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

[TreadingTrepidatious]

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

OP I agree with anonusername1234, visiting surviving infidelity is your best bet.
Mumsnet can be awesome, but a lot of advice you get here about affairs will often lack nuance and will be very filtered through posters exact experiences and backgrounds and characters - when there can be so many variables for every couple.
Also, it's not unusual on infidelity threads here to see many posters show thinly veiled hostility towards those posters who wish to at least try and repair a relationship after their partner's infidelity. Why, I don't know; I'm not a psychologist 🙂

I intentionally wrote in the passive voice because I didn’t want to tell MN specifically who cheated. (If I was the one who cheated, I’d be flamed for it. If DH was the one who cheated, they would tell me to LTB. Everyone is still trying to guess and make assumptions anyway 🤦🏻‍♀️) The cheater here is not minimizing what happened and is taking accountability.

I don’t see why you would even be open to new clients if you’re not available for six months. Seems like it would waste a lot of prospective clients’/NHS worker’s time (not sure how counseling matching works where you are.) We are not trying to rush the process; we want to make sure we are being fair to one another and moving forward in the best way possible as soon as possible.

My DH booked counselling the minute his affair was discovered. All it achieved was him telling the counsellor it was all my fault and how wonderful his other woman was. I then found out it was still continuing. It broke me. Unless whoever cheated is willing to take full responsibility for the affair and realise it was not the betrayed partner’s fault then counselling won’t achieve anything.

As many as 85% of couples split within 5 years of discovery. Which would suggest counselling is not the fix all everyone seems to hope it is.

Ten years ago one of my friends found out her husband had been having an affair with one of her friends for seven years. She initially kicked him out but they then went to couples therapy, resolved things and he moved back in. She says her marriage is now better than ever.

I don't believe her.

I’ve been on both sides of this fence: neither worked out.
From my experience it can be made to work only if the ‘guilty’ party genuinely doesn’t want to see the AP again or have any contact.
Both own some responsibility for what led up to it and want to make changes: these things don’t happen in an emotional vacuum, there’s a problem in the first place.
And I’ve got to disagree with the counselor talking about ‘no time limit for bringing it up’: a never ending blame cycle isn’t going to be a happy place to live in.
Good luck to you

No counselling here. Over 2 and a half years after having proof off affair.
My relationship has forever changed, I will never forget or forgive. I spent a lot of time on me, my health, my wants, my needs, my apperance. Basically we have move to a very clear 50/50 relationship.
He is working very hard to be a better man for me and the kids and his actions prove this.

They were supposed to be work friends but they went too far. They succeeded in damaging each other as well as me.
Their behaviour desoyed me.
I am not ashamed and made sure some of his colleagues knew, along with some other satisfying vindictive behaviour.

We have been together 30 years. At the time of discovery i wasn't ready to loose that. Now I am stronger I could walk away at any hint of him messing around.

I do think marriage can survive infidelity if both parties are truly on board and really want to stay together (aka - not doing this for the sake of the kids!). Mine, didn't, but couples therapy was excellent because I was able to truly forgive. We co-parent our DC very well and we even spend holidays together!

Well obviously the cheater wants to stay together - otherwise they would have split up before they cheated. It’s never for the ‘right’ reasons. You can’t genuinely deeply and authentically love someone and cheat on them. Takes a whole lot of cognitive dissonance and denial to pretend otherwise.

Is he rich?

Not sure how you define rich but they have a very nice lifestyle - beautiful home, DC in private schools, she only works PT. Not sure they could afford all that if they split up and were running two households.

yes, would define that as very well off. My mum is similar, we aren’t that well off (no private education) but she’s on her pension now and stays with dad despite everything

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Sometimes people behave selfishly and hurt the people they love; it doesn’t mean they don’t still love their partners. Their partners may not feel loved as a result of the selfish behavior, which definitely makes sense.

They love what they do for them. May be attached to them. But it is never ever real love. You would not risk losing them. You would not hurt them, as doing so would hurt yourself. Most people have no clue what actual love is. It certainly doesn’t involve humiliating, betraying, lying, disrespecting and exposing someone to the risk of sexually transmitted disease.

It’s the lie people tell themselves in order to stay with cheaters.

My exH and I had couples therapy after I discovered he'd cheated the first time (turns out he'd actually had an affair with one women and a ONS with another). We stayed together afterwards for another 5 years... but it turns out he had another affair within 3 years of the therapy. If I am being honest with myself he probably had other affairs too. I wouldn't say i felt I was unhappy during that time and we had our wonderful daughter during that time, but looking back I was deeply broken and never myself again. So I don't regret it as I can't regret my child, and I can at least say I tried and faught for our family. Much much happier now though

Whilst I agree with you in principle, an alarmingly high percentage of people don’t seem to have the emotional intelligence to actually consider the ramifications. The biggest lies people tell are to themselves. And I think people that cheat lie to themselves the most.

If you’ve had an affair then you don’t love your partner, you do not hurt the people you love. That’s not love- certainly not the kind of love anybody deserves.

I don’t think it takes any degree of emotional intelligence to realise cheating is wrong. No cheater is so delusional as to tell themselves otherwise. Enough to convince themselves they won’t get caught maybe, but they know why they’re doing it and it’s not just because they are selfish and ‘lying to themselves’. They know the risk, and consider it to be worth it. Tells you how little they truly value the primary relationship.

You'll not get a very balanced view here unfortunately.

Survivinginfidelity.com is an excellent resource and I found Esther Perels "The State of Affairs" book excellent.

It is quite easy for others to comment, but when you're actually faced with it, perspective changes.

It is hard work though, you both have to prepared to really work through it. Were two years in, pleased we're still together and happy with the choices we made.

It depends on the person.

I couldn't move past it. I could forgive but I would feel too deeply betrayed and insecure that it may happen again, I would remain hurt and this hurt would constantly be reflected in the relationship. I would be able to move on better as an individual, to preserve my happiness, calm and sense of self respect.

In the end, looking that person in the eye every day is going to be brutal. Every arguement it will resurface, every disagreement, every bone of contention will come back to either 'you cheated' or 'i should have left when you cheated', it isn't something I could personally get past but I could easily let go and move on away from them. It would be a sign for me that the relationship had failed and there was no way back.

Some people manage it. I do not know how as I don't have it in me. If you the wounded party in this wants to try, that is their decision ultimately. I do not think they will ever feel truly safe or happy again though. Even if they manage to act like they are.

You cannot do therapy with the abuser
They will turn everything onto you, Tell you about how things have to be so much better going forward and you will be required to do so much more to stop them from cheating in the future
Fuck that

We had therapy together after h cheated and he went a couple of times on his own. We bonded over how crap she was. It didn't help. I divorced him but not because of the affair and it was a number of years later. He never cheated again though so no, they don't always do it again 🙄

Yeah you’re definitely the cheater - regardless of any drip feed denials you issue 🤣

Their lust after someone else is clearly stronger than their love of their partner or they wouldn't cheat in the first place.

You seem to want this to "be dealt with" quickly as if you could pay someone else to fix your betrayal. It will take a very long time to heal and even if the partner is forgiven on the surface the trust is out.

Therapy also a very low effort way of convincing the person they cheated on that they’re ’doing the work’. All they have to do is show up and make the right noises.

then they get a nice gold star and everything is fine…