Page 13 | Has anyone successfully recovered from infidelity with couple’s therapy?

TreadingTrepidatious · 2025-07-17T00:48:03+00:00

Infidelity was discovered within my marriage last night, and we have an appointment with a marriage counselor on the 24th (which feels like forever away!). Just wondering if it’s helped anyone to get their marriage back to a good place, and if you’d be willing to talk about the process. Thanks in advance

Hellandbackand · 19/08/2025 06:54

Girlmom35 · 17/07/2025 09:57

Couples counselor here.
I've had plenty of couples come in trying to work through infidelity. Some made it. Most didn't.

If as I suspect you were the one cheating, please stop using passive terms like 'infidelity was discovered'. The problem isn't that infidelity was discovered. The problem happened when it was committed.
If you did this, stop minimising it with your words. Own up to the horrible thing you did and face the consequences. Having to wait 7 days for an appointment with a counselor is more than reasonable (my waiting time is over 6 months). Rushing through the process isn't going to force your spouse to get over it quicker.
You messed up. You get to be uncomfortable now. No one is responsible for making your discomfort go away. You're supposed to feel like shit now. You're supposed to be afraid. You're supposed to feel guilty.

Cheating is selfish. The couples who make it through infidelity, all have one thing in common. The cheating spouse stops being selfish.
They take the consequences of what they did with grace and humility.
They give their spouse time to heal. Their time, not yours.
They carry the burden of their emotions.
They don't have any expectations for others to fix what they messed up.
They don't shift blame and say: you made me do it
They give any bit of information that the spouse asks, no withholding for any reason.
They don't dictate how long the spouse can keep bringing it up.

If you're ready to stop being selfish, then by all means go to therapy and see where it leads you. But don't expect others to fix your discomfort. You caused it. You deal with it. Focus on the hurt you caused your spouse and put that first, for once.

This is good advice but the only caveat is this ... to go into therapy requires the cheater to be utterly transparent and open. It's hard and exposes a lot and makes you, the cheater, extremely vulnerable. That's necessary part of the process. But if the faithful spouse does not actually want to repair the marriage, you effectively hand them the ammo that they will then use against you.
I guess I'm saying both parties have to really want to try. The cheater has to do the most work, naturally. But it cannot be completely one sided.
Nb this is not about saying you made me blah blah. It's about honestly understanding the state of the marriage before and wanting to get to a better place

Anonusername1234 · 19/08/2025 06:55

They have now outed themselves as the cheat.

This is progress as posters can now address @TreadingTrepidatious as the cheat in this relationship.

ThatCyanCat · 19/08/2025 07:09

Girlmom35 · 17/07/2025 09:57

Couples counselor here.
I've had plenty of couples come in trying to work through infidelity. Some made it. Most didn't.

If as I suspect you were the one cheating, please stop using passive terms like 'infidelity was discovered'. The problem isn't that infidelity was discovered. The problem happened when it was committed.
If you did this, stop minimising it with your words. Own up to the horrible thing you did and face the consequences. Having to wait 7 days for an appointment with a counselor is more than reasonable (my waiting time is over 6 months). Rushing through the process isn't going to force your spouse to get over it quicker.
You messed up. You get to be uncomfortable now. No one is responsible for making your discomfort go away. You're supposed to feel like shit now. You're supposed to be afraid. You're supposed to feel guilty.

Cheating is selfish. The couples who make it through infidelity, all have one thing in common. The cheating spouse stops being selfish.
They take the consequences of what they did with grace and humility.
They give their spouse time to heal. Their time, not yours.
They carry the burden of their emotions.
They don't have any expectations for others to fix what they messed up.
They don't shift blame and say: you made me do it
They give any bit of information that the spouse asks, no withholding for any reason.
They don't dictate how long the spouse can keep bringing it up.

If you're ready to stop being selfish, then by all means go to therapy and see where it leads you. But don't expect others to fix your discomfort. You caused it. You deal with it. Focus on the hurt you caused your spouse and put that first, for once.

Is this really how a couples therapist speaks to patients? Obviously cheating is a heartbreaking and destructive thing to do and amends should be made, but does an actual counsellor really say things like "You messed up. You get to be uncomfortable now...You're supposed to feel like shit now. You're supposed to be afraid. You're supposed to feel guilty."

It's the kind of thing a betrayed partner has the right to say. But an impartial third party who's trying to help the couple decide the way forward now? This is healing therapy speak?

daisychain01 · 19/08/2025 07:10

Manova14 · 19/08/2025 05:47

That act dropped when he went away and made a flowchart to mansplain why he had to cheat.

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OK fair enough, I took it at face value.

So if the OP is the man and the betrayed is the woman, then he the OP is a barefaced liar

Oh... wait...

Im just here for the deletion message 😂

Anonusername1234 · 19/08/2025 07:16

‘I guess I'm saying both parties have to really want to try. The cheater has to do the most work, naturally. But it cannot be completely one sided.
Nb this is not about saying you made me blah blah. It's about honestly understanding the state of the marriage before and wanting to get to a better place’

My marriage was not in a bad place when my husband cheated. We had young children, that was the ONLY potential reason for him to feel he wasn’t being seen enough, and even then he has NEVER in all our years of reconciling put any blame on that because even if that were true, it would be a poor excuse and poor reflection of the man he was at the time. I was a loving, supportive, kind and thoughtful wife at the time and now.

What he did have, was an offer which he felt at the time was shinier and more exciting than the dullard wife raising the kids at home. Affair partner was younger, edgy, arty, trendy and PERSISTENT in her pursuit to the point of arrogance. He was also in the throes of a serious mental health issue. He had an affair. I am not by FAR the only one with a similar story and it drives me crazy when posters talk about the ‘state of the marriage’ as though I could have been or done more to prevent him abusing me and causing me the trauma, I went through. He thankfully doesn’t think so, he has looked at himself and made changes but has NEVER harped on about the state of our marriage at the time because that would show him to be an utterly pitiful human being because it would simply not be true.

thepariscrimefiles · 19/08/2025 07:19

ThatCyanCat · 19/08/2025 07:09

Is this really how a couples therapist speaks to patients? Obviously cheating is a heartbreaking and destructive thing to do and amends should be made, but does an actual counsellor really say things like "You messed up. You get to be uncomfortable now...You're supposed to feel like shit now. You're supposed to be afraid. You're supposed to feel guilty."

It's the kind of thing a betrayed partner has the right to say. But an impartial third party who's trying to help the couple decide the way forward now? This is healing therapy speak?

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But OP isn't her patient so this poster isn't an impartial third party trying to help the couple decide the way forward. This isn't a therapy session. I'm sure therapists have lots of personal opinions about their clients that they keep to themselves and don't reveal during therapy sessions. This poster is responding based on her knowledge and experience of couples where one partner has cheated, but she has no duty of care towards the OP as she would towards her clients/patients.

GentleJadeOP · 19/08/2025 07:24

What a load of twaddle.

BlankBlankBlank14 · 19/08/2025 07:31

TreadingTrepidatious · 17/08/2025 03:06

DH and I have been to a few couple’s counseling sessions. I’m not sure how much they have actually helped in and of themselves, but we are actually doing really well.

We went through the initial “full transparency phase,” where the betrayer answered all the questions the betrayed had about the affair honestly. The betrayed has really put in an effort to make the betrayer feel sexually desired and to connect through meaningful conversation. We feel especially close to one another right now.

We are trying to rebuild the trust, but I know that will take time… The betrayed is going on holiday with our children and leaving the betrayer home for several days, which I think is a good opportunity for rebuilding.

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The betrayed is going on holiday with the children to allow the betrayer to have another few shags with the affair partner, with no fear of being caught.

That’s more likely to happen than “rebuilding”.

DoRayMeMeMe · 19/08/2025 07:36

TreadingTrepidatious · 17/08/2025 03:06

DH and I have been to a few couple’s counseling sessions. I’m not sure how much they have actually helped in and of themselves, but we are actually doing really well.

We went through the initial “full transparency phase,” where the betrayer answered all the questions the betrayed had about the affair honestly. The betrayed has really put in an effort to make the betrayer feel sexually desired and to connect through meaningful conversation. We feel especially close to one another right now.

We are trying to rebuild the trust, but I know that will take time… The betrayed is going on holiday with our children and leaving the betrayer home for several days, which I think is a good opportunity for rebuilding.

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My guess is that the betrayer will be back in contact with the affair partner, or some other source of validation, when they have to sit alone with their own feelings.

I also think that the betrayer is still in survival mode, and hasn’t yet started to mourn the loss of their other relationship, and why that was important to them.
I think. The betrayed person will find that hard.

My advice to the betrayed person is that the chill, unfraught feeling you will experience on holiday can be yours all the time. The worry that the relationship is good “for the moment” but knowing a bolt can strike at any time will not be there. You can choose to live without that background worry. You can choose to live without having to monitor your spouse for signs that they maybe unhappy, when you know that unhappiness equates to “entitled to cheat” for them.

Three years down the line I am so so glad that I took the bull by the horns on day 1. All the “I love you”s were lies really, yes to me, but also to themselves. They loved the nice easy life they had off my mental load, but beyond my utility as white goods, no they didn’t.

What’s really interesting though is since I have started dating again I have definitely discovered that cheats don’t love their partner, you cannot love someone you don’t respect. Cheats don’t respect their spouse enough not to do the dirty on them. Kicking a cheater instantly into touch is an action that demands respect, and that’s why it is the best action to take. If they want to rebuild, then they can start from scratch.

BlankBlankBlank14 · 19/08/2025 07:37

TreadingTrepidatious · 19/08/2025 03:59

Songs, books, movies, and other types of media tell stories. They give accounts of feelings, experiences, memories, etc., including, as you’ve stated, accounts of cheating. But we are lost in the semantic weeds; the point is that somebody who is not concerned about cheating is likely not paying attention to media detailing the consequences of cheating.

If you do not wish to continue talking to me, why don’t you stop replying? Methinks it’s because you can’t admit that you’ve misconstrued everything I’ve said and you feel the intense urge to put me down in order to avoid doing so. So again, I would invite you to elaborate, concisely, on what exactly these “points” are that you’re supposedly making, if you so feel inclined.

My spouse and I do not communicate disrespectfully like that.

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No actions speak louder than words and you go shag someone else instead!

Stop trying to take the higher moral ground. You have no right.

ThatCyanCat · 19/08/2025 07:41

thepariscrimefiles · 19/08/2025 07:19

But OP isn't her patient so this poster isn't an impartial third party trying to help the couple decide the way forward. This isn't a therapy session. I'm sure therapists have lots of personal opinions about their clients that they keep to themselves and don't reveal during therapy sessions. This poster is responding based on her knowledge and experience of couples where one partner has cheated, but she has no duty of care towards the OP as she would towards her clients/patients.

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A decent, authentic therapist is not going to suddenly switch to language like that just because they're not sitting in the therapy room at the time. If they think language like that isn't conducive to good therapy or healing, and it isn't, then they won't find it justified to use it just because they're not the designated therapist in the moment. Couples therapy, among other things, is a mental health position and whatever one might think personally of someone's actions, telling them that they should feel shitty, scared and guilty doesn't behoove a person who represents the profession. Especially when the post was made before any context was given to the cheating (yeah, it does sound like OP is a classic cheating man from the updates, but what person in a therapeutic profession goes straight to that language from the information given in the OP? Cheating is never right but it doesn't all happen in the same circumstances and some situations are more sympathetic than others. No therapist should immediately assume the worst without the detail.).

nospotleft · 19/08/2025 07:58

TreadingTrepidatious · 19/07/2025 22:10

Again, I’m not going to confirm or deny assumptions. It’s beside the point.

The cheating partner felt that the sexual relationship had become a bit passionless, and craved a deeper connection to the betrayed partner through conversation. The betrayed partner had no idea that the cheater felt this way, thought their sex to be good and satisfying, and felt connected to the cheater whenever they spent time together, even in silence. The cheater made an attempt to convey their dissatisfactions to the betrayed, but failed, and recalled the betrayed responding negatively in the past when couple’s therapy was suggested. The cheater made a friend who met their needs and consequently developed feelings for them, and thus began the affair. The affair was discovered before any extramarital sex was had, but the intention and plans to have extramarital sex were there, which the betrayed feels is equally hurtful.

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You very, very much sound like the cheater OP.

Either that or you have naively bought your spouses’s lie that you discovered them before they had sex.

Cheating men lie. Lying worked very well for them during the affair and they lie on discovery too.

The other spouse can never quite be sure about what they are lying about. It’s a life of permanent suspicion and trying to squash doubts to ‘make it work’.

You are also confusing loving what your spouse brings to your life, and loving your spouse. You don’t knowingly cause trauma to someone you love, or risk causing them trauma, especially not in the thin ‘justification’ circumstances you describe.

To answer your question, there was a thread about could a relationship survive infidelity a while ago. Answers from those who had experienced this was overwhelmingly no. Some said they tried but failed in months, others tried but gave up with a couple of years. Others had stayed permanently but wished they had not as the relationship was permanently damaged. They could never get back the trust, feelings or security they had becore the affair. These women said they know felt too old to leave, but we’re also not happy in the marriage. Only a tiny minority of posters said their marriage did survive.

ThatCyanCat · 19/08/2025 08:04

I read a post on here once by a betrayed wife whose marriage did survive her husband's cheating. She said that essentially, on some level, she did have to just "get over it". I don't think I could do that, unless the circumstances were exceptional. They sometimes are.

Anonusername1234 · 19/08/2025 08:06

@TreadingTrepidatious is the cheater. That became clear a few posts back when they outed themselves.

MrsDoubtfire1 · 19/08/2025 08:08

Had a friend at uni where the father cheated with the best friend - all dead now. Went to spend a weekend with said friend in London and the whole family kept reminding the father and treated him like a sinner and a leper. It was very embarrassing. Best make a clean break for a better future. My have worked in the days of stiff upper lip but we are beyond that now.

Allthegoodonesareg0ne · 19/08/2025 08:18

TreadingTrepidatious · 19/08/2025 03:05

The betrayer said “Going to this place with the children is incredibly stressful to me. I do not want to go.”

They betrayed heard that, decided to schedule the holiday, and took the children, without the betrayer, anyway.

It’s INCREDIBLE how MNs manage to twist that around into it being the betrayer’s fault that the betrayed is having to mind the children (with the help of other family members) on this holiday, when the betrayer WARNED the betrayed that it would be stressful and advised them that the betrayer was not going. Somehow it’s the betrayer’s fault that the betrayed booked that holiday with the kids, and how dare the betrayer “enjoy” their time alone cleaning the house, doing heavy labor in the garden, and sorting out the laundry so the betrayed can come home to an orderly house!

And what I meant by “it’s a good opportunity for rebuilding” is that the betrayed is home alone, so this is a good opportunity for them to demonstrate trustworthy behavior and begin to rebuild trust.

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I think the holiday is a wonderful idea.
I don't know how it's gone over your head op but the by going on that holiday the betrayed is showing you they don't need you.
What they will find through the holiday is they make lovely memories, laugh a lot and realise they really don't need you.
I know this first hand.
It'll be wonderful for the betrayed, but it'll mean you'll have a lot more work to do on the reconciliation

DarlingHoldMyHand · 19/08/2025 08:19

It doesn't really matter whether other couples have managed to stay together after after therapy. The real question should be whether OP's relationship can recover after therapy.

And having read this thread, I am pretty sure the odds of that are around 0%.

Comtesse · 19/08/2025 08:22

TreadingTrepidatious · 19/08/2025 01:58

How are you supposed to imagine the horror and terror of war until you’ve been through it? Sure, you can read accounts of it, and watch documentaries, or whatever. But you can’t being to imagine what it’s actually like until you’ve experienced it. If the most violent, chaotic thing you’ve ever experienced is like, two children fighting on the playground of an expensive, private preparatory school, can you understand what it’s like to be surrounded by explosions, people stabbing and shooting and blowing each other up, blood and limbs and dirt flying everywhere, abject terror and confusion…? Maybe you think you can imagine it. But you can’t, really, because you have no point of comparison. You might even go around thinking, yeah, war is terrible. But it’s a necessary, and every citizen should be willing to stand up and defend their country. This generation needs to stop being so soft and man up like their grandparents did (And there are people who think that.)

But, let’s say you meet a veteran who’s missing some limbs, and they suffer from severe PTSD episodes, and you see in their face all the depth of their emotions as they relive their time in combat, and you observe first-hand exactly how utterly, mentally messed up they are as a result of having experienced war… You still haven’t experienced war, but that’s a lot more real, a lot more tangible, than the media accounts of war you’ve consumed. Would you be able to send that person back to the battlefield? Would you be as swift to dispatch a generation of teenagers to that fate?

If you’ve never had a “broken heart” and you hear someone singing about how a cheater broke theirs on the radio, does that mean anything to you? If Sarah’s going around campus telling everyone who will listen that Ben’s a dirty, cheating SOB because she caught him watching porn, are you not more likely to think that someone crying their eyes out about their boyfriend “cheating” on them is being a bit dramatic? If you’re not at all concerned about your partner cheating on you, and you have no intention on cheating on them, how much attention are you even paying to media accounts of cheating?

Why is it so unfathomable to you that someone would be unable to put themselves “in another person’s shoes” when it comes to this traumatic thing with which they have no experience?

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The emotional vacuum you are displaying here is pretty shocking actually. You’ve got lots of words but it’s all sophistry.

Whoever you are, betrayed or betrayer, you probably need to do more listening and less lecturing if you want your marriage to survive.

BarMonaco · 19/08/2025 08:23

I hope your spouse finds someone who is capable of being faithful to him or her. You've shown you are not.

Anonusername1234 · 19/08/2025 08:26

DarlingHoldMyHand · 19/08/2025 08:19

It doesn't really matter whether other couples have managed to stay together after after therapy. The real question should be whether OP's relationship can recover after therapy.

And having read this thread, I am pretty sure the odds of that are around 0%.

Edited

Everything this.

It’s clear that OP cheated and their complete lack of ownership will become VERY clear to their spouse in the near future as the dust settles. They seem to think that acknowledging it was a bad thing to do is enough. It’s not. Many betrayed partners have tried so hard to help here but they are not listening.

lifeonthelane · 19/08/2025 08:30

VoltaireMittyDream · 17/07/2025 02:22

I read it as 'my spouse found out I cheated'!

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Same!!!

Manova14 · 19/08/2025 08:31

Allthegoodonesareg0ne · 19/08/2025 08:18

I think the holiday is a wonderful idea.
I don't know how it's gone over your head op but the by going on that holiday the betrayed is showing you they don't need you.
What they will find through the holiday is they make lovely memories, laugh a lot and realise they really don't need you.
I know this first hand.
It'll be wonderful for the betrayed, but it'll mean you'll have a lot more work to do on the reconciliation

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I would bet the farm on this being what's happening.

Manova14 · 19/08/2025 08:34

lifeonthelane · 19/08/2025 08:30

Same!!!

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Yep
It took about 10 pages and 4 weeks to confirm what was 100% obvious from the opening post. It's a bloke who cheated, thinking he can rush his wife into getting over it and taking responsibility for it.

Bittenonce · 19/08/2025 08:34

DarlingHoldMyHand · 19/08/2025 08:19

It doesn't really matter whether other couples have managed to stay together after after therapy. The real question should be whether OP's relationship can recover after therapy.

And having read this thread, I am pretty sure the odds of that are around 0%.

Edited

Better odds than that, I think. Clearly they both want this to work. Whatever others are saying, the ‘betrayer’ still has strong feelings. But I think the stumbling block is if the ‘betrayed’ is under a constant pressure to act in a certain way because if they don’t, the ‘betrayer’ will just go and fuck someone else, then that pressure will become unbearable, unsustainable.
In the meantime I shall continue to wish them the best while at the same time, smile as I bathe in the river of vitriol that keeps washing over OP 😁

Anonusername1234 · 19/08/2025 08:35

@Allthegoodonesareg0ne Can you imagine their relief at finally getting away from hearing about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how that led @TreadingTrepidatious to cheat!

Absolute bliss!