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hello I'm Esther Perel and I have been a couples therapist in New York City for the past thirty years and for the past ten I've also traveled the globe and worked extensively with hundreds of people who have been shattered by an infidelity betrayal runs deep but it can be healed on the side of the person who had the affair there are three specific things you can do that help to restore trust one is to understand that trauma is healed or begins to heal when we acknowledge the wrongdoing your ability to express remorse and guilt for hurting your partner is essential because it communicates I care about you you matter to me and our relationship is important to me which is what the person who is deceived questions immediately you want to be able to be the person who holds vigil for a while for the relationship you become responsible for protecting the boundaries for bringing up the affair for thinking about it so that the deceived partner doesn't have to be the one to obsess about it it frees her or him from having to be the one to make sure that this isn't forgotten and it also reassures and helps to build trust an example of something that I told was very well done is my patient Jenna she had an affair in the country house during the summer and every time that they travel to the country house Jenna knows to just check in with Mitch how's it going are you okay this weekend I know this is not an easy place to go back to we are going to make that place ours again gradually we're going to create new memories together and we're going to reconquer this place so that not every time we come here you think of what happened but I understand you do it's so natural and when she does it she is like the vigilante of the relationship she is the protector she says to him I care about us and I will help us weave back together a new secure connection with each other I see you in your pain is what she says to him he doesn't have to tell her and that is essential to restoring trust guilt guilt for hurting your partner for the pain that you caused it's sometimes very difficult for the person who had the affair to tolerate to see that you are the cause of so much pain you know the cause for all the problems of the relationship or whatever is but the actual gutting that can be experienced and it is very important that you not ask your partner to not bring it up because you can't tolerate feeling so bad for how bad you have made your partner feel it's about just making space for it and not thinking that your partner is doing this on purpose to annoy you that they bring it up again and again or that they want to talk about it because the trust is broken because I don't know what to believe anymore because the narrative of my life has been ruptured I ask again and again the same questions every time you answer I create a new link in the narrative of my life that step-by-step helps me reweave the trust for the person who is deceived they are also things that will help you restore the trust if you let your curiosity take you to mining the sordid details how often how long how many was he better in bed than me and all of that you will stay up at night and these questions and answers will only inflict more pain on you yes you do need to know but there is a different set of questions that are what I call investigative questions rather than detective questions and they help you understand the meaning and the motive of why this affair happened what it was about if it even had anything to do with you which truly sometimes it doesn't and the questions have to do with why did this happen to you now what it is a firm mean for you were you thinking about us did you hope I would find out did you think about the children what was it like for you when you would come home are you here for me or are you here for the family what is it about us that you value what do you think we can learn from this affair together these questions are actually going to calm you and they give you a different sense of power over your life and over your relationship I'm thinking of my patient John he is plagued by wondering to what extent did his wife give herself over to this other man did she do things with him sexually that she did never do with him was she more free was she more open and so he called the other man to ask him those questions and now he sits up at night fantasizing probably about sexual scenes that are even more lascivious than what may even have happened in reality it wasn't protective of him it is a natural curiosity to want to know and yet it is very important to learn that there are certain questions that are very important to have while the answers are better not to know you understand me sometimes when a person asks a question to their partner I say to them do you want your husband or your wife or your boyfriend to know that you have this question or do you want to know the answer to the question because once you live with the answer it means that you have to live with the consequences of knowing and it is a question how much knowledge will actually protect us and how much will traumatize us further one person has an affair but two people are responsible for the creation and the continuity of their relationship