Can discernment counselling help after an affair?

When an affair leaves the future in question

An affair often brings a relationship to the point where one partner is no longer sure they want to stay. Sometimes that is the partner who has been betrayed. Sometimes it is the partner who had the affair, who may feel drawn elsewhere or doubt that the relationship can recover. Either way, the couple may find themselves with mixed agendas: one leaning out, one leaning in.

That is the situation discernment counselling, or discernment counseling as it is spelled in the US, was designed for. It does not matter which partner had the affair. What matters is where each person stands on the future of the relationship.

What discernment counselling can and cannot do after an affair

Discernment counselling helps a couple decide what to do next. It does not try to heal the hurt of the affair, rebuild trust or work through what happened. Those are the tasks of couples therapy, and discernment counselling deliberately avoids doing couples therapy while the partners are still divided on whether they want it.

This can feel frustrating to a partner who is desperate to start repairing things. But trying to do affair recovery work with a partner who has not yet decided to stay tends to stall. Discernment counselling makes that decision first, so that if repair begins, both people have chosen it.

How affairs and secrets are handled

Because most of discernment counselling happens in separate conversations with each partner, the question of secrets comes up often. The published protocol is clear on this:

• During discernment counselling, secrets such as an affair that one partner has not disclosed are held in confidence by the counsellor.
• If the couple chooses the path of reconciliation, such secrets would generally need to be shared as part of the plan for couples therapy.

This allows a partner to speak honestly in their individual time about what is really happening, without the counsellor becoming a channel for disclosure.

Where the affair is already known

Most couples who seek help after an affair already know about it. In that case, discernment counselling works much as it does for any mixed-agenda couple.

With a betrayed partner who is leaning out, the conversations help them think through whether they want to try to rebuild, what it would take, and what each path would mean for their life.

With a betrayed partner who is leaning in, the focus is on steadying themselves, hearing what their partner is saying, and, where they are ready, looking at what they could change in themselves. This is never about taking responsibility for the affair. It is about what each person can learn from the state the relationship was in.

With a partner who had the affair, whether leaning in or out, the conversations look at what led there, what they want now, and what they would need to do if the couple chose to try reconciliation.

If the couple chooses to try reconciliation

If the couple chooses the third path, six months of couples therapy with separation off the table, the work of recovering from the affair begins. Discernment counselling ends, and couples therapy starts with a written agenda of the changes each partner wants to make in themselves.

Research on couples therapy after an affair gives grounds for cautious optimism. In a trial of behavioural couple therapy, couples affected by infidelity started out more distressed than other couples. Those whose affair had been revealed before or during therapy improved in satisfaction more than couples without an affair, though this group was small. In a larger community sample in Germany and Austria, couples who came to therapy because of infidelity started more distressed and more depressed, but continued to improve through therapy and up to six months afterwards, by which point they were not distinguishable from other couples in therapy.

These studies were of couples therapy, not discernment counselling, and they do not show that every couple recovers. They do suggest that an affair does not, by itself, make repair impossible.

If the couple chooses to separate

If the couple chooses separation, discernment counselling helps them agree how they want to behave towards each other during the process and connects them with services that support a constructive separation. An affair can make that harder, and having a shared set of principles can help.

Common questions

References

1. Doherty, W. J., Harris, S. M., & Wilde, J. L. (2016). Discernment counseling for ‘mixed-agenda’ couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42(2), 246-255. doi:10.1111/jmft.12132
2. 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. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.73.1.144
3. Atkins, D. C., Marín, R. A., Lo, T. T., Klann, N., & Hahlweg, K. (2010). Outcomes of couples with infidelity in a community-based sample of couple therapy. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(2), 212-216. doi:10.1037/a0018789