask.
Here are several questions to ask the partner who cheated:
- When and how did you meet this person?
- Where did you go? How often did you meet?
- How often did you communicate and in what ways? What did you talk about?
- Was there sexual activity (kissing, hugging, sexual talk)? When and how did you decide to make it physical?
- Do any of our friends know? How did they find out? Do people at work know? What about family?
- What attracted you to him/her?
- Do you love him/her? When did you know you were in love? Do you still love him/her?
- When did you last see him/her?
- Have you broken up? When? How?
Ideally, these conversations would occur in a couples therapy session when there is someone there to guide you. However, if you do have conversations at home, limit any late-night confrontation as sleep deprivation can worsen negative emotions. If the conversation begins to escalate, take a break and work on self-soothing. Escalating quarrels during this time will only enhance the negativity and disconnection.
4. Provide Transparency & Verification
When an affair is revealed, trust is shattered. In the beginning stages of healing, the betrayed partner will be on alert for ongoing betrayals and will need transparency and verification. Transparency means that the partner who had the affair is 100% open and honest about their life including their whereabouts and any unavoidable contact with the affair partner. Ideally, the relationship with the affair partner can be severed completely. However, this is not always possible. If contact with the affair partner is unavoidable, the partner who cheated must voluntarily share all interactions with their spouse when they occur.
Verification means that the betrayed partner is able to verify what their spouse is telling them is true. Verification may include the betrayed partner having access to their spouse’s phone, email account, GPS, bank statements, etc. Whatever the betrayed partner needs to trust should be discussed and provided.
5. Explore What Went Wrong & Reasons for Returning to the Relationship
Understanding what made the relationship vulnerable to an affair is necessary in order to feel safe that it won’t happen again. Most of the time, couples are able to identify a feeling of distance and disconnect. But what led to the disconnect? Both parties must understand their role so they can take different steps in the future. However, this must be done without blaming the betrayed partner for the affair.
It is also important that the betrayed partner understands why their spouse has returned to the marriage. This is another step that is required for the betrayed partner to feel safe, move forward, and begin to trust.
6. Exact a High Cost for Future Betrayals
It must be explicitly discussed and made clear that another future betrayal would mean the end of the relationship.2 Although this conversation can be difficult, it provides necessary clarification and understanding about the consequences of broken trust in the future.
7. Work on Forgiveness
If your partner is working on atoning, doing things differently, and earning your trust back, it is your job to continue to work on forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that you forget or that you condone the behavior. It means that you are making a conscious decision to work with your partner on rebuilding your relationship. This is not an easy step, but it is one that is necessary for the marriage to survive and for you to move forward.
8. Work Together to Build a New Relationship
Understanding what made the relationship susceptible to an affair is important, but it’s not enough. You must also work together to learn how to do things differently. This involves learning how to share attune to one another’s feelings and needs and manage conflict productively. Most of us were not taught these skills, so seeking help from a trained couples therapist will be crucial.
Once you feel closer emotionally, you can begin the process of rebuilding your intimate relationship as well. This step involves learning how to communicate in a healthy manner about sex and developing a satisfying sexual relationship for both of you.
How to Respond If You Were the One Cheated On
If you are the one who has been betrayed, you will experience a vast range of intense, painful emotions. Your whole world has been turned upside down and you question whether you ever even knew your spouse at all. There are, however, steps you can take to help yourself (and the marriage) begin to heal.
1. Share Your Emotions (Without Attacking Your Partner)
You have every right to feel difficult feelings and express them. In fact, it is crucial for your own healing to do so. However, the manner in which you express these feelings is important. You need to be heard and understood, but if you express your emotions with criticism or contempt, it creates a barrier between you and your partner.
To share feelings and needs without blame, follow these steps:5
- I feel: Share a feeling such as sad, angry, hurt, betrayed
- About what: Describe what is making you feel this way as nonjudgmentally as possible
- I need: Share a positive need with your partner
2. Seek as Much Support as You Can
There will be times when you need to express yourself and vent without worrying about how you are saying things. As such, it is important to find people in your life that you feel safe doing this with. This could be a friend, family member, and/or therapist. Having a few people like this would be ideal so that if one is unavailable, you can call another.
3. Practice Self-Care
This is undoubtedly one of the hardest times in your life. Some days it will be all you can muster just to get through the day. Although you may not feel like engaging in self-care practices, this is the time when these practices are most important. Try to stick to a routine as much as possible, get some exercise, eat healthy, and do your best to get good sleep. Engage in pleasurable activities and find additional outlets for your emotions, such as journaling, meditation, or yoga.
4. Be Patient & Gentle With Yourself
You are experiencing trauma, and it will take time to heal. There will be bad days and there will be good days. There will be times when you feel like things are getting better only to be triggered and sent into a regression. Although frustrating, this is normal. With time and support, you can heal and the pain will lessen. If you try to rush the process or deny your feelings, healing will take longer. Be patient with yourself and show the same compassion you would to a friend in a similar situation.
Final Thoughts on Saving a Marriage After Cheating
Talking to a therapist or reaching out to a trusted friend or family member can help you get through the pain of an affair, and if both you and your partner put in time and work, you can mend old hurts. Whether you want to reconcile is up to you, but no matter what path you choose, remember, you’re not alone and you won’t always be suffering.
Additional Resources
- American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
- Online Therapist Directory: Sort therapists and couples counselors by specialty, cost, availability and more. Watch intro videos and see articles written by the therapists you’re considering working with. When you’ve found a good match, book an online therapy appointment with them directly.
Are you ready to connect with a therapist but feel a little overwhelmed by all your options? Speak with one of Choosing Therapy’s Client Navigators. Client Navigators are mental health professionals who will listen to what you’re looking for in a therapist and help pair you with the best possible fit. Getting started is free, easy, and confidential.
