The first days after discovering an affair

What should you do right after finding out about an affair?

In the first days after discovering an affair, focus on getting through each day safely rather than deciding the future of the relationship. Eat something, try to sleep, tell one or two people you trust, and put off decisions that are hard to undo. Answers matter, and you will get to them, but they are not what this week is for.

The couples researchers Douglas Snyder, Donald Baucom and Kristina Coop Gordon call this first stage absorbing the blow. In their model the early aim is to limit additional damage and get back some equilibrium before trying to understand why the affair happened. That order is worth borrowing, whether or not you ever see a counselor.

What is normal to feel?

Almost anything. People describe feeling as if the floor has dropped away. Many cannot sleep or eat, or cannot stop doing either. Thoughts loop. Images of the affair arrive uninvited. Some people want every detail and some want none, and many swing between the two within the same hour.

These reactions have a name in the research. A 2019 study at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte found that close to half of the young adults it surveyed after a partner's infidelity reported symptoms consistent with probable post-traumatic stress. A Gottman Institute article by a certified Gottman therapist describes the same pattern in couples: intrusive images, hypervigilance and triggers tied to places and dates.

None of this means something is wrong with you. It means something serious happened. If the symptoms are still severe after several weeks, or they are getting worse rather than easing, that is a good reason to talk to a mental health professional for yourself.

• Intrusive thoughts and replaying scenes, real or imagined
• Checking phones, accounts or locations, sometimes compulsively
• Anger that feels bigger than anything you have felt before
• Numbness, or feeling detached from your own life
• Shame, or a sense of having been foolish
• Physical symptoms: racing heart, nausea, exhaustion

What to hold off on, if you can

Decisions made in the first days tend to be made by the shock rather than by you. Where it is safe to wait, it often helps to delay anything that cannot easily be taken back.

• Announcing a divorce or separation to extended family, friends or on social media
• Contacting or confronting the affair partner, or their spouse
• Telling children before you and your partner have agreed what to say
• Major financial moves, unless you need to protect yourself from real financial risk
• Demanding every detail in one sitting at two in the morning

Small things that help in the first week

None of these solves anything. They make the week survivable, which is the job right now.

• Keep a basic routine: meals, water, a walk, the same bedtime even if sleep does not come.
• Choose one or two people who will listen without telling you what you must do.
• Write things down. Questions, feelings and memories on paper are less likely to spill out all at once.
• Limit research into your partner's phone or the affair partner's social media. It rarely brings relief and often brings new images.
• If you have children, keep their days as ordinary as possible and keep adult conversations out of their hearing.

Talking with your partner in the first days

Many couples find that talking about the affair constantly, at any hour, leaves both people more wounded. Others find that refusing to talk at all makes the injured partner feel dismissed. A middle path is to agree a few temporary ground rules.

That might mean setting a time each day to talk about the affair and stopping when either person needs a break. It might mean the partner who had the affair agreeing to answer questions truthfully, even when the answer is hard, and agreeing to end contact with the affair partner. The existing article on rebuilding trust after infidelity looks at why the amount of detail matters, and why more is not always better.

If you are the partner who had the affair, this is not the moment to explain why it happened. That conversation matters and it comes later. Right now, listening, answering honestly and not arguing about the facts of the injured partner's pain does more good. What the partner who had the affair can do goes into this.

When to look for professional support

You do not need to have decided anything to see a counselor. Many people come in during the first weeks simply to have one place where they can say everything without managing anyone else's reaction. Either partner can start alone.

Laura Bass offers infidelity counseling in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the partner who was betrayed, the partner who had the affair, or both. She does not decide whether a relationship should continue. For what the longer road can look like, see the stages of affair recovery, and if the question pressing on you is whether to leave, should I stay after infidelity may help. The infidelity recovery guide has the full set of articles.

Common questions