How to rebuild trust in a relationship after an affair: one couple’s story

How do you rebuild trust in a relationship after someone breaks it? Slowly, mostly through what the person who broke it does, over and over, long after the apology, and there’s no reliable timeline. Forgiving and trusting can happen at different speeds, and small studies of couples therapy after an affair are encouraging, though too small to count as proof.

Illustrative story: names and details are invented, based on common situations.

Here’s what that can look like after an affair, told by both partners, followed by what the research says and some steps for each of you.

Lauren and Derek, in their own words

What the research says

Forgiving isn’t forgetting. The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley says forgiveness “does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses,” and that it “doesn’t obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you.” You can forgive someone and leave, or stay before you’ve forgiven them.

In 1998, psychologists Kristina Coop Gordon and Donald Baucom described forgiveness after a betrayal in marriage as a process in three stages, much like the way people react to a traumatic event: first you take in the impact, then you try to understand how it happened, then you start to move forward. In their model, forgiving means having a realistic, balanced view of the relationship, no longer being run by anger at your partner, and not wanting to punish them as much.

Gordon, Baucom, and Douglas Snyder later tested a treatment built on that model with six couples (2004). Most were less distressed by the end, and the partners who’d been cheated on said they felt more forgiving about the affair. Six couples is a very small study, so this is an early sign, not proof. The same researchers later reported encouraging early results from two more small studies (Baucom and colleagues, 2006).

A larger study also looked at affairs. Of 134 couples in a trial of couples therapy, 19 were dealing with infidelity (Atkins and colleagues, 2005). Those couples started out more distressed than the others. But couples whose affair was revealed before or during therapy gained more in relationship satisfaction than the couples without an affair. With only 19 affair couples, the authors called the study exploratory.

Therapists Stephen Fife, Gerald Weeks, and Jessica Stellberg-Filbert proposed a model for forgiveness after an affair (2013) built around four things: empathy, humility, commitment, and apology.

Forgiveness doesn’t always help, though. In long-term studies of married couples, forgiving was linked to a better relationship when the marriage was healthy, and a worse one in more troubled marriages (McNulty and Fincham, 2012).

How to rebuild trust in a relationship: steps for each of you

If you broke the trust

• End it clearly. Cut off contact with the affair partner as completely as you can, and let your partner see that you did.
• Tell the whole truth early. A confession that comes out in pieces makes every later answer harder to believe.
• Answer the same question again. Your partner is still trying to understand how this happened. Give the tenth answer as calmly as the first.
• Offer before you’re asked. Where you are, who you’re texting, when you’ll be home.
• Own it without explaining it away. You can talk about what was wrong between you before, but the affair was your choice.
• Don’t set a deadline. Asking “Can we move on now?” tells your partner you’re done before they are.

If you were the one who was hurt

• You don’t have to decide right away. Whether to stay can wait until you can think straight.
• Take care of yourself first. Eating, sleeping, and one person you can talk to honestly matter more than you’d think.
• Think about your health too. If you’ve had sex with your partner since the affair started, ask a doctor about STI testing.
• Ask what you need to know. Some people want every detail and some don’t. Notice which questions help and which only hurt.
• Watch what your partner does over time. Promises are easy. Months of the same small actions tell you more.
• Forgiving and trusting can happen at different speeds. You can forgive and still need reassurance for a while.

How long it takes to rebuild trust

It varies. There’s no reliable timeline for rebuilding trust after cheating. It depends on the couple, the affair, and how the truth came out. Two things can slow it down: new information coming out later, and pressure to be “over it” by a certain date.

When to see a couples therapist

If you keep having the same fight, if it’s getting nastier, or if one of you can’t sleep, eat, or work for weeks, a couples therapist can help you sort out what happened and what you each want next. If there are threats, control, or violence, couples therapy isn’t the place to start; see the hotline below. Our guide to couples therapy explains how to find one who mostly sees couples. If it was money, not an affair, that broke the trust, see financial infidelity.

Questions for the two of you

1. What would help you believe me right now?
2. Is there a question you’ve stopped asking me because you’re afraid of the answer?
3. Was there something going on between us before that we didn’t talk about?
4. What would forgiving me actually look like, day to day?
5. What do you need from me over the next three months?
6. What do we do on a night when it all comes back?

Talk it through with another couple

If you both want to hear from a couple who’s been there, Venna sets up a one-hour voice call with another couple who’s going through something similar, or has been through it. You choose a topic, like trust, and the app asks the questions and makes sure each of you gets a turn. Nobody uses real names, and the session only happens if all four of you agree. Couples share what they’ve been through instead of giving advice. Nothing is recorded unless all four of you choose a recorded session with an experienced couple, and no AI listens.

Venna isn’t therapy, and it isn’t for an affair that’s still going on. In that case, start with a professional. If finding out has led to threats, control, or violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1⁠-⁠800⁠-⁠799⁠-⁠7233 or text START to 88788. If you’re in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988. In an emergency, call 911.

Sources

• Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley, Forgiveness: Defined (checked October 18, 2026).
• Gordon, K. C., & Baucom, D. H. (1998). Understanding betrayals in marriage: A synthesized model of forgiveness. Family Process, 37(4), 425–449.
• Gordon, K. C., Baucom, D. H., & Snyder, D. K. (2004). An integrative intervention for promoting recovery from extramarital affairs. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(2), 213–231.
• Baucom, D. H., Gordon, K. C., Snyder, D. K., Atkins, D. C., & Christensen, A. (2006). Treating affair couples: Clinical considerations and initial findings. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 20(4), 375–392.
• Atkins, D. C., Eldridge, K. A., Baucom, D. H., & Christensen, A. (2005). Infidelity and behavioral couple therapy: Optimism in the face of betrayal. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(1), 144–150.
• Fife, S. T., Weeks, G. R., & Stellberg-Filbert, J. (2013). Facilitating forgiveness in the treatment of infidelity: An interpersonal model. Journal of Family Therapy, 35(4), 343–367.
• McNulty, J. K., & Fincham, F. D. (2012). Beyond positive psychology? Toward a contextual view of psychological processes and well-being. American Psychologist, 67(2), 101–110.
• CDC, Getting Tested for STIs (checked October 18, 2026).
• National Domestic Violence Hotline, thehotline.org (checked October 18, 2026).
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 988lifeline.org (checked October 18, 2026).