There has been infidelity what are the chances of the couple staying together?

The chances of a couple staying together after an infidelity are better than most people think. Many of us tell ourselves and our partner that “It’s over,” if they ever cheat on us. But when confronted with the stark reality of infidelity most people don’t find it so cut-and-dried. In fact, that’s a big part of why we wrote our book, Intimacy After Infidelity, because in working with couples dealing with infidelity we found that many of them not only stay together, but do rebuild their LTLR so that they’re happier together than they ever were before the infidelity. Its hard work, but they’ve taught us that it can be done.

It has been reported that 60-75% of couples who have experienced a betrayal stay together. However, this does not mean that these couples are able to heal their relationships and regain trust and commitment to each other. In such cases, many couples stay together after one or more infidelities not because they’re happy together but because they’re afraid of the alternative. They’re afraid of being single, afraid of the impact of divorce on their kids, afraid of the financial implications, etc.

But we can say after the 25 years that each of us has worked in helping couples that those who come to us to deal with an infidelity and commit to the hard work of dealing with the devastation, commit to being a partner who owns his or her weaknesses and mistakes have an excellent chance of not only staying together but of coming out of the process with a strong, happy and more fulfilling Long-Term Love Relationship. Encouragingly, a strong majority of couples in which both partners make such a commitment end up staying together because they’re happy together.

The author of Intimacy after Infidelity: How to Rebuild and Affair-Proof Your Marriage (2007, New Harbinger Publications), Dr. Solomon received his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (Los Angeles). He has been in private practice in San Diego and La Jolla, California for more than 20 years.