What to Expect in Marriage Counseling After an Affair
Couples therapy after infidelity isn't a single conversation. It's a process that moves through distinct phases, and knowing what those phases look like can make it feel less like stepping into the unknown.
What happens in couples therapy after infidelity depends on where you are in the process, what each partner is carrying, and what you're both hoping the work will make possible. But there's enough of a common arc to describe — and understanding that arc tends to make the first step feel more accessible.
Couples therapy after infidelity at Sagebrush Counseling. We work with couples navigating affairs, betrayal, and the question of what comes next. Telehealth sessions throughout Maine, Montana, and Texas. Join from anywhere in your state.
Schedule a Complimentary Consult →Before the First Session
For many couples, the period before the first therapy session is already hard. One or both partners may be ambivalent about being there. The hurt partner may not yet know what they want — whether to save the relationship or leave it — and may feel that starting therapy implies a commitment they're not ready to make. The other partner may be bracing for judgment, or may be coming in with their own complicated mix of shame, defensiveness, and genuine desire to repair.
It's worth saying clearly: entering couples therapy after infidelity doesn't require knowing what outcome you want. You don't have to arrive having already decided to stay. Therapy can be a place to figure out what you want, not just a place to work toward a decision already made. The first session tends to be more assessment than intervention — a chance for the therapist to understand both partners' experiences, what happened, and what each person is hoping the work might offer.
If you're still in the process of finding the right therapist, our guide on finding an infidelity therapist near you walks through what to look for and what questions to ask.
The Three Phases of Recovery
Research by Gordon, Baucom, and Snyder (2004) describes infidelity recovery as moving through three overlapping phases. These aren't rigid stages with clear endpoints — couples move through them at different paces and sometimes circle back — but they offer a useful map of what the work tends to involve.
Moving Through the Impact
The early phase of therapy focuses on stabilization. The hurt partner is often in significant distress — intrusive thoughts, emotional flooding, difficulty functioning normally. The immediate goal isn't resolution or understanding; it's creating enough containment that both partners can stay in the relationship long enough to decide what they want to do next.
In this phase, sessions tend to focus on managing the acute emotional response, establishing some basic agreements about communication and behavior during this period, and beginning to build a framework for talking about what happened without the conversation becoming destructive. Progress here often looks less like breakthroughs and more like a slight reduction in the chaos.
Making Meaning
Once things have stabilized enough to allow for it, the work shifts toward understanding. This is the phase that tends to feel most uncomfortable for both partners — it involves looking honestly at the relational context in which the affair occurred, not to excuse it, but to understand it. What was happening in the relationship? What needs weren't being expressed or met? What stories was each person telling themselves about the state of things?
This phase also involves the hurt partner processing the injury more deeply — moving from the immediate shock into the grief, the questions, the destabilized sense of who their partner is. Research by Snyder and colleagues (2007) found that a key predictor of successful recovery is whether the hurt partner can eventually arrive at a coherent narrative of what happened rather than staying in fragmented, intrusive processing. Therapy creates the conditions for that narrative to form.
Moving Forward — Together or Apart
The third phase is about decision and direction. For couples who want to rebuild, this is where that rebuilding begins in earnest: reestablishing trust, renegotiating the relationship, and building something that accounts for what they now know about each other and themselves. For couples who decide to separate, this phase can involve doing that in a way that is intentional and honest rather than reactive.
It's worth holding that both outcomes — staying and separating — are legitimate results of this work. Therapy after infidelity isn't measured by whether a relationship survives. It's measured by whether both people are able to move forward with clarity and some degree of peace about what happened and what they chose.
Telehealth couples therapy for infidelity throughout Maine, Montana, and Texas. Join from anywhere in your state.
Schedule a Complimentary Consult →What Sessions Actually Feel Like
One of the most common questions couples have before starting is what the sessions themselves will be like — whether it will feel like being put on trial, whether the therapist will take sides, whether they'll be forced to talk about things they're not ready for.
A therapist experienced in infidelity work holds both partners' experiences simultaneously. That means the hurt partner's pain gets full space, and so does the other partner's complexity. Sessions are typically not a platform for one person to present their case while the other defends themselves. They're a structured conversation with a third person who can slow things down when they escalate, name what's happening in the room when neither partner can, and redirect when the exchange is moving in a direction that won't produce anything useful.
Some sessions will feel hard. This kind of work doesn't stay comfortable. But hard and harmful are different things, and a skilled therapist knows the difference. The goal of every session is to leave both partners feeling that something was heard, even if nothing was resolved.
- The pace will vary. Some sessions will feel like significant movement. Others will feel like circling. Both are part of the process. Recovery from infidelity is rarely linear.
- Both partners will be invited to speak. A good infidelity therapist doesn't run sessions as depositions. Both partners are in the room, and both have something that needs to be heard.
- There will likely be individual work alongside couples work. Many therapists who specialize in infidelity recommend that one or both partners also do individual sessions, either with the same therapist or a separate one, to process what the couples sessions can't fully hold.
- The question of whether to stay may take time to answer. Therapy won't rush you toward a decision you're not ready to make. That ambivalence is allowed to stay in the room for as long as it needs to.
- Repair, if it happens, tends to be gradual. Trust doesn't return all at once. What tends to shift first is the felt sense that both partners are actually trying — that the effort is real on both sides. That shift is often what makes longer-term repair possible.
You don't have to know what you want from the work before you start. Sometimes the work is exactly how you figure that out.
How Long Does Couples Therapy After Infidelity Take?
This is one of the most common questions and one of the hardest to answer with precision, because it depends on the nature of the affair, the degree of trust rupture, how long the relationship has been under strain, and what each partner brings to the work. What the research does suggest is that meaningful recovery takes longer than most couples initially expect. A study by Atkins and colleagues (2010) found that couples who made significant progress in infidelity recovery were typically still in therapy at the six-month mark.
For some couples, a shorter intensive format is a useful way to make concentrated progress early, particularly in the acute phase when weekly sessions can feel too slow. For others, the pacing of weekly or biweekly sessions over a longer period fits the rhythm of the work better. You can read more about the difference between intensive and ongoing formats on our post about how we work.
The more useful frame than "how long will this take" is often "what would we need to feel like we've gotten somewhere." That's a conversation worth having early in the process — with each other, and in session.
Getting Started at Sagebrush
You don't need to arrive at the consultation with clarity about what you want from the work. Uncertainty is a reasonable place to start. The complimentary consultation is a low-stakes way to get a sense of whether Sagebrush feels like the right fit and what working together might look like.
All sessions are via telehealth, so there's no commute and no waiting room. You join from wherever feels most private and comfortable. If you want to understand what the online format involves before reaching out, you can read about how online therapy works at Sagebrush.
We serve couples throughout the state of Maine (including Brunswick and beyond), the whole of Montana, and anywhere in Texas, including Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Midland.
All sessions via telehealth. Join from anywhere in your state.
Couples Therapy After Infidelity at Sagebrush
Telehealth therapy for couples navigating infidelity and betrayal. Join from anywhere in Maine, Montana, or Texas — all sessions are virtual.
Schedule a Complimentary ConsultationCouples therapy after infidelity is hard work. It's also work that can lead somewhere real — to clarity, to repair, or to an honest ending. Whatever that looks like for your relationship, you don't have to figure it out alone.
— Sagebrush Counseling
1. Gordon, K.C., Baucom, D.H., & Snyder, D.K. (2004). An integrative intervention for promoting recovery from extramarital affairs. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(2), 213–231. View on PubMed
2. Snyder, D.K., Castellani, A.M., & Whisman, M.A. (2006). Current status and future directions in couple therapy. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 317–344. View on PubMed
3. Atkins, D.C., Marín, R.A., Lo, T.T.Y., Klann, N., & Hahlweg, K. (2010). Outcomes of couples with infidelity in a community-based sample of couple therapy. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(2), 212–216. View on PubMed
Finding an Infidelity Therapist Near You — Sagebrush Counseling. A guide to what to look for in a therapist, how telehealth expands your options, and what to consider when evaluating fit.
5 Signs of Trust Issues in a Relationship — Sagebrush Counseling. How trust issues show up in a relationship and what they may point to beneath the surface.
