Are you struggling to heal or recover from infidelity? Recovering from an affair can be life-altering and challenging — especially if you decide to stay in your marriage. Infidelity can be one of the most challenging trials in a marriage. This challenge will likely come with mixed feelings, fear, anxiety, and great uncertainty. Healing from an affair is a long and committed process However, as spouses work to rebuild trust, take responsibility for their acts of infidelity, resolve conflict, and forgive, the process can deepen and strengthen commitment, love, and affection.

Noted American psychologist and marriage expert Dr. John Gottman and his wife, Dr. Julie Gottman, have discovered through extensive research that couples need to go through three phases in their recovery — atonement, attunement, and attachment. In this article, we will briefly discuss the three stages. (For a deeper dive into these phases, we recommend reading “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” or The Gottman Institute to learn more.)

Phase 1: Atonement

Atonement, as used by Dr. Gottman, isn’t “atonement” as used in religious contexts. Atonement in this context is reparation for an offense or injury. In a damaged or broken marriage, the atonement can be much more complicated in terms of making reparations. While most unfaithful spouses probably wish they could just apologize for their infidelity and betrayal and not have to work through a more complex process of reparations and reconciliation, it generally isn’t that easy. Atonement takes time, commitment, vulnerability, and sincerity. It takes integrity.

The Atonement Phase creates space for the truth to come out over time which allows for other natural emotions and feelings like anger, fear, guilt, and shame as well. It’s important to note that it can take time for all of the truth to come out. This happens for several reasons, including:

1. The cheating spouse may feel like they are protecting their spouse or themselves by not sharing all the details at once.
2. They may fear that it will be too much to handle and complicate the reconciliation process.
3. They might also still be dealing with feelings of attachment to their affair partner, which makes being honest complicated.

Phase 2: Attunement

The Attunement Phase of affair recovery is when the couple looks at what wasn’t working in their marriage that may have contributed to the affair. The cheating spouse or partner needs to take responsibility for their actions, and shouldn’t place the blame of their affair on the failing marriage. The cheating spouse made the destructive choice of betraying their spouse and children by having an affair.

However, setting the blame and related accountability aside, issues in the marriage need to be addressed to move forward. The Atonement Phase is best thought of as developing a new marriage rather than fixing the old broken and violated marriage. It’s more important to get attuned to each other’s needs and create a new relationship that is better than the old one.

Another part of the Attunement Phase is the continued healing of the trauma of the affair. According to Dr. Margaret Rutherford from The Gottman Institute, “And, in all seriousness, this process [of the betrayed working through their trauma] can’t happen quickly enough for the betrayer nor slow enough for the betrayed.”

It is common for the betrayed partner to experience symptoms similar to PTSD. PISD (post-infidelity stress disorder) is a term that some psychologists use to describe what the betrayed partner goes through. Infidelity and related betrayal is a serious relational trauma. Just as PTSD triggers can affect people over time, even in the long term, so too can PISD. If you’re an unfaithful spouse, know that you’ll need to have compassion and understanding as your spouse or partner takes the needed time to heal from the pain and suffering of your betrayal.

The Gottmans also coined the term “The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse,” referring to criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Avoiding these horsemen is helpful to the healing process.

Phase 3: Attachment

The Attachment Phase is the phase of recovery that is the stage of reconciliation. This phase is essential to prevent a marriage from being consumed by bitterness, passive-aggressive behavior, and unhappiness. The goal of this phase is to achieve true reconciliation and to avoid an eventual divorce where the betrayed spouse or partner decides they want a divorce because they never got over their spouse or partner’s infidelity.

During the Attachment Stage, the couple starts to prove to each other that they are still committed to working their marriage out. For this phase to work, both spouses need to be honest with each other. A healthy marital relationship requires open communication, honesty, understanding, and patience. It is natural for both spouses to have some triggers and emotional reactions to them. Infidelity leaves deep scars and pain. However, when the Attachment Stage is successful, betrayal pain lessens, trust grows, and intimacy increases.

Recovering From Infidelity

If you have experienced infidelity-induced trauma caused by the emotional and sexual betrayal of your spouse, there is hope! If you are a child affected by parental infidelity, there is hope! If you are a spouse who has betrayed the trust, love, and fidelity of your marriage, there is hope! We recommend that you seek support through professional counseling and therapy as well as through groups dedicated to supporting you through this traumatic journey. You are not alone and recovery and healing are possible!

Share Your Story

The CHADIE Foundation shares personal stories of spouses and children impacted by infidelity and affairs. If you have a story you would like to share and have published, please use the contact information below to share your story with The CHADIE Foundation. Our mission is to help educate everyone about the damage infidelity, affairs, and adultery cause families and how to minimize the impact.

About CHADIE Foundation

The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children who adultery, affairs, and infidelity have negatively impacted. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.