Affair and Betrayal Recovery
How do I deal with my partner’s affair?
Whichever side of this you are on, you are probably not sleeping and you are probably making decisions at two in the morning that you would not make at two in the afternoon.
This page is written for both of you, because that is who tends to read it.
If you were betrayed: what you are experiencing has a name and it is closer to trauma than to sadness. Intrusive images. Checking. Needing details, then wishing you had not asked. Feeling fine for six hours and then flattened by a song. None of that is you overreacting or failing to move on. It is what happens when the person who was safety became the source of threat.
If you had the affair: you may be several weeks into apologizing and finding it changes nothing, which is confusing and makes people defensive at exactly the wrong moment. There is a reason apology alone does not work, and it is structural rather than a comment on your sincerity.
Neither of those is an assignment of fault. Fault is not what this work runs on.
Open seven days a week.
What it costs
$230 for a 55-minute couples session with a licensed clinician. $205 with a supervised associate.
The first consultation is free and it is a full 55 minutes.
We are in network with Kaiser, PacificSource, Cigna, Aetna, United Healthcare and Optum, and with Medicare, Open Card and in-network Advantage plans. Insurance rarely covers couples work, because most plans require a diagnosis attached to one person and relationship distress does not qualify. We will tell you exactly where you stand before your first session rather than after it.
Can a marriage survive infidelity?
Yes, often. That is a statement about what happens in this work, not a promise about yours.
Some couples come through it with a relationship that is more honest than the one they had. Some decide to separate and do it with less damage than they would have managed alone. Both of those are real outcomes and we do not steer you towards either one.
What we will tell you is that the couples who do well are rarely the ones who were least hurt. They are the ones who did the sequence in order.
The sequence
Affair recovery goes wrong when people try to do the last part first. Most couples arrive trying to rebuild trust in week one, which is like putting weight on a leg before it has set.
Stop the bleeding. The affair ends completely, including the contact nobody has mentioned yet. We establish what gets disclosed and what does not, and we do it in session rather than at midnight. This phase is about safety and it usually takes longer than anybody wants.
Understand it. Not to excuse it. Because a betrayed partner cannot recover from an event they do not understand, and an involved partner cannot guarantee anything about the future until they know what made it possible. This is where the actual work happens and it is the part couples try hardest to skip.
Rebuild, or decide honestly. Trust returns through repeated small demonstrations over time, not through a conversation. By this stage you both know enough to make a real decision, and some couples make a different one than they expected.
We have completed the Gottman Trauma and Affairs specialty training, and this structure is what that training does with an affair. Neither is Gottman certified, which is a separate and expensive credentialing step that would raise what you pay without changing what happens in the room.
Individual work for the betrayed partner
Betrayal trauma is trauma, and treating it only as a relationship problem is a common reason it does not resolve.
The symptoms overlap almost exactly: intrusive images, hypervigilance, checking, sleep that will not settle, and a nervous system that has stopped reading your own home as safe.
Some people do individual trauma work alongside the couples sessions. Some do it instead, particularly when the relationship has already ended and the symptoms have not.
If it was not a physical affair
Emotional affairs, an ongoing correspondence, a secret account, financial infidelity, hidden pornography use.
The betrayed partner’s symptoms are frequently identical, and being told “nothing actually happened” tends to make them worse rather than better. This page covers all of it.
If compulsive pornography use is the thing underneath, that is a separate piece of work and there is a page for it.
Who you would see
Two of our clinicians take couples work, a licensed clinician and a Marriage and Family Therapist Associate.
Our associate is credentialed with Aetna and Cigna. PacificSource stops taking associates on 1 October 2026.
Questions people ask
Do we have to decide whether to stay before we start?
No, and most couples cannot. Deciding is frequently the outcome of the work rather than the entry requirement.
Will you make my partner apologize?
No. Apology on demand is worth very little and both of you will be able to tell. What we do instead is slower and holds better.
Do I have to hear the details?
That is a real decision with real consequences either way, and we will help you make it deliberately rather than at three in the morning. Some details help. Some are asked for once and carried for years.
What if only one of us wants to come?
Come anyway. Individual work is useful on either side of this, and a fair number of couples start with one person.
How long does this take?
Longer than a few sessions and shorter than people fear. You will get an honest estimate after the consultation instead of a package.
Can we do this by video?
We prefer this work in person, in Tigard. It is possible by video anywhere in Oregon and we will be straight with you about the tradeoff.
Book a free 55 minute consultation
An hour, at no cost, with a clinician rather than an intake screener. Either of you can book it.
Book online · In person in Tigard, by video anywhere in Oregon