Couples therapy after an affair
Something has come out, or been found out, and the ground has gone. One of you is asking questions you are not sure you want answered. The other is answering, or refusing to, and both feel wrong. Ordinary evenings have become interrogations. You have had the same conversation at two in the morning more times than you can count, and it does not settle anything.
This is one of the most common reasons couples come to me, and one of the most workable, though it rarely feels that way at the start.
What this usually feels like
For the person who was betrayed, the difficulty is not only the affair. It is that the past has been rewritten. Holidays, conversations, ordinary Tuesdays now have a second meaning. You find yourself checking, calculating, needing detail and then wishing you had not asked. People often describe feeling humiliated by their own need to know.
For the person who had the affair, there is usually a mixture of guilt, defensiveness and a private sense that something in the relationship was already missing, which feels impossible to say without sounding like an excuse. Many find themselves apologising endlessly and getting nowhere with it.
Both of you are exhausted. Neither of you knows whether you are working towards staying or towards ending.
How I work with this
I do not treat an affair as a single event to be forgiven or punished. I treat it as something that happened inside a relationship, with a history, and I am interested in what it was carrying.
That is not the same as blaming the betrayed partner. Nobody causes another person's affair. But affairs almost always sit on top of something older: a distance neither of you named, a loss, an arrival of children, a period of illness or work pressure, a way one of you had of disappearing and the other had of not noticing. Understanding that changes the conversation from an interrogation into something you can both take part in.
Three things tend to happen in the work.
We slow the detail down. The need to know is real and I do not dismiss it, but at three in the morning it is not information you are seeking. Sessions give the questions a place to go, and give the answering partner somewhere to answer honestly without the whole evening collapsing.
We look at the relationship the affair grew in. Not to excuse it. To understand it, so it is not simply waiting to happen again.
We look at what repair would actually require. Trust is not restored by promises. It is restored slowly, by the person who broke it behaving differently over a long stretch of time, and by the other risking a small amount of belief before there is proof. That is uncomfortable for both of you and it helps to have someone in the room while it happens.
I work for the relationship rather than for either of you. You will not find me appointing a villain, and both of you will feel heard, including in the sessions where you arrive certain the other is the problem.
What if we are not sure we want to stay together
Most couples who come after an affair are not sure. Deciding first and then coming to therapy is not how it works.
Therapy is a reasonable place to find out. Some couples rebuild something better than what they had. Some understand what happened and separate with far less damage, which matters enormously if you are parents. I do not have a preferred outcome for you, and I will not steer you towards one.
Practical details
Sessions are 50 minutes, weekly, at a fixed time. £170 per session, online. In-person sessions are available in Peckham, South East London.
I trained in couple psychotherapy at Tavistock Relationships, qualifying in 2015, and I continue to work there as a Visiting Clinician carrying out clinical assessments. My private practice is separate from that role.
We start with an initial session, which is a conversation about what has happened and what you are each hoping for. There is no obligation to continue.
Common questions
Should we come together or should one of us come alone first?
Together, if both of you are willing. If only one of you is ready, come alone. It is still useful work, and partners often join later.
Does the affair have to be over?
For couples work to go anywhere, yes, and I will ask about it directly. If it is not over, that is worth saying in the first session rather than working around it.
Do we have to go through every detail?
No. Some detail is necessary and some is corrosive. Part of my job is helping you tell the difference.
How long will this take?
Recovery after an affair is usually measured in many months rather than weeks. Couples often notice the arguments changing shape much earlier than that.