Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful

“Full of juicy, concrete advice to heal from an affair.” —Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs

From a clinical psychologist who served as a clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University, received the CPA’s award for Distinguished Contribution to the Practice of Psychology, and has treated couples and trained therapists for over four decades, this newly updated, award-winning book provides concrete, proven strategies for those who seek to survive their partner’s infidelity and to rebuild the relationship after an affair.

There is nothing quite like the devastation caused when a partner has been unfaithful, making the path to infidelity recovery seem impossible. Hurt partners often experience a profound shattering of their familiar and valued sense of self and fall into a depression that can last for years. For the relationship, infidelity is often a death blow.

This new third edition of After the Affair, Third Edition, with more than 600,000 copies sold, helps guide both hurt and unfaithful partners through three stages of healing: normalizing the crisis, deciding whether to recommit to their partner, and rebuilding trust and sexual intimacy. It includes a new section in which patients ask questions not addressed in previous editions, and the author provides concrete strategies for improving communication in relationships, earning trust, and achieving forgiveness.

This compassionate and authoritative guide provides a roadmap for healing, with actionable strategies to:

• Survive the Initial Trauma: Understand why your feelings—whether you’re the hurt or the unfaithful partner—are a normal response to crisis and learn how to manage the overwhelming emotional fallout.
• Decide Whether to Recommit: Explore your doubts, fears, and ideas about love to make a thoughtful, deliberate decision about your future instead of an impulsive one.
• Learn from the Affair: Decipher the meaning of the infidelity, accept an appropriate share of responsibility for it, and prevent the same problems from happening again.
• Renew Trust and Intimacy: Discover concrete steps for the unfaithful partner to earn back trust, for the hurt partner to open up to connection, and for both of you to become sexually intimate again.