This is probably the first question you’ve typed into Google since finding out.
So let me answer it directly, without softening it or spinning it.
Yes. Many do. But not automatically, and not without understanding what actually makes the difference.
What the research actually shows
Studies consistently find that 60–75% of couples who seek help after an affair choose to stay together. Of those, the majority who engage in genuine therapeutic work report significant improvements in relationship satisfaction — in some cases, describing what they rebuild as closer and more honest than what existed before.
That’s not a small number. And it’s not wishful thinking. It’s what the data shows, and it’s broadly consistent with what I see in my own work with couples.
The affair doesn’t determine the outcome. What both people do next does.
What I actually see — from the couples who make it
I’ve sat with couples at the worst moment of their relationship. The ones who find a way through tend to have a few things in common. Not all of them, and not from the start — but these things emerge as the work progresses.
The affair is over. Completely. Not ‘on hold.’ Not ‘complicated.’ Over, with no ongoing contact. A relationship cannot begin to heal while the rupture is still happening.
The person who had the affair takes real responsibility. Not minimising. Not deflecting onto problems in the relationship. Not a single apology and then a request to move on. Real, sustained accountability — shown in behaviour over time, not just in words.
Both people are willing to look at what was happening underneath. This is the harder one. Not to excuse the affair — nothing excuses it — but to understand the relational context it emerged from. Affairs rarely come from nowhere. Understanding what was missing, what was going unspoken, what had been slowly eroding, is part of building something that doesn’t repeat.
Both people want to be there. Even if one is uncertain, even if one is furious — there has to be some part of both people willing to find out if repair is possible. If one person has already fully left, the work can’t happen.
The thing most people get wrong
Most couples in this situation think the question is should we stay together.
That’s actually the second question.
The first question is: are we willing to look honestly at what this has surfaced? The affair is a symptom as much as it is a cause. Something was happening in the relationship — or in one person’s inner world — that created the conditions for it. That something still needs to be understood.
The couples I see who stay together and genuinely rebuild don’t go back to what they had before. They can’t — that relationship is over. What they build is something new. More honest. More conscious. Built on ground they’ve actually examined.
That’s not a consolation prize. For many couples, it turns out to be better than what was there before.
When it doesn’t survive — and why that’s also okay
Not every relationship should survive an affair.
If the person who cheated is unwilling to take genuine responsibility. If there’s a pattern of betrayal rather than a single rupture. If one person is simply done, and the work of therapy makes it clearer rather than less clear — then sometimes the honest outcome is separation.
Good couples therapy doesn’t push you toward staying together. It helps you find out what’s actually true — and make a decision from there, with more clarity than you have right now.
One more thing
The couples who make it rarely do it through willpower and time alone.
They get help. Real help, at the pace the crisis demands — not a fifty-minute conversation every seven days while the wound stays open in between.
If you’re in this right now, the most important thing you can do is get the right kind of support, quickly.
If you’re in this and need more than weekly therapy can give you right now — find out about the Couples Crisis Intensive in Zurich →
— Alister Gates is an IFS-trained therapist and couples counsellor based in Zurich, working with individuals and couples online across Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand.