Getting Over an Affair Too Quickly
Written by Tim Tedder, this is the first in a 2-part consideration of the timeline for getting over an affair. In a subsequent article, he’ll consider Can It Take Too Long to Get Over an Affair?
We often look for the shortest, quickest path away from pain and into happiness. Getting over an affair is no different. But when we rush the process, we sacrifice healing and change.
Years ago, while on a walk, I saw a butterfly trying to emerge from its cocoon. I decided to help it break out, hoping to spare it the struggle. I carefully pried the cocoon with a small stick to speed up the process. It worked! As it emerged and tried spreading its wings, I once again assisted by carefully prying the wet wings apart.
Unfortunately, without the effort of breaking free on its own, the butterfly never gained the strength it needed. It remained weak, unequipped to fly, and soon dropped to the ground, dying.
My intentions were good, but I realized some things cannot be rushed. After infidelity, both partners often feel an understandable impulse to hurry up and move on from the crisis. The betrayal inflicts agonizing pain, so who wouldn’t want to escape that hurt as quickly as possible?
The injured partner is reeling from shock and grief, desperate for the pain to stop. The involved partner is flooded with guilt and shame, eager to put the mistake behind them. Friends and family may also urge a quick reconciliation with well-meaning advice like “forgive and forget.” However, when “moving on” becomes a way to avoid the difficult healing work, it often backfires, delaying proper recovery and leading to deeper problems down the road.
Let's unpack some common avoidance patterns that seem like moving on, but undermine healing. These include things like premature forgiveness, toxic positivity, and deflecting blame. We’ll explore why each partner (the Injured Partner and the Involved Partner) might fall into these patterns, how it impacts their emotional well-being, and why doing the hard work of recovery is so crucial for genuine healing.
Premature Forgiveness: Why “Forgive and Forget” Can Backfire
Sometimes, a betrayed spouse will declare forgiveness almost immediately after discovering an affair. They hope that by forgiving and forgetting, the marriage can return to normal and the pain will subside.
I once had a client — a wife who had found out about her husband’s affair less than a week earlier — announce in our first session that she had already forgiven him and was “ready to move on.” She was sincere, wanting to save the relationship and avoid dwelling on bitterness.
But within a few days, this brave front crumbled. She experienced a complete emotional breakdown as the reality of the betrayal set in. Her attempt at instant forgiveness had merely buried her feelings temporarily; those unprocessed emotions came flooding back with even greater intensity.
This story is a powerful example of premature forgiveness as an avoidance mechanism. It’s an understandable impulse: forgiveness is often seen as virtuous, and the Injured Partner may be terrified of losing their spouse if they stay angry for too long. They may also want to bypass the messy, painful phase of recovery (the anger, sadness, and confusion) by fast-forwarding to the “all is forgiven” stage. But forcing forgiveness too early often short-circuits the real healing process.
Genuine forgiveness, especially after a profound betrayal, tends to be a byproduct of healing rather than a shortcut to it. One reason “forgive and forget” backfires is that forgiving too soon means the painful feelings haven’t been truly acknowledged or worked through. It simply masks the pain, preventing both partners from fully confronting the hurt and the underlying issues that led to the affair.
That pain, as awful as it is, serves an essential purpose: it signals that something is deeply wrong and needs attention. The pain needs to be properly understood (What’s causing it? The lying? The loss of trust? The feeling of inadequacy?) and shared with the partner.
Likewise, the unfaithful partner might gladly accept the premature pardon (You can hardly blame them!) and thus avoid facing the consequences of their actions. In the absence of real consequences or emotional pain, the Involved Partner feels like they’ve been let off the hook and has less incentive to do the hard work of personal reflection or make meaningful changes.
Is genuine forgiveness after infidelity possible? Yes, but it typically takes time (maybe even years) and effort. Trying to rush this timeline is usually counterproductive, and recovery can end up taking even longer. Unresolved feelings have a way of resurfacing again and again, like an infection that wasn’t fully treated. By contrast, when you allow forgiveness to unfold gradually, after the necessary healing work (such as processing grief, re-establishing safety, and seeing true remorse from the offender), the forgiveness is more likely to be genuine and lasting.
If you’re the betrayed partner, know that it’s okay not to forgive immediately. It doesn’t make you a bad person or mean your marriage is doomed. It means you’ve been deeply hurt and need time to heal. Focus first on your recovery from the trauma rather than on declaring forgiveness prematurely. Paradoxically, permitting yourself not to forgive right away can create space for more authentic forgiveness to grow in the future, once you have outgrown the worst of the pain.
If you’re the unfaithful partner, recognize that pushing your spouse to forgive quickly (or accepting forgiveness you know came too easily) can rob both of you of real healing. Instead, be patient and commit to the long process – your spouse’s forgiveness, when it comes in time, will be much more meaningful and complete than any forced “quick fix” pardon as a means of getting over an affair.
Toxic Positivity: “Looking on the Bright Side” vs. Acknowledging the Pain
Another avoidance pattern that often creeps in after an affair is toxic positivity – an insistence on focusing only on the positive or “moving forward,” to the point of suppressing negative emotions. This can happen with both partners, and even with well-intentioned friends or family.
Perhaps you’ve heard (or told yourself) statements like:
“At least it’s over now, we can move on.”
“You should be grateful he’s still here and wants to keep the marriage.”
“Everything happens for a reason; maybe this will make your marriage better.”
These kinds of remarks are usually meant to be encouraging, but in the raw aftermath of betrayal, they are often confusing and hurtful. They gloss over very real feelings of pain, anger, and loss that the betrayed partner is grappling with. Instead of helping you move forward, these beliefs can keep you emotionally stuck.
For the Injured Partner, toxic positivity might look like putting on a brave face and acting as if they’re “fine” too soon. They might tell themselves, “I just need to stay positive and not dwell on it. Other people have it worse, I should count my blessings.” Internally, though, they are burying feelings of betrayal, anxiety, and resentment that truly need air. Those feelings don’t vanish just because we ignore them. In the words of one infidelity recovery coach, “What we resist stays stuck; what we feel can move.”
In other words, when you shove your pain into a box and paint a smile on top, the pain stays stuck inside. It may quietly poison your well-being through depression, anxiety, or physical stress symptoms, or it may erupt later in unexpected ways. But when you allow yourself to feel and express the painful emotions (in a healthy way), you can actually process and move through them, eventually letting them go.
The Involved Partner can fall into a similar trap by pushing a “positive vibes only” agenda. For example, the unfaithful spouse might say things like, “I apologized, can’t we just focus on the future? Dwelling on the past will only hurt us.” They might become frustrated or impatient whenever the affair is brought up, insisting that any further discussion is just “negativity” or “reliving the past.”
This attitude, again, often comes from discomfort and guilt. It’s painful for the unfaithful partner to see their spouse in pain and to face their own shame, so they try to shut down those topics in favor of a rosy outlook.
Unfortunately, this backfires. Brushing aside the betrayed partner’s hurt with cheery optimism or platitudes will likely make that partner feel alone in their pain. It sends the message that their trauma is being trivialized. Rather than promoting healing, this creates distance and unresolved hurt.
What the betrayed partner truly needs is validation of their pain and space to work through it, not a premature push to get over the affair. It’s important to distinguish healthy optimism from toxic positivity. Hope for the future and a willingness to see goodness again are valuable in healing, provided they occur at the right stage and pace.
Toxic positivity is pressure to immediately be okay, to find silver linings immediately, and to skip over the hard feelings. But the reality is that in the wake of betrayal, some days will feel devastating. Both partners will have to confront uncomfortable emotions: grief, anger, shame, regret, and fear. Allowing those feelings and working through them is part of the “hard work” that must be done.
Deflecting Blame and Quick-Fix Apologies: Avoidance Tactics of the Involved Partner
From the Involved Partner’s side, one of the most common “move on” tactics is attempting to swiftly make everything “okay” without fully owning the damage done. This often takes two forms: (1) quick-fix apologies that expect instant forgiveness, and (2) deflecting blame to avoid feeling wholly responsible. Both are ways of sidestepping the uncomfortable work of accountability, empathy, and change. “I said I’m sorry! Can’t we just put this behind us?”
Many unfaithful spouses feel that a sincere apology should resolve the issue. They think, “I’ve apologized profusely. I’ve expressed my regret. Why do we have to keep rehashing the affair? We should forgive, forget, and move on.” This perspective, while human, drastically underestimates the healing needed for getting over an affair. A simple “I’m sorry,” however heartfelt, is only the beginning of making amends, not the end.
The betrayed partner needs to feel that the involved partner gets it – that they genuinely understand the gravity of what they did and are committed to making amends. No one can reach that understanding if they’re busy dodging blame or shutting down hard conversations. For the Involved Partner reading this, a gentle piece of advice: be wary of your own convenience. If a particular resolution to the affair (like a quick apology-and-forgive scenario) feels a bit too easy for you, that might be a sign that you’re avoiding something important. True reconciliation will likely require you to be uncomfortable for a while – answering tough questions honestly, witnessing the pain you caused without rushing it away, and examining your flaws without self-justification.
I know it’s hard. That’s the point. The more difficult path is the one that leads to change, to becoming a safer, better partner, and a healthier person.
Embracing the Hard Work Necessary for Getting Over an Affair
If avoiding the work of recovery is like skipping the butterfly’s struggle – leaving the wings too weak to fly – then facing the work is what allows real transformation and strength. Getting over an affair and healing from infidelity is, first and foremost, a journey of individual recovery for each partner, and that personal healing (when both people commit to it) can lead to a healthier marriage in the long run.
It’s not an easy journey. There will be times you both feel like you’re slogging through grief and conflict with no end in sight. But every tear shed, every honest conversation, every therapy session, or hard-won epiphany strengthens the foundation for the future.
What does “doing the work” look like in practice?
For the Injured Partner…
It means allowing yourself to grieve and to experience all the complicated emotions that come with betrayal – anger, sadness, confusion, loss of trust — rather than sweeping them under the carpet.
It means focusing on your well-being: seeking support (through therapy or support groups or understanding friends), setting boundaries to feel safe, and gradually rebuilding your sense of self.
It might involve learning about betrayal trauma and PTSD-like symptoms, so you understand you’re not “going crazy.” Your reactions (nightmares, hypervigilance, mood swings) are a normal response to having your world turned upside down.
It means finding ways to cope with triggers and move toward forgiveness, not because you’re pressured, but because it heals you to let go of fear and bitterness when you’re ready.
For the Involved Partner…
It means taking full ownership of your actions and their impact.
It requires patience and empathy — listening to your spouse’s pain without defensiveness, apologizing sincerely and repeatedly, and demonstrating change through concrete actions (for example, being fully transparent, ending all inappropriate contact, perhaps attending counseling or accountability groups, and practicing consistent honesty).
It also means digging into why you allowed yourself to break the trust – was it a personal void, poor boundaries, or resentment that you failed to communicate? This often requires some soul-searching (sometimes with a counselor’s help) so that you can grow from a person who betrayed their values into a person who can once again be worthy of trust.
The work for you is equal parts supporting your partner’s healing and working on yourself (resolving whatever internal issues contributed to the cheating and becoming more emotionally present). It’s a tall order, but many unfaithful partners who commit to this journey describe it as profoundly humbling and ultimately transformative, not only for their marriage but for their character.
For both partners, a crucial part of recovery is learning to sit with emotional discomfort without running from it. Remember that avoidance might bring short-term relief, but it results in long-term pain. The uncomfortable conversations, the tears and anger, the counseling exercises, the period of estrangement or awkwardness — these are all the emotional “workouts” that, over time, build the muscle of your relationship back up. Research on betrayal trauma consistently shows that healing is a process, one that unfolds over time, step by step.
I wish there were shortcuts! Believe me. If there were a way to rush through all this mess, I’d gladly point it out to you.
But here’s the good news: many couples do come out the other side, not because they avoided the hard stuff, but because they walked through it. They often report that, having faced the brink and done the work, they’ve developed deeper communication, empathy, and resilience than they had before.
Many individuals (and couples) find that after getting over an affair, they have a new appreciation for honesty, a better understanding of boundaries, improved communication skills, and a stronger support network. In psychology, this is sometimes called post-traumatic growth, the idea that surviving a trauma and dealing with it can leave you stronger or wiser in some ways.
Is that the guaranteed outcome for everyone? No, it’s not. For some, the painful consequences of infidelity seem to have no end. They don’t experience a “happy ever after.” But this is not the experience of most, so hold on to hope, knowing that everyone who has experienced gratifying healing had to endure the pain that felt endless.
Be The Butterfly
Let’s revisit the butterfly metaphor one last time.
In the aftermath of betrayal, you may feel as if your marriage (and life as you knew it) has been cocooned in darkness. It’s natural to want to emerge into the light as fast as possible. But remember, the butterfly’s struggle in the cocoon is what pumps blood into its wings and prepares it to fly.
Your struggle is preparing you for a healthier future. So, as counterintuitive as it seems, embrace the process. Slow down and let the hard work happen. On the days it feels unbearable, remind yourself (or have your therapist remind you) that every step of working through this pain is a step toward freedom from it.
