Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Couples Therapy After Infidelity in Hudson Valley, New York
Online couples therapy after affairs and infidelity for New York couples throughout the Hudson Valley
If you’re the partner who was betrayed…
You and your partner have built a life together. Maybe you bought a home in the Hudson Valley, moved here to start a new chapter, or made plans for the future that you both seemed excited about. You believed you were making those decisions together, with the same understanding of your relationship and where it was headed.
Then you discovered your partner had an affair.
Now you’re looking back at moments that once meant something very different to you. Maybe you remember standing in the kitchen of your new house, talking about where to put the furniture or what you wanted to change. You remember the excitement of moving in, making plans for holidays, or imagining what your life together would look like in five or ten years.
But now you know your partner was involved with someone else during some of those moments. You wonder what they were thinking when you were making plans together. Were they excited about your future? Did they mean the things they said? Or were they going along with plans they weren’t sure they wanted?
You may find yourself looking through old photographs, messages, or calendars, trying to piece together when the affair started and what was happening in your relationship at the time. You come across a photograph from an anniversary dinner or a weekend away. Your partner is smiling, and you remember how happy you thought you both were. But now you know they were seeing someone else at the time. Were they smiling because they were happy about the affair? Were they genuinely happy with you, too? Or were they just so good at lying that you couldn’t see anything was wrong? You look at other photographs and start wondering the same thing. Even memories you once treasured feel difficult to trust.
You might ask whether they ever intended to tell you. Whether they were thinking about leaving. Whether the future you imagined together was something they wanted, too.
Your partner may insist that they loved you throughout the affair and that the plans you made together were sincere. You want to believe them, but you don’t understand how both things could be true.
And it’s not just the past that feels uncertain. You may have children together, a mortgage, shared bank accounts, investments, or other financial commitments. Maybe you own a business together, or even several businesses, and have spent years making financial decisions, taking risks, and planning for your future as both romantic and business partners.
Now you may find yourself questioning your partner’s judgment as much as their honesty. If they were willing to risk your relationship and everything you’ve built together to have an affair, how can you trust them to make decisions about your businesses, your finances, or your children? You may have always respected their judgment and relied on them when making important decisions. Now you’re questioning whether you can continue to do that.
You may also wonder whether your partner was having the affair when you decided to have children, invested money into a business, or made another major commitment together. Would you have made those same decisions if you’d known about the affair?
You want to understand what was real in your relationship. But the more you think about everything that happened while the affair was going on, the harder it becomes to know what to believe about the life you’ve built together.
If you’re the unfaithful partner…
You had an affair, and now your partner is questioning everything about the life you’ve built together. They want to know whether you meant it when you said you loved them, whether you were happy when you bought your home, and whether you ever considered leaving the relationship.
You tell them that you loved them throughout the affair and that the future you planned together was something you genuinely wanted. But your partner has trouble believing you. They ask how you could have been excited about buying a house, raising children, or making long-term plans together while secretly having a relationship with someone else.
You may struggle to answer those questions yourself. You know the affair happened, but you don’t necessarily see the rest of your relationship as a lie. You remember being happy during family vacations, celebrating accomplishments together, and making plans you wanted to follow through on. When your partner questions whether any of those moments were sincere, you may feel hurt or frustrated because those memories still mean something to you.
The questions can become especially difficult when your lives are financially intertwined. Maybe you have shared investments, own a home, or have spent years planning for your children’s future. Perhaps one of you holds a demanding leadership position, or you own one or more businesses together. You’ve relied on each other to make important decisions, and now your partner questions choices you make about money, investments, or commitments that affect your family.
You may feel that your partner is questioning your competence in areas where you’ve always been responsible and successful. You understand that having an affair damaged their trust in you, but you don’t understand why they now question your judgment about matters that seem unrelated to the affair.
When your partner says they don’t know whether they can trust you to make decisions about your finances or your family’s future, you may become defensive. You might remind them of the difficult decisions you’ve made successfully over the years or insist that having an affair doesn’t mean you’re incapable of making responsible choices. You knew the affair was wrong, but while it was happening, you weren’t necessarily thinking about everything you could lose. You may have been caught up in the excitement or enjoying something you felt was missing, without seriously considering how your choices could affect the life you’d built together. Now your partner sees those same choices as evidence that you might make another decision with serious consequences without considering how it would affect them.
You want your partner to believe that your relationship and the life you’ve built together still matter to you. But you don’t know how to help them believe that the happy memories were genuine, or how to regain their confidence in you when they’re questioning not only your honesty but your ability to make responsible decisions about your shared future.
hope after Infidelity
Discovering that your partner was having an affair during years you thought you were building a future together can change how you remember your relationship. Family celebrations, major purchases, and decisions you made together may now leave you wondering what your partner was thinking at the time.
You may question whether your partner meant the commitments they made, whether they were unhappy without telling you, and whether you can trust their judgment about your future together.
In therapy, I’ll help you explore those questions without assuming that everything you shared was insincere. The betrayed partner will have opportunities to ask what their partner was thinking and feeling during important moments in your relationship. I’ll help the unfaithful partner answer honestly, including when they struggle to explain feelings or decisions they hadn’t fully understood themselves.
We’ll also address how the affair has affected your ability to make decisions together. Whether you're managing finances, raising children, or running a business, I’ll help you identify where trust has been damaged and what the unfaithful partner can do to begin demonstrating sound judgment and reliability.
You can begin to understand your shared past more clearly and make decisions about your future based on honest conversations rather than unanswered questions.
How affair recovery works
How I help Hudson Valley couples repair their relationship after infidelity, betrayal, and affairs
When you come to couples therapy because of an affair, we won’t spend months discussing older relationship problems before addressing the betrayal. After our initial three-session assessment, we’ll begin working directly on the affair, the questions that still need answers, and the hurt it’s caused.
There’s a clinical reason for starting here, too. Even when you’re trying to talk about problems that existed before the affair, the betrayal can affect how you hear and respond to each other. We need to address what happened before we can work effectively on those older problems.
I’ll guide you through the recovery process in this order:
A three-session assessment
Repairing the betrayal and hurt caused by the affair
Repairing older hurts and vulnerabilities in the relationship
Giving your sexual relationship more focused attention after addressing the betrayal and older relationship hurts
Read more about the full process I take couples through after infidelity here →
How Couples therapy after infidelity can change your relationship
With Kate McNulty, LCSW, LICSW | Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist & AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist
When an affair makes you question years of decisions and commitments, the conversations afterward can be painful for both of you. The betrayed partner wants to understand what was happening during moments they believed were meaningful and whether they can rely on their partner’s judgment going forward. The partner who had the affair may struggle to explain why they continued making plans for the future while concealing the affair.
In therapy, I’ll help you address those questions directly. We’ll work on understanding what happened, rebuilding honesty, and learning how to make decisions together without expecting trust to return immediately.
Here’s what can change in your relationship as we work together:
For the betrayed partner, you can get the answers you need to understand what happened and trust your own judgment again.
You may be questioning memories that once felt certain. Looking at photographs from a family vacation or remembering the day you bought your home, you wonder what your partner was thinking while the affair was happening. You want to know whether the commitments you made together were sincere, but you’re afraid their answers will leave you with even more questions.
In session, I’ll help you identify which questions you need answered to make sense of what happened. Did your partner have doubts about the relationship when you made those plans? Were they considering leaving? What were they feeling about your future together while the affair was going on? I’ll help your partner answer directly rather than becoming defensive, avoiding uncomfortable details, or offering reassurance that doesn’t address what you’re asking.
Some answers may be difficult to hear, and your partner may not have a clear explanation for every feeling or decision they made. I’ll help you distinguish between what they can tell you about their choices and what they’re still struggling to understand themselves, without asking you to accept vague answers in place of information they can provide.
As you begin understanding what happened, you can make sense of important moments in your shared history without assuming that every memory was false. You can begin trusting your ability to evaluate what you know, recognize what you still need to understand about the affair, and make decisions about your future based on that information.
If you’re the unfaithful partner, your hurt and dissatisfaction can be heard and taken seriously, too.
You may feel tremendous shame about your decision to have an affair while also feeling angry about how your partner treated you. And you may worry that whenever you describe something hurtful they did, the conversation will return to your infidelity, and your complaints will never receive serious attention.
In therapy, I’ll help you express how your partner’s behavior hurt you, including things you may have struggled to communicate before the affair. I’ll help you explain what happened and how it affected you without suggesting that your partner was responsible for your decision to be unfaithful.
This makes it easier for your partner to hear what you’re saying without feeling blamed for the affair. They can begin to understand the impact of their behavior, take responsibility where they’ve hurt you, and offer meaningful apologies, even when you remember parts of your relationship differently.
You can receive genuine understanding and apologies for the pain you experienced, even though you were the partner who had the affair. You’ll also learn how to express dissatisfaction and painful feelings directly, rather than withdrawing, avoiding difficult conversations, or keeping your unhappiness secret.
If you’re the unfaithful partner, you can learn to answer difficult questions without shutting down or becoming defensive.
Your partner wants to know whether you meant it when you talked about your future together. They ask if you were unhappy when you bought your home, made plans for your children, or committed money to a business. You may insist that those decisions were sincere, but when your partner asks what you were feeling at the time, you struggle to explain how you could have made those commitments while secretly having an affair.
In session, I’ll help you answer those questions directly, even when you feel ashamed, frustrated, or afraid of hurting your partner further. When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know,” I’ll help you explore whether you’re genuinely uncertain about what you felt at the time or avoiding an answer because you’re afraid of how your partner will respond. You’ll learn to stay engaged in difficult conversations rather than withdrawing, changing the subject, or offering reassurance that doesn’t answer the question.
We’ll also work on how you communicate needs and dissatisfaction now. If you previously avoided telling your partner that you were lonely, unhappy with your sexual relationship, or uncertain about your future together, I’ll help you learn to have those conversations without waiting until the problems become impossible to ignore. That includes expressing what you need without blaming your partner for the affair and listening when your partner has a different perspective.
Over time, your partner can begin to see that you’re willing to tell them difficult truths, even when those truths might lead to disagreement. Rebuilding trust means demonstrating that you can be honest when honesty is uncomfortable, not only when the conversation is easy.
You can talk about the affair, even when you’re both angry or hurt, without every conversation turning into a fight.
You’re discussing a major decision about your finances, children, or future together when the betrayed partner questions whether they can trust the unfaithful partner’s judgment. The unfaithful partner feels criticized and points out all the responsible decisions they’ve made over the years. Soon, you’re arguing about whether having an affair means someone is incapable of making good decisions, and the original issue remains unresolved.
In session, I’ll help you slow down those conversations and identify what each of you is trying to communicate. I’ll help the betrayed partner explain what concerns them about relying on their partner’s judgment without attacking their competence or character. I’ll also help the unfaithful partner listen to those concerns without immediately defending their professional abilities or insisting that the affair has nothing to do with the decision you’re discussing.
I’ll teach you how to bring up concerns without criticism, listen without becoming defensive, and recognize when an argument needs a break before it gets worse. When you become overwhelmed, you’ll learn how to pause the conversation and agree on when to return to it, rather than withdrawing indefinitely or continuing until one of you gives in.
Over time, you can discuss important decisions without every disagreement becoming an argument about the affair. You’ll be better able to understand one another’s concerns, consider different perspectives, and make decisions together while trust is being rebuilt.
You can decide together when and how to resume sexual intimacy after the affair.
You may have continued having sex after discovering the affair, but find yourself questioning what it means to your partner. You wonder whether they genuinely desire you, whether they were thinking about someone else during your relationship, or whether the affection they showed you while having the affair was sincere. Even when you enjoy being physically close, those questions can make intimacy more complicated than it was before.
Other couples stop having sex after the affair. You may still want to be close to your partner but feel anxious about being vulnerable with them again. Or you may be unsure whether you’re ready for sexual intimacy when you’re still trying to understand what happened.
The partner who had the affair may have concerns of their own. You may worry about initiating sex because you don’t know whether your partner wants it, or feel rejected when they hesitate. If you’ve continued having sex, you may find yourself wondering whether your partner is enjoying it or agreeing because they’re afraid of losing the relationship.
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I’ll help you talk openly about what’s happening between you sexually. We’ll explore the questions, fears, and expectations each of you brings to intimacy. I’ll help you express what feels comfortable, what doesn’t, and what you need from each other, without assuming that either partner should be ready for sex at a particular point.
You can develop a sexual relationship in which both of you feel comfortable expressing desire, uncertainty, and boundaries. Whether you’ve continued having sex or are considering resuming it, the goal is for intimacy to become something you can enjoy together without feeling pressured.
Who is a Good Fit for this Service?
I work with every form of infidelity: physical or emotional affairs, a secret online relationship or sexting, hidden pornography use or visits to strip clubs, secretly paying for sex, or a broken agreement in an open or non-monogamous relationship.
Therapy with me is for couples where both people want to repair the relationship.
If there is ongoing domestic violence in your relationship, couples therapy is not an appropriate service. Individual therapy is a safer starting place.
Infidelity therapist & certified Gottman method couples therapist
I’m Kate McNulty, LCSW, LICSW
I’ve been a licensed therapist since 1988, and affair recovery has been a central part of my couples practice for more than two decades.
An affair is a crisis, and most couples who come to me have already spent months trying to resolve it on their own, leaving them feeling even more disconnected.
Infidelity creates a specific communication breakdown that good intentions can’t fix. The betrayed partner often needs to talk to process what happened; the unfaithful partner can shut down out of guilt, shame, or defensiveness.
Attempts to resolve the damage caused by the affair without outside intervention reinforce that breakdown rather than interrupt it. I provide a research-supported structure of repairing your relationship after infidelity.
If the description on this page sounds like your relationship, I’d like to help.
Logistics
Pricing, scheduling, and online Couples Therapy sessions
All sessions are conducted by secure, HIPAA-compliant video. I work with couples in the Hudson Valley and across all of New York.
Sessions are private pay, billed at $500 per hour and $750 for 90-minute sessions. Extended sessions (3+ hours) are available for couples who want to make faster progress.
I am not in-network with insurance and cannot bill them directly. For more information about pricing, please see the pricing page.
How to get started in couples therapy
To schedule your first appointment, please choose a day and time on my secure, HIPAA-compliant calendar by clicking the button below.
After I approve your request, typically within one business day, you and your partner will receive new client forms via email, which you’ll both review and digitally sign before we meet.
Areas Served in Hudson Valley, New York
I provide online couples therapy after infidelity for couples throughout New York’s Hudson Valley, including Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, Putnam, Columbia, and Greene counties.
I work with couples in Poughkeepsie, Beacon, Fishkill, Wappingers Falls, Rhinebeck, Kingston, New Paltz, Woodstock, Saugerties, Newburgh, Middletown, Warwick, Cornwall, Cold Spring, Carmel, Brewster, Hudson, Catskill, and surrounding communities.
All appointments take place by secure, HIPAA-compliant video. You and your partner can attend from the same location or join separately. Both partners must be physically located in a state where I’m authorized to practice at the time of each session.
If you’re located farther south in the Hudson Valley, I also have a dedicated page about couples therapy after infidelity in Westchester County, including White Plains and surrounding communities.
Common Questions about couples therapy after infidelity in the Hudson Valley —
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Discovering an affair can change how you remember years of your relationship. You may question whether your partner meant it when you bought a home, decided to have children, made financial commitments, or planned your future together.
In therapy, I’ll help you ask what your partner was thinking and feeling when you made those decisions. Your partner may have wanted parts of the future you were building while feeling unhappy, conflicted, or unable to talk about what they needed from the relationship.
I’ll help your partner answer your questions directly, including when the answers are uncomfortable. We won’t assume that every commitment was insincere or that every memory was genuine. Getting those answers can help you understand which decisions were made with a shared understanding of your future and which involved feelings or doubts your partner kept from you. Instead of constantly revisiting your memories and wondering what you missed, you can begin to make sense of what happened, regain confidence in your own judgment, and understand what needs to change for you to trust your partner again.
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An affair can change how you view your partner’s decisions, even in areas where you previously trusted their judgment. You may wonder how someone who made a choice with such serious consequences for your relationship can be relied upon to make decisions affecting your family’s future.
In therapy, I’ll help you explain what specifically concerns you, rather than allowing every disagreement to become a judgment about your partner’s competence. I’ll also help the unfaithful partner understand why pointing to years of responsible decisions may not address your loss of confidence.
We’ll discuss what accountability looks like now, how to approach important decisions together, and what your partner can do to demonstrate that they’re considering the consequences of their choices for both of you.
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Yes. You don’t have to resolve every question about the affair before addressing responsibilities that can’t wait. You may still need to make decisions about your children, household expenses, investments, or businesses while you’re rebuilding trust.
I’ll help you distinguish between decisions that need immediate attention and longer-term commitments that deserve more discussion. We can work on how to raise concerns, listen to each other’s reasoning, and reach agreements without allowing every practical decision to turn into another argument about the affair.
At the same time, couples therapy gives you dedicated space to address the betrayal itself. You don’t have to rely on conversations about finances or family logistics to resolve the emotional questions that still need attention.
Still Have Questions about Couples Therapy for Infidelity?
Contact me using the button below. I’ll respond within 2 business days.