WELLBEING

Could your relationship survive infidelity?

28 August, 2023 . 0

Some say cheating shouldn’t necessarily signal the end of a relationship, but what does it really take for a couple to stay together when someone’s been unfaithful?

If recent sign-up numbers to an extramarital dating app are anything to go by, Australia ranks among the highest countries in the world when it comes to cheating.

But, according to Relationships Australia, at least one in two of us think infidelity shouldn’t necessarily signal the end of a relationship.

So, could your relationship survive you or your partner being unfaithful?

“To repair from infidelity, a couple would need to go through a few steps,” psychologist and Sydney Couples Counselling Centre director Dr Rowan Burckhardt says.

Coming clean on cheating

As well as identifying and addressing the cause, Dr Burckhardt says full disclosure of what has occurred is key.

“This includes how often it happened, where, and the amount of contact there has been,” Dr Burckhardt says.

“The most graphic details of the encounter can traumatise the partner, so these can be avoided, but this shouldn’t be used as an excuse for not being transparent about what happened.

“The partner may also want to see some evidence to ensure the truth is being told and, where possible, this should be provided.”

Facing the emotional fallout of cheating

Another important step is to allow the person who’s been cheated on to express the emotional impact of this to their partner.

“It’s important that this involves the emotions underneath anger, not the anger itself,” Dr Burckhardt says, adding that a therapist will likely be needed to facilitate this.

“Infidelity is hard to repair without a good counsellor,” he says.

“It’s difficult for the injured partner to access the emotions beneath the anger, and for the partner to hear that experience without help.

“Likewise with identifying the cause and addressing that – if the issue was so obvious and fixable, the couple would likely have addressed it before the infidelity occurred.”

Dr Burckhardt says that while some couples could, in theory, go through this process without professional help, he believes it would be unlikely that they’d succeed in repairing their relationship from cheating.

Getting on the same page after cheating

Family lawyer Cassandra Kalpaxis says a framework about what the future looks like needs to be established, too.

“If the infidelity happened at work, is that person staying at that job?” Cassandra asks.

“Are they still using the applications that led to the affair?”

She says everyone needs to agree to the ground rules, and they need to be adhered to.

“Forgiveness is also key, and it can’t just be lip service; it needs to be forgiveness to the core,” Cassandra says.

Dr Burckhardt says it’s the process of repair that provides the emotional aspect that’s needed to forgive.

“People often talk about forgiveness like it’s simply a choice, but for most people, there’s an important emotional aspect that gets overlooked when it’s portrayed simply as a choice,” he explains.

Not every relationship will make it

“Interestingly, couples who successfully repair from infidelity usually report that their relationship is better than it was even before the infidelity occurred – in some ways, an infidelity brings to the surface a crack that was underneath and not being addressed,” Dr Burckhardt says.

Still, repair isn’t always possible.

“If a person has fallen out of love with their partner, then the relationship would not be repairable,” Dr Burckhardt says.

“Likewise, if a person refuses to engage in the repair process, it may be that the couple cannot repair.”

Is an amicable separation possible?

Even in those instances, Cassandra says all is not lost and it’s “absolutely possible to amicably separate after infidelity.”

“In order for this to be successful, a couple needs to commit to compromising on their positions for the sake of getting out of their marriage with the least amount of damage possible,” she says.

Cassandra says having clear, transparent conversations about the process is also vital.

“And it’s important to understand that the person who cheated may be at a very different part of the grief cycle than the person who was cheated on,” she adds.

“Working with a divorce coach can be really useful in allowing the emotion to be removed from the negotiation, and also allowing the grief to be worked on independently from the separation process.”

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Written by Karen Fittall.