Can a marriage survive infidelity?
This week I spoke with Renelle Nelson, a licensed marriage and family therapist who’s spent 11 years specialising in affair recovery. She helps couples rebuild after betrayal, when everything’s shattered and nobody knows where to start.
Turns out infidelity isn’t just sex outside the marriage. It’s anytime you go outside your relationship to get pleasure that should be shared within it. Money. Communication. Emotional affairs. Physical ones. Renelle prefers the word “betrayal” because it’s more accurate. You break contracts you didn’t realise you’d signed.
Here’s the thing nobody talks about: it’s not a male sport anymore. In her practice, men and women cheat in equal numbers. Women are leaving marriages after raising kids, after becoming empty nesters. The emotional labour falls heavily on them. Sometimes an affair is escape from domesticity. Not dissatisfaction. Escape.
So what does affair recovery actually look like?
Different from regular marriage counselling, for starters. More talking won’t prevent betrayal. More sex won’t prevent it. More date nights won’t prevent it. The only things that stop betrayal are communication and not wanting to do it. That’s it.
Renelle’s approach: you can’t heal what you can’t reveal. She works with the person who cheated first. Who did they become? What need were they trying to meet? Then she works with the person who stayed. Both deserve healing. Neither caused the affair, but both are responsible for their part in the marriage moving forward.
I asked whether opening a relationship after betrayal ever works.
Her answer was direct: it doesn’t. Couples who open relationships successfully do so from trust and solid foundation. Starting that journey on a lie, with one partner settling because they can’t keep the other person faithful, almost always fails. If you can’t communicate basic needs with one person, adding more people just multiplies the chaos.
My favourite bit? Renelle’s seeing younger couples come to therapy after dating a month, maybe two. They want to learn how to communicate before problems arrive. They’re treating therapy as education, not crisis management. They want enhancement, exploration, education, eroticism. That last one matters most.
Eroticism is what’s missing in long-term relationships, she said. When it leaves, people turn to porn. When you think you know everything about your partner, desire dries up.
Literally.
As Renelle put it: “When you think you know it all, that means you dried up. You’re not getting hard or wet.”
Fair point.
What Matters
Women cheat just as much as men now. The numbers are equal.
Affair recovery heals individuals first, then the relationship.
You can’t heal what you refuse to reveal. Truth comes before repair.
Opening relationships after betrayal rarely works. Trust must exist first.
Eroticism sustains long-term desire. Mystery matters more than familiarity.
Younger couples seek therapy as prevention. That’s actual progress.
Check out these resources from Renelle:
The Pleasure Agenda: Couples Edition Undated Planner
Pleasure After Betrayal: Aftercare Edition Undated Planner
Connect with Renelle
https://renellenelson.thinkific.com/
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