14 Steps of Affair Recovery for the Unfaithful Partner

Written by Tim Tedder
NOTE: This article is also available in a downloadable PDF format.

Infidelity doesn’t just happen. It’s a choice—one that may have come slowly, step by step, or suddenly in a moment of impulse. Either way, if you’ve had an affair and want to begin the work of recovery with your partner, you may need some direction.

This guide isn’t written to shame you. It’s written to encourage you toward change. These 14 steps will help you move from a place of confusion and pain to a place of hope. If you’re willing to do the work, you can begin to rebuild what’s been broken, starting with yourself.

Step 1: Make a quick, clear choice.

Getting involved in an affair eventually requires a choice: you either choose your spouse, choose your affair partner, or leave both of them. Each choice has benefits and consequences, and each will lead you to a distinct future.

There is another option: remaining undecided, refusing to move certainly in any direction. The indecisive person repeatedly alternates between spouse and affair partner, afraid to commit to either, shifting when enough fear or longing pushes them in the other direction. Many capable men and women become weak in this uncertainty.

The consequences of prolonged indecision are many. Very few relationships (the marriage or the affair) survive, and the pain inflicted on everyone is immense. Don’t let that happen. If you need time to be more certain, separate from the affair long enough to seek counsel from people you trust and contemplate your future. Then make your choice.

Step 2: Take a one-way exit from your affair.

If you want your marriage to recover, if you want your spouse to learn to trust you again, if you have any hope for a satisfying relationship with your spouse in the future, end your affair now. Don’t leave a backdoor open. If you say to your affair partner, “Let me go try my marriage for a while, but I’ll be back if it doesn’t work,” you’ll probably return because you never really left.

Sever all contacts, close all email accounts, and change your phone number. Switch jobs or move to a different location. Your marriage is at stake, and ongoing contact with the affair partner is always an issue. Always.

This will be hard. But the courage to walk away entirely is the first step toward true healing.

Step 3: Accept full responsibility for every choice you make.

You may be able to provide many reasons for why you had an affair, but infidelity was not your only choice. Now is not the time for excuses (or explanations that sound like excuses). Take full responsibility for your affair. For a while, focus on your failure to keep the promises you once made and on the pain your actions have caused others.

Your purpose is not to be self-condemning but to take full, honest ownership of your actions.

Eventually, you will also need to be honest about all the vulnerabilities in your life or your marriage, but hold off on these discussions until your spouse has regained emotional balance. That may take a while.

Step 4: Turn your marriage into a safe place.

Don’t leave it up to your spouse to fight for their security. If you do, he/she will remain anxious and you will resent their attempts to “control” you. They are insecure because you broke their trust; they will only begin to feel secure again when you take responsibility for making them feel safe.

Here’s what you need to say.

Say this to your spouse, constantly and consistently, until they no longer need this level of attention: “I know what I’ve done has made you afraid of what I might do again. I want you to learn that you can trust me again. I’ve tried to think of everything that might make you feel anxious, and here’s what I’ve come up with… Here’s what I will do to help you feel safe… Is there anything else I haven’t thought of?”

Here's what you need to do.

• Unlock your accounts or provide passwords to ensure that nothing is being hidden. Don’t wait for them to ask you; take the initiative.

• Get rid of everything that is a product of the affair (gifts, reminders, pictures, emails, clothes, etc.). Send them back, give them away, or throw them in a dumpster.

• Keep your phone unlocked and open, offering it to your spouse if they ever seem uncertain. Add them to your security settings so they can easily access it. The phone is often a major trigger and object of suspicion, so make it a non-issue. In most cases, giving free access to the phone eliminates the partner’s obsession with it.

• Willingly set boundaries in any relationship that feels unsafe to your spouse. If you believe your partner is being too rigid in their expectations (for example, “You’re not allowed to talk to anyone you could be attracted to”) then get help from a counselor. At this point, you can’t be the one defining the boundaries.

• Ask frequently if there is anything else you can do.

Step 5: Confide in a friend of your marriage.

You need support. You need to open up to someone you can be very honest with. This is not a problem you should expect to handle on your own. Swallow your pride and talk to someone.

If you have hope for your marriage, make sure your confidant is a friend of your marriage. Avoid counsel from anyone who only defends your right to do what you want or, even worse, encourages (or practices) unfaithfulness. Avoid connecting with anyone for whom you could develop romantic feelings. Avoid counselors who focus on self-empowerment (“you deserve to be happy; you have the right to do whatever you want”) without recognizing the sacrifice required for trusting, intimate relationships.

Step 6: Consider what to tell your children & family.

If your affair is unknown to others, I understand the tendency to keep it a private matter between you and your spouse. The decision of whether or not to tell anyone else is a personal one. There is no single answer that fits every person or situation, but let me encourage you to consider the benefits of disclosing your affair to your family, including your children.

Telling Your Family (including your spouse’s family)

You will benefit greatly from being honest and authentic with your family. None of us likes to admit failure or negatively impact others’ opinions of us, but one thing you can learn from your affair is that you are a healthier person when you value truth above impressions. There are likely family lessons that will only be learned through the risk of honesty.

• When you should talk to your family: When they already know about or suspect the affair. Clear the air. If necessary, ask for their forgiveness. Don’t let the elephant take its permanent place as the unmentioned thing in the corner of the family room.

• When you should not talk to your family: If your family is highly dysfunctional, or if they have failed to love you well in the past, or if you cannot trust them, or if they are more likely to offer you shame than grace, then don’t tell them if they don’t already know.

Telling Your Children

Don’t assume that you should not discuss your affair with your children. Sometimes, it is the best thing you can do. Here are a couple of things to consider when talking to your children about your infidelity:

• Don’t lie to any child if they ask direct questions. You should talk to them with an appropriate level of information (based on age and knowledge). Teach them about failure and forgiveness.

• If children know or suspect, you should initiate a conversation with them immediately. Talk to them truthfully. Ask them if they have any questions. Repeat this conversation several times over the following months. (By the way, if your child is 12 or older and they have been witness to the conflict between you and your spouse, you can assume they wonder about an affair even if nothing has been said.)

Step 7: Step into your spouse’s pain.

This will be one of the hardest things you've ever done. The pain of betrayal is one of the deepest hurts anyone can experience. You will desperately desire to hide from that pain, especially because you know you are responsible for it. But, instead, you must become empathetic to their pain.

Your spouse cannot just “move on” from this. The wound needs to heal. If you are going to remain in a relationship with them, you need to be the one who offers comfort and relief.

Start by taking responsibility every day to ask how they are doing. These conversations are not fun, but they can be healing ones. They provide regular relief from pain, fewer emotional explosions, and a quicker return to emotional stability.

Step 8: Speak only the truth.

Your secrets and lies have obviously damaged your marriage, but you have also been paying a personal price. Your dishonesty has become a trap. Most unfaithful spouses only realize this after they commit to honesty and experience the freedom that comes from simply speaking the truth.

There may be things you’re not ready to tell your spouse yet, or you’re not sure you will ever tell them. If so, it is better to say nothing than to tell more lies, even if you convince yourself that you lie to protect your spouse.

There are some parts of the truth that are best left unsaid. Certain details (sexual details, comparisons to the affair partner, specific dates, places, or events, etc.) of your affair can cause permanent damage to your spouse. These kinds of questions are best left unasked and unanswered but you cannot insist on controlling the information. If you do, your spouse will believe you are still protecting the affair.

I would suggest that you say something like this: “I am willing to be completely honest with you. I am concerned that my answers to some of your questions may hurt you more than they help you, so I’d like you to take some time to think about them. After that, if you still want to know, I’ll tell you.”

How much should you tell? Seek the advice found in most good affair recovery books, or from a qualified counselor, to direct both of you in this process.

Step 9: Start minimizing your regrets by determining who you will become.

You are telling a story right now. You are telling a story of an affair. You are telling a story of a marriage. You are telling a story of love and of redemption. And maybe you’re pretty confused about how it should be told.

Most people only weigh their options by looking at their obligations and desires (what they believe they should do and what they really want to have). If either of these is your primary focus, you fail to attend to the thing that is more likely to minimize future regret.

You should, instead, focus on answering this: Who is the person I am becoming? What is the story I will be telling? Define the character, heart, and soul of the future you. What is he/she like? What will that future you say about the present you? Will it be a conversation of satisfaction or regret? It’s up to you.

Step 10: Work to understand WHY you had an affair.

You could likely give me a short list of obvious reasons why you started this affair. Your list may be accurate, but it probably wouldn’t be complete. For anyone raised in a culture where adultery is considered wrong, the choice to have an affair is usually rooted in some kind of brokenness. That broken part of you is something you need to understand if you want to be able to trust yourself.

Getting to the “why” answers is not easy work. And it’s never a single answer. You’re searching for the pieces of a puzzle that, when put together, present a clear and accurate picture of the affair’s meaning. You will be less likely to make that same choice again when you see it. Do the work necessary to answer that question.

Step 11: Commit to the long process of earning forgiveness and trust.

Forgiveness and trust, while related to each other, are two different choices to be made by your spouse. They are not earned in the same way or received at the same time. Forgiveness may be offered after weeks or months; trust may follow after months or years.

What you do now will tremendously affect your spouse’s ability to offer forgiveness and trust genuinely. The worst thing you can do right now is expect or insist on quick action. What should you do instead?

Forgiveness: Ask for it; don’t demand it. As you witness your spouse's pain, offer the genuine expression of “I’m sorry” often. Take responsibility, but be willing to wait for full forgiveness to come.

Trust: Your spouse may choose to start trusting you in small ways, but genuine emotional trust can only come when you provide adequate amounts of two ingredients: (1) enough time, filled with (2) the right stuff. The “right stuff” is consistent trustworthiness. You can have all the time in the world, but trust will never be restored without trustworthy behavior. Conversely, even if you begin acting in a 100% trustworthy manner, it will take time before your spouse feels confident.

Step 12: Find the proper support.

If there is ever a time when a couple needs a good counselor, it is after an affair. If you and your spouse are committed to rebuilding the marriage, I encourage you to start couples counseling as soon as possible.

Make sure you find a counselor who is experienced in the work of affair recovery. Many good marriage counselors are honestly uncomfortable focusing on the trauma work required for infidelity issues. These counselors will minimize the trauma and push you toward marriage building too soon. Don’t waste time or money with someone who does not fully understand this problem.

What if your spouse refuses to go to counseling? Then start on your own and ask your spouse to join you (probably with a different counselor) after you’ve done some work on your own.

Step 13: Move in a new direction.

Many valuable books and courses have been written to help couples learn the necessary skills of marriage building, but I believe a single principle underlies them all. In any encounter, a healthy relationship is experienced when each partner moves toward the other with love and truth.

You probably move in other directions when you feel disappointed, hurt, and defensive. If you’re like most people, you either move away (physically leave or emotionally shut down) or against (anger, criticism, insistence, abuse, etc.). Relationships begin to change when each partner turns their focus away from the faults of their partner and gives attention instead to the ways they fail to move toward.

Tremendous trust is developed when each person begins to trust in their partner's selfless, vulnerable moves. The change starts with you. You must (1) seek connection, (2) start with an expression of love/care, and then (3) openly and honestly express your thoughts and feelings.

Step 14: Commit to conversations that connect.

Communication is a primary means by which partners “move toward” one another in a marriage or relationship. I suggest three actions that will help assure a satisfying conclusion to conversations, even when partners disagree on the issue.

• Action 1: Seek connection more than being right. Before you engage in a conversation, be honest about your end goal. Is it primarily to convince your spouse? To get your way? Or is it more important for you to be connected even if you cannot come to a mutual agreement right now?

• Action 2: Start the conversation in an inviting rather than confrontational manner. If your first words or actions evoke defensiveness, you’re probably better off backing off and trying again later.

• Action 3: Focus on being curious about your partner’s point of view (even if you disagree) rather than convincing them that you are right.

You’ll fail at this. You’ll disappoint each other. Every couple does. But when that happens you can go back, admit your part, make the corrections, and affirm that healthy connection is more valuable than getting your way.