Infidelity: Couples Therapy in Roseville, CA
If you're reading this, something has been broken open in your relationship. An affair has come to light — or been confessed — and the ground beneath your partnership feels like it's disappeared. Whether you're the one who strayed or the one who discovered it, the pain right now is probably unlike anything you've experienced together. That's normal. And it doesn't have to be the end of your story.
The First Thing to Know
Infidelity is one of the most common reasons couples come to therapy. It is devastating, but it is not unusual, and it doesn't automatically mean your relationship is over. Many couples not only survive an affair — they come through it with a relationship that is more honest, more grounded, and more intimate than what they had before. Not because the affair was a good thing, but because the crisis forced a level of truth-telling that had been missing for a long time.
What Both of You Are Feeling
If you were betrayed, the world as you understood it has been rewritten. You may feel shock, rage, humiliation, obsessive need for details, or a strange numbness that alternates with waves of pain. You may question everything — not just the affair itself, but every memory, every "I love you," every evening your partner came home late. Your sense of reality has been shaken, and rebuilding trust in your own perception is part of the healing.
If you are the one who had the affair, you may feel guilt, shame, relief that the secret is out, confusion about what you actually want, or frustration that your partner can't just move forward. You may want to fix things immediately and feel helpless when you can't. You may also be grieving — the loss of the other relationship, the loss of how your partner used to look at you, the loss of the version of yourself you thought you were.
How Therapy Helps
About one-third of the couples I work with are recovering from infidelity. I help them learn how to earn their own self-respect so that they can stop leaning on each other for approval and agreement. I also help them gain a more solid understanding of how the affair came about in the first place.
The core of a fair recovery is increasing how much you care about each other and how open and honest you are with each other. This happens equally on both sides of the relationship.
I will also help you work on accepting each other just the way you are, in blending that acceptance with a strong desire for growth
Resources:
Your Next Step
I've helped hundreds of couples recover from infidelity. I know the path is painful. I also know it's possible to come through this—either together or apart—with integrity and clarity.
Your first session is free. You don't need to have anything figured out. You just need to be willing to look at what's actually true.
Call 916-292-8920 or book online.
Related Topics
Infidelity affects—and is affected by—the entire relationship system. These topics often overlap:
Communication — how couples get stuck in patterns that precede or follow betrayal
Threats of Divorce — infidelity as the breaking point where separation feels inevitable
Disconnection — the disconnection that often makes affairs possible
Narcissism — how narcissistic patterns enable infidelity and complicate recovery
Relationship Anxiety — trauma responses and hypervigilance after betrayal
James M. Christensen, LMFT
Couples Therapy | Roseville, CA