Monique ThompsonLicensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor & Infidelity Recovery Specialist

How many therapy sessions do I need for infidelity?

8 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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Dr. Monique Thompson, an EMDR‑trained therapist specializing in infidelity recovery, advises that individuals dealing with the aftermath of cheating should complete roughly nine trauma‑informed therapy sessions within a short, intensive window—typically two to three weeks. Sessions should be as long as the client can tolerate, guided by their "window of tolerance," which may range from 45 to 90+ minutes. The goal of this rapid, focused treatment is to extinguish acute trauma responses (the "trauma fires") using modalities such as EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and polyvagal theory, thereby creating a calm mental state that allows the client to make clear decisions about whether to repair or end the relationship. Dr. Thompson emphasizes scheduling these nine appointments before making any major relationship decisions, positioning the therapy as a prerequisite for informed, calm choice‑making.

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How many sessions do you need after you find out that your partner has been cheating, or after you cheated on your partner? About 9 trauma-informed sessions over a very short period of time. And by very short period of time, I mean over a couple of weeks, maybe 3 weeks at the most. You want those sessions to be as long as you can tolerate, meaning possibly longer than 45 minutes, possibly longer than 90 minutes. You want as long of a session as you can tolerate using your window of tolerance. Your therapist will know what what that is if they're trauma-informed, and you want to get those done. Why? Because then you can actually start doing the work, the long, hard work to determine whether or not the relationship can be saved or whether it's time to move away and walk away from each other. But before you make that big decision, you've got to put out all the fires, all the trauma fires. All right. So what do you do for therapy as soon as you find out that your partner cheated, or if you're the one who cheated, when you realize that you need to make a change, you need to stop, you've got to fix things? Stop what you're doing. Schedule nine appointments with whoever your therapist is. Get those sessions done before you make a big decision. You'll thank me later. This is Dr. Monique Thompson, expert in infidelity recovery, EMDR trained therapist. I use IFS polyvagal theory. We use every piece of the trauma family we can to put out those fires so that your brain can make a calm, clear decision about what to do next.