The Challenges of Infidelity

Take our Relationship Satisfaction Test

Find a therapist near me

Infidelity creates grief for the relationship, trust, and future that partners believed they had.

Healing is not linear, and acceptance does not require approval or immediate forgiveness.

Couples who stay together must intentionally build a new relationship rather than restore the old one.

Infidelity can cause deep grief within a relationship. In this case, grief means the loss or death of the relationship both partners knew. That relationship has been irrevocably changed. Once partners grieve, however, they can allow room for a rebirth. That rebirth is the “new” relationship they start to rebuild. So these are related steps: grieving what has been lost while renewing a commitment to rebuild.

Like forgiveness, grieving is a process. Grief doesn’t look a particular way, and everyone’s timeline for healing is different. Betrayed partners essentially experience grief in regard to infidelity in three parts: grief about the “old” relationship, grief about their partner’s loyalty, and grief about their previously imagined future.

A helpful concept for understanding grief is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, to which David Kessler added a sixth stage. The six stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and finding meaning. Moving through the six-stage grief process in their own way can help partners move forward and renew their commitment.

Denial is often the first stage of grief because the body and brain are likely in shock. A common defense mechanism, denial is a way to avoid reality in order to protect ourselves. Denial may look like, “There is no way my partner cheated on me. We had a loving relationship.”

Anger is common in grief because, typically,........

© Psychology Today