Being bored in marriage is totally preventable but it does take some work. Communicating your needs and wants is vital to healthy and successful marriages. In this podcast Geoff Steurer, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist teaches us how intimacy can help you heal from an affair and create an “affair-proof” marriage.
What We Cover in This Episode
In this episode I sit down with my friend and mentor Geoff Steurer, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in helping couples survive and heal from affairs and betrayal. What strikes me most is his hope: couples who do the hard work of healing often build a deeper intimacy than they ever had before.
We walk through a hypothetical couple in crisis to unpack what really happens after an affair comes to light. Geoff explains why the single most important thing a couple can do is slow down—resisting the rush to relief that so often short-circuits real healing.
He is also crystal clear about responsibility: the affair is 100% the choice of the person who had it, never the fault of the betrayed spouse. And he traces how secrets and a hidden emotional life quietly create the distance that betrayal grows in.
Key takeaways
- Healing from betrayal can lead to deeper intimacy than the couple had before—don’t waste the crisis.
- Slow down. Rushing a betrayed partner back to “normal” actually delays their healing.
- The affair is entirely the betrayer’s responsibility; the betrayed spouse’s job is their own healing, not absorbing blame.
- Recovery means decisively ending the other relationship, full honesty, and formal disclosure—no “one last goodbye.”
- Betrayal is rarely sudden; it grows in the gap created by secrets and unspoken needs.
The same dynamics show up whether the betrayal is an affair or hidden pornography use. If you are the wounded partner, start with our guide for the betrayed spouse. For the bigger picture, see our guide to healing your marriage after betrayal, along with our cornerstone on rebuilding a marriage after betrayal.
And if you want guided, compassionate help doing this work, our Next Level program is here for you.
If you’ve found yourself in a situation where trust has been lost, Geoff has a high-quality online course called Trust Building Bootcamp! “Learn to start building trust even if you’ve really messed things up.”
Use our code: GET10 at check out and you’ll get 10% off! https://www.trustbuildingacademy.com/a/18461/FaEqTxAJ
If you like this episode, check out our app, Intimately Us at https://intimately.us!
