Starting couples therapy can be a daunting task. And for those dealing with the fallout of betrayal trauma, the mere consideration of infidelity couples counseling can be overwhelming. The types of obstacles that can make reaching out for professional help feel extremely difficult (or maybe impossible) are: the unsettledness and uncertainty that comes with not knowing what to expect; the intense and all-consuming emotions that have been part of your life since the betrayal was discovered; major questions about whether the relationship is even savable, and therefore whether you should pour the emotional and practical resources into trying to save it. . .all against the backdrop of shame and humiliation that are often associated with infidelity.
Today’s article will explore couples/marriages counseling for infidelity. While there is voluminous information on this topic, I hope to provide something readily digestible about what to expect if you undertake infidelity therapy. And before we begin, it’s important to note that feeling ambivalent about staying with your partner and working on your relationship is to be expected — when you are traumatized by your spouse or partner, the part of you that still loves them will want to stay and heal the relationship while the wounded and angry parts of you will want to end it. This is normal. Too many betrayed partners feel that they need to have this figured out before starting infidelity counseling. Therapy can help you sort through this complicated decision. While most individuals enter therapy with the intention to rebuild their relationship, there are times when one or both partners arrive at greater clarity through the therapy process and determine that ending the relationship is the healthier path.
It’s important to note that all secretive behavior and contact with the affair partner must have stopped before any treatment is started. Since the goal of infidelity couples therapy is to reestablish emotional safety and trust, it would be re-traumatizing for the betrayed partner to enter a therapy process that invites vulnerability and emotional risk-taking while they are actively being betrayed. I’ve worked with couples who were in treatment for affair recovery while—unbeknownst to the betrayed partner—the secretive behaviors were still occurring. It’s an understatement to say that this exponentially added to their emotional devastation. Before safety can be rebuilt, the behaviors that shattered safety have to end.
Marriage & couples counseling for infidelity
One of the most common questions I get when people contact me to inquire about couples counseling after infidelity: “What’s the right timing? When should we start therapy?”
As with anything that involves individuals and the complexity of humans’ mental and emotional life, there is no single, always-applicable answer. But what I can say is this: Immediately after the discovery of infidelity, the betrayed partner is often in a state of shock (profound disbelief) and acute emotional distress. Many spouses and partners who discover that their partner has been unfaithful experience a wide range of symptoms consistent with a post-traumatic stress response.
Some commonly reported symptoms: Emotional flooding and physiological reactivity (racing heart, difficulty breathing), rumination and intrusive thoughts, reliving certain aspects of the betrayal (even when there’s a genuine attempt to stop), sleep disturbance and nightmares, difficulty concentrating, intense emotional distress when reminded of the betrayal (triggers), negative beliefs about oneself, an unrelenting negative emotional state (for instance, fear, insecurity, anger), and chronic hyper-vigilance.
For many betrayed partners, the intensity of some of these symptoms begins to lessen with time and appropriate support. But for others, it is important to receive additional help managing these experiences before couples work begins, or alongside the couples work.
This is because relationship counseling itself can be highly triggering, despite the therapist’s best efforts to make sure the infidelity therapy isn’t re-traumatizing. Talking about the betrayal, hearing details that were previously unknown to the betrayed partner, trying to make sense of conflicting accounts, or simply sitting across from the person who has become associated with so much pain can activate the betrayed partner’s trauma response. Having some tools at hand to help with emotional and physiological regulation can therefore be extremely beneficial.
With that said, I don’t believe this means that couples therapy should automatically be postponed until the betrayed partner is somehow fully “regulated” or emotionally stable. That can set unrealistic expectations. An important piece of the work of stabilization can occur within couples therapy, particularly when the unfaithful partner is learning how to respond to their partner’s pain in a useful way, rather than becoming defensive, shutting down, minimizing what happened, or pressuring them to “move forward.”
For some couples, the best approach is therefore a combination of individual betrayal trauma-focused therapy and infidelity-focused marriage/couples counseling. There can be considerable overlap in what gets addressed in these two settings. Traumatic symptoms, grief, anger, confusion, emotional regulation, and even uncertainty about whether to remain in the relationship can all become important aspects of the couples work. In fact, working through some of these experiences as a couple is an important part of the treatment.
So there isn’t necessarily a particular number of weeks or months you should wait before beginning infidelity therapy. The more important question is whether each partner is emotionally able to participate in the work in a way that is likely to be helpful rather than harmful. In some cases, couples therapy can begin very soon after the discovery of the affair. In others, a period of individual support and stabilization may need to come first. And quite often, the two can occur alongside one another.
What are the major themes and goals of infidelity couples counseling?
The re-establishment of safety and trust
One of the central goals of marriage/couples counseling for infidelity is the rebuilding of emotional safety so that relational repair can move forward. Emotional safety is not only a central goal of infidelity therapy, it is also a necessary condition of the relationship so that other important issues can be effectively worked on.
The core injury of infidelity is that relational safety and trust have been lost. The person you’ve built your life with, the shared histories and memories that partially define you, the multitude of ways you’ve braided your lives together, the potential future that holds dreams and promises. . .so much is lost when intimate partner betrayal shatters trust.
Many of the PTSD symptoms discussed above result from the shift from relational safety to relational danger. At some level, the unfaithful partner is now experienced as a threat, a person who has made decisions that have caused considerable damage—which means they have become a person who may cause future trauma as well. What was known and certain is now unknown and uncertain. Infidelity couples counseling addresses these issues head-on. While the immediate goal is emotional stabilization, the pathway to this goal is finding and creating small pockets where both partners can feel some level of safety. This is no small task, but it is essential.
The pain and safety that comes with knowing the full truth
It is well known that the process of finding out about the infidelity—how the discovery unfolds—has a profound impact on the betrayed partner. With most couples I’ve worked with, it is the betrayed who discovers evidence of the infidelity (of course, there are exceptions when the unfaithful partner comes forward about their affair). In the world of betrayal trauma treatment, a distinction is made between partial and full disclosures. If the disclosure unfolds piecemeal, with ongoing lies and coverups, this can create traumatic psychological whiplash for the betrayed.
We can think of it this way: If a physical wound is beginning to scab over and it’s picked open, healing is not only postponed, but the injury is at risk of intensifying. Likewise, with each additional disclosure of something that had previously been concealed about the affair—every new piece of “trickle truth”—the emotional scab is pulled off again. The betrayed partner is left raw and exposed, once again processing something new, questioning what is true, what is still being hidden, and whether it is safe to begin trusting.
Why is knowing the truth so important?
When one’s spouse or partner is living a secretive life, there are two simultaneous realities occurring. The betrayed partner learns that in being deceived, the person they thought they knew had created and been occupying a totally different reality, a reality that involved violating the couple’s shared values and agreements about what their relationship was supposed to be. And because the betrayed partner was unknowingly living inside a false version of the relationship, the deception also deprived them of the ability to make informed choices about their own life. They were making decisions about intimacy, commitment, sex, finances, family, and the future based upon information that was incomplete or deliberately distorted.
This is one reason the truth is so essential after betrayal. It isn’t simply about wanting to know “what happened.” The betrayed partner is trying to discover what was true about the relationship they were inhabiting — and they need to understand the truth about their partner and what their actions reveal about them (for instance, do they struggle with compulsive sexual behaviors? Do they need professional help to work through unresolved trauma from their past? Are they capable of honesty and complete commitment?). Without this knowledge, the betrayed partner remains in an ongoing state of psychological disequilibrium: “What else don’t I know? Can I trust what I once believed to be true? Is my partner still actively deceiving me?”
Ultimately, truth-telling helps the betrayed partner restore trust in their own mind, in their perceptions, intuitions, memories, and ultimately their ability to know what is real.
The safety in being acknowledged and being met with empathy
One of the essential parts of healing from relational trauma is to have a compassionate witness to your pain and suffering. Infidelity betrayal trauma is unique in that the person who caused the injury is the one who needs to take this role for relational healing to occur. The first step in the process of compassionate witnessing is to acknowledge their wrongdoing as well as the extensive damage they’ve caused. This goes far beyond “I see that I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry.” For safety to be reestablished, the unfaithful partner must learn to stay the course in being there for the betrayed during intense moments of emotional pain and anger. They must learn to communicate and express remorse and show genuine empathy while containing their own shame over what they’ve done.
This kind of empathy extends beyond intellectual understanding. It must include emotional reactions that resonate with the betrayed’s lived experience of pain, disbelief, and moral outrage, as well as the intense anger about being deceived.
Acknowledgement of what the wayward partner has done includes non-defensive responses about the reality of their actions as well as the impact of those actions on the betrayed partner. Infidelity couples therapy is designed to work with these issues and facilitate the challenges that arise around acknowledgment and empathy.
The safety in predictability, consistency and reliability
Infidelity trauma causes considerable uncertainty and insecurity. For rebuilding to occur, the betrayed partner must figure out what is real, and must separate reality from the lies and deceptions that were part of the betrayal. Being on the receiving end of deception and gaslighting is often the steepest betrayal trauma hurdle to clear. Marital/couples therapy for infidelity prioritizes how the unfaithful partner shows up for the betrayed. In order to reestablish safety, there must be a long-term pattern of behaviors and responses that are predictable and consistent. This allows the betrayed partner to slowly release the trauma as they grow to trust that their spouse/partner will be responsive in ways they can count on.
Reliability is an important part of this picture. The unfaithful partner should not make promises they fail to keep. And when something gets in the way of following through on what they’ve said they’ll do, it needs to be communicated openly rather than leaving the betrayed partner to feel dropped and wondering what happened.
In betrayal trauma healing, there needs to be a consistent pattern of matching words and actions. This verbal and behavioral congruency is how the unfaithful partner’s words can slowly begin to carry weight again. The deceit and lies have stripped their words of legitimacy. Repeated experiences of reliability can restore this.
The safety in knowing what went wrong
At some point, infidelity counseling must address the question of how and why the infidelity occurred. This is a central issue in healing, and it can be one of the most frustrating (especially for the betrayed partner) to work through. There are many reasons, often complicated ones, for why someone might cheat or betray their loved one. Individual infidelity therapy for the unfaithful partner is often an important adjunct to couples counseling in order to more thoroughly explore this issue. But these conversations will also be central to the couples work.
Understanding why the betrayal(s) occurred isn’t about excusing or somehow making it more acceptable. It’s about making what happened less mysterious. If both partners have a deeper understanding of the conditions, vulnerabilities, choices and internal struggles that contributed to the betrayal, this knowledge can become part of preventing it from happening again. If the betrayed partner believes the unfaithful partner remains clueless about why they did what they did, then safety will be difficult to reestablish.
Unpacking the complicated motives for infidelity can take time. It’s important that premature or black-and-white explanations aren’t adopted as truth simply to placate the betrayed partner or force healing forward. “I was unhappy”; “I needed attention”; “I felt disconnected from you” may describe part of what was happening, but they don’t explain why infidelity became the response to those feelings. It is unrealistic to expect a neat, satisfying explanation for the betrayal(s). The goal is for the unfaithful partner to develop enough hard-earned self-understanding that both partners can begin to recognize what made the betrayal possible and what needs to be different moving forward. This kind of understanding can become another form of safety. Exploring the unfaithful partner’s earlier attachment wounds in the presence of the betrayed partner can be a powerful way to address these issues.
The safety in knowing that transparency and a new shared history is possible
This safety centers around the hope that meaningful change and healing is possible and, ideally, is already occurring. Infidelity betrayal trauma arises from deception and secrecy. A hidden, parallel world is created where commitment, trust and shared values are violated. Transparency and open communication are the opposites of this, and this is where a new relational foundation must be laid.
Early transparency may also involve forms of verification by the betrayed partner that would ordinarily feel unnecessary in a trusting union. The betrayed partner should not, of course, stay in the role of monitor of their partner indefinitely. Over time, it’s the repeated experience of honesty, consistency and reliability that will gradually reduce the need for such vigilance. As infidelity couples therapy proceeds, and if this new foundation of transparency and open communication is being honored, a shift begins to occur. Over time, if the changes are consistent enough, the betrayed partner may begin to experience an important differentiation: the person standing before them starts to feel meaningfully different from the person who was capable of maintaining the secret life.
The “old” version kept secrets, openly lied and deceived, broke promises, made decisions that devastated loved ones, avoided difficult feelings and conversations, and acted in ways profoundly disconnected from their values. The “new” version is honest, doesn’t avoid difficult feelings or conversations, names what they are feeling rather than acting on those feelings, tolerates discomfort and shame rather than escaping them, and has the courage to have discussions that are uncomfortable to have.
This distinction between the old and the new isn’t something the wayward partner should be expected to simply decide to make. It has to be earned. The unfaithful partner earns this differentiation through repeated behaviors and choices over time. This is how a new shared history takes shape.
The betrayed partner begins noticing new perspectives and new behaviors in their partner:
“You told me something difficult when you could have hidden it.”
“You stayed in the conversation when I was angry.”
“You didn’t become defensive when I needed to ask the same question again and again.”
“You initiated a difficult conversation about the betrayal without me having to ask.”
These moments might seem small compared to the enormity of the betrayal, but collectively, this is what healing looks like. Safety begins to emerge from the accumulation of these experiences over time.
When this occurs, the partner who was unfaithful can become more psychologically integrated. Feelings, needs, shame, dissatisfaction, temptation, conflict and vulnerability that might once have been avoided, compartmentalized or acted out can increasingly be held in awareness and brought into the relationship. There is less that needs to be hidden, not only because the unfaithful partner has learned that lying is destructive, but because they are developing a greater capacity to know themselves and to allow themselves to be known.
Importantly, this new shared history doesn’t erase the old one. The betrayal remains part of the couple’s history. Healing doesn’t require replacing the betrayal story with a redemption story or pretending that the person who betrayed their partner wasn’t really the person who did those things. Both realities have to be held.
Infidelity therapy grief work
Throughout infidelity couples counseling, the therapist should be identifying and helping the couple work through the different losses that have occurred because of the betrayal. Couples are often surprised by how long sadness and disbelief can linger, even after important relational gains have been made.
Safety must first be established before grief can fully emerge — this is essential for a more thorough healing to occur. If the betrayed partner remains uncertain about the unfaithful partner’s honesty, commitment to the relationship, willingness to maintain appropriate boundaries, or capacity to understand the damage they have caused, then anxiety and anger are likely to predominate. Vigilance, worry, questioning, chronic checking, and uncertainty about the future are all attempts, in one form or another, to determine whether the danger has actually passed.
In this sense, grief asks something very different of the betrayed partner than vigilance does. Vigilance requires scanning, watching. Grief requires enough safety to begin letting down one’s guard and feeling what has actually been lost. And there can be many losses. A significant part of the couples work (once safety has been reestablished) is the processing of what has been lost. This requires a great deal of patience and it is important for all involved (including the therapist) to avoid going into fix-it mode when grief is present. Doing so may be a sign that one of the parties involved is having difficulty being with the profound sadness that is emerging.
Couples can mistakenly interpret the persistence of sadness as evidence that they are failing to move forward. But sometimes the opposite is true. As greater safety develops and the betrayed partner no longer has to devote so much emotional energy to scanning for danger or trying to get the unfaithful partner to understand the enormity of the injury caused, deeper grief finally has room to emerge. Paradoxically, a betrayed partner may become more openly sad at a point when the relationship is actually becoming more secure. This is not backsliding or evidence that healing isn’t happening. This is actually progress.
An important part of the work, then, involves helping both partners learn how to remain emotionally present with the grief they cannot fix. This can be extremely challenging. Hearing the same sadness many months after the affair was discovered can evoke shame, helplessness, discouragement and eventually impatience in one or both partners. If the betrayed partner experiences their grief as something that needs to be hurried along due to impatience from the wayward partner, their pain can become something that they must manage alone.
The goal of grief work isn’t to help the betrayed partner finally stop feeling sad about what happened. Some losses aren’t undone by reconciliation. Rather, the work is to help the couple develop the capacity to hold the reality that something deeply important was lost while also allowing something meaningful to exist alongside that loss. The grief should not be held by the betrayed partner alone. Infidelity couples therapy can help with the process of identifying the multitude of losses (some of which may not be clearly evident at first), and for the unfaithful partner to hold this pain along with the betrayed partner.
Anger and grief are often linked. Anger can be an expression of the profound helplessness that arises from the pain of mourning. But anger itself is a common and important reaction to the violation and betrayal of infidelity trauma. It’s crucial to explore the anger, especially if it persists in an environment where the wayward partner isn’t acting in ways that trigger it. Anger can feel more empowering than helplessness, so it might be the case that protracted anger is serving as an escape of sorts from the grief. Prolonging the grief won’t dissolve it, however; the grief needs to be experienced. The losses need to be mourned.
Couples therapy should create space for the anger while also helping the betrayed partner gradually move toward the losses and painful realities that may exist beneath it.
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We’ve examined some of the major themes that are part of the infidelity recovery healing process for couples. It’s important to note that while these themes often show up in infidelity work, each partnership and person is unique, and how the betrayal trauma (and rebuilding) manifests will be different. The attachment wounds of the betrayal may reach back to the betrayed partner’s childhood injuries, adding a layer of trauma on top of trauma. This should be examined in infidelity therapy.
As discussed, the reasons why someone cheats can be complicated. From self-centered entitlement, to the reenactment of childhood trauma and everything in between, infidelity couples therapy should move slowly and cautiously in helping both partners gain a better understanding of what made infidelity possible.
Initially, the stabilization of the betrayed partner’s enormous suffering is the priority. This too can take time and patience. Coping and self-regulating strategies are often suggested to give the betrayed partner tools to help lessen the emotional tides that batter them. But ideally, the stabilization will arise from the wayward partner learning how to show up repeatedly with greater openness, empathy, care and self-knowledge. Throughout the rebuilding journey, the injurer must become, in part, a healer in the relational recovery process.
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Rich Nicastro, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals and couples as they navigate betrayal trauma and other emotional challenges. He offers teletherapy to clients throughout the United States. To work with Dr. Nicastro and join his waiting list, please email him at Rich@RichardNicastro.com.
