When Kevin and Emily* first came to my office one cool afternoon, the tension between them was undeniable. They immediately sat in chairs on opposite sides of the room and kept their eyes on anything but each other. Emily brushed her hands through her curly dark hair and played nervously with her earrings. She stared at the carpet intently as though trying to locate something on the floor. Kevin was dressed in a blue business coat and brown loafers. His light brown hair was slicked back and showed traces of gray.

Anatomy of an Affair

After we got through the usual pleasantries Kevin sat up in his chair and cleared his throat as though ready to make a speech.  “Basically we are here because I messed up big time,” he said plainly. He glanced at Emily who nodded ever so slightly but kept staring at the floor. I asked both of them more questions and Emily finally spoke. Her voice sounded tentative as she spoke. She described the strange messages she had seen on his phone once. And she described how she had suspected Kevin had been cheating on her for a while though he denied it. How one day she had returned home early from work only to discover him in the act with a co-worker of his. On the sofa.  Their sofa. She described her feelings of shock, rage and disbelief. Kevin looked out the window while she spoke, biting his lip. I asked them both more questions and noted their responses.

Kevin squared his body to mine and raised his eyebrows. “ Do you think you can help us?’ We stared at each other for a moment. “Yes.” I answered. “Of course. But it’s going to take a lot of hard work on both your parts.” I looked at both of them. What kind of hard work? he wanted to know. The following is a longer version of my response, with examples of the real work Emily & Kevin did end up doing together. So, let’s begin.

How to Recover from an Affair

Couples can recover from an affair but it takes real work. Most of this work will fall on the betrayer. In order for Kevin to help himself and Emily heal from the pain his infidelity caused  he needed to change course. That meant he had to show up in new ways in their relationship. Ways that would feel completely foreign to him.

In order to rebuild trust and work towards affair recovery Kevin needed to complete a series of tasks. And he needed to do  them not once, but repeatedly. Specifically he had to:

Tasks for the Betrayer if trust is to be rebuilt

• Show regret
• Be completely transparent about everything
• Make a real effort to understand the pain you caused your partner and allow plenty of space for it
• Make no excuses for your behavior. And do not expect understanding in return
• Be non-defensive
•  Show extraordinary patience

And also just as important. Emily had some work to do.

Tasks for the betrayed: 

• Allow time and space for shock and grief to occur
• Identify  feelings and begin to express them clearly and honestly
• Don’t try to smooth things over too quickly ( if that is the tendency)
• Be  curious about what you need now from your partner

Phase 1 of affair recovery: assessing the damage

In the beginning, Kevin had to admit that his actions had caused lasting damage to their marriage. That damage could never be undone and would run its own course. And healing would take time. A lot longer than he expected or wanted it to.  Betrayal is often experienced as trauma to the betrayed spouse. And Emily had all the classic signs of acute post traumatic stress. She watched Kevin’s every move with a heightened tension neither of them had known before. And she was agitated and suspicious most of the time. Often she would question him relentlessly and sometimes fly into a rage. She simply could not relax. It was like the affair could occur again at any moment.

They had tried to talk things out many times before at home, often with the same result. Emily would fly into a rage and Kevin would get to the point that he would rage back. They were stuck. Kevin needed a lot of help in how to not get defensive in the face of Emily rage. And Emily needed to not feel pressured to heal and make amends before she was ready.  I worked with both of them carefully on these tasks over many sessions until they finally got where they needed to go

Phase 2 of affair recovery: looking under the hood

Eventually Emily’s rage settled and her real sadness, fear and deep despair surfaced. She hated how vulnerable and out of control she felt since the affair. The way she saw it, if he deceived her once, he was capable of deceiving her again. She asked him some tough questions. I coached Kevin in how to receive her pain in a good way. He needed help  answering her questions in a clear and honest way  without trying to negotiate or collapse. Kevin also had to deal with his own feelings of guilt, shame, and remorse for what he did. Not by running as always done, but by facing the fears directly. They were ready for the next phase.

Phase 3 of affair recovery: the great repair

The unspoken questions that one or both partners are often asking is whether to stay or go. And no one would blame them if one person decided to leave. Part of my job as Marriage Therapist is to help support them with all the tools and information they need to decide. If the couple decides to stay, they must also be willing to do the difficult work of completely revamping their marriage. That was the case with Emily & Kevin. They both agreed they had invested too much in each other and their marriage to walk away. And they were willing to do whatever it takes to rebuild their marriage from the ground up. The motivation was there to work towards affair recovery. And over the course of our work together they had built up the skills and capabilities they needed to get there.

* not their real names. Personal details have been changed in order to protect privacy. Any resemblance between the characters in this story and real people is completely coincidental.

Do you need to Recover from an Affair? 

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