Online throughout Colorado
Individual Therapy for the Unfaithful Spouse in Colorado
You never thought you’d be someone who had an affair.
You know how much damage the affair caused. You don’t need a therapist, or anyone else, to remind you of that.
What’s harder is figuring out what to do with the guilt, the confusion, and the exhausting effort of holding your life together while it feels like it’s coming apart from the inside.
You might not even be able to explain how you ended up here.
Your spouse asks how the affair started, and the honest answer is that you don’t fully know yourself. Nobody decides one morning to have an affair. It happens through smaller moments that didn’t feel dangerous while they were happening: a text you answered later than you should have, a conversation you kept having because it felt easier than the ones at home, a connection that grew slowly enough that you didn’t notice it turning into an affair until the affair had already begun. Each of those moments felt defensible at the time. Somewhere along the way, you crossed a line you were sure you’d never cross.
Now you’re trying to explain an affair you never consciously decided to have. Your spouse is the one person who most needs an explanation, but the shame gets in the way of giving them a straight answer, which only makes things worse at home.
Or maybe you already know exactly why you were unhappy. You’ve felt resentful for years, about the same imbalance, the same unmet need, the same request you eventually stopped raising because it never went anywhere.
What you haven’t worked out is why an affair became your answer to it, not a harder conversation, not a separation, not therapy, but an affair.
Understanding that choice and learning how to say what you needed without turning it into blame, is part of what this therapy is for.
The people you’d normally lean on aren’t available to you right now. Telling a mutual friend about the affair changes how they see you, and telling anyone outside the marriage spreads the secret without making the guilt any lighter. So you’ve kept the affair to yourself, and the only other person who knows is your spouse.
The shame doesn’t wait for a convenient moment. It shows up while you’re standing in a checkout line, or halfway through a work call, or driving your kid to practice, and it hits hard enough that you have to pull the car over or step outside for a minute. You’ve been forgetting things you don’t normally forget. You avoid people who used to get your full attention. And more than once you’ve reached for a second drink you didn’t used to need, telling yourself the drink is just to take the edge off.
You can’t figure out why you had the affair on your own. Your spouse can’t help you understand your own choices, since they’re the wrong person to explain them to you. And the people around you can’t help either, since none of them were inside the marriage, or inside your head, when you crossed that line.
You need a therapist who’s sat with plenty of people who cheated on someone they loved, who already recognizes what you’re describing, and who won’t blink when you finally put the affair into words.
I’ve built my practice to be exactly that person.
Understanding the infidelity comes before everything else…
Individual therapy for the unfaithful partner is not couples therapy, and it’s not the kind of general individual therapy where you process whatever is on your mind that week.
The premise of this therapy is that you had an affair for reasons that need to be understood, whether that means uncovering them for the first time, or connecting old resentments to why an affair became your answer to them.
Until you do, you can’t give your spouse the honest account they’re asking for, or do the internal work required to prevent the affair from happening again.
Sessions focus on understanding why the affair happened, understanding what the affair means about you and your marriage, and figuring out who you want to be from here.
Some clients start therapy with no idea why the affair happened. Others already know exactly what they were missing and haven’t worked out why an affair became the answer to it. I work with people at either starting point.
The way I work is shaped by Gottman couples therapy and by my training as a certified discernment counselor through the Doherty Relationship Institute.
The short version of what that training means for you: I don’t treat clients who cheated as sex addicts or narcissistic. I also don’t treat the affair as your spouse’s fault, or even as a direct result of the problems in the marriage. The marriage had problems long before the affair, but I treat those problems as background, not the explanation.
What matters clinically is what you did with them: either you weren't fully aware of how disconnected or unfulfilled you’d become, or you were aware, and chose an affair over a harder conversation, and the separation that conversation might have led to. That choice, not the marriage itself, is what we focus on.
How individual therapy for infidelity can help.
You can answer your spouse’s questions honestly.
Not “I don’t know,” and not a version you rehearsed ahead of time, but a real, honest account of the chain of events, the vulnerabilities you weren’t paying attention to, and the specific choices you made along the way.
Your spouse might not like everything they hear, but for the first time they’re getting the truth instead of silence or a wall of defensiveness.
That kind of honest account is what your spouse needs most in order to heal.
01
You’ll stop shame-spiraling.
You think about the affair when it’s useful to, in session or in a hard conversation with your spouse, not on a loop that plays in the background of everything else you’re trying to do.
You can’t think your way into a memory hurting less. That’s specifically why I use Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), a technique that uses eye movements to reduce the shame, anxiety, dread, or nausea that shows up on cue when you think about the affair, without you having to narrate every detail out loud. Most clients notice a real difference within 1-3 sessions.
You sleep straight through the night and wake up thinking about your day ahead, not the affair. You sit down for dinner with your family, taste the food, follow the conversation, laugh when your kid says something funny. You get through a workday present enough that a colleague doesn’t have to repeat themselves twice, instead of nodding along while your mind is somewhere else entirely.
02
You’re present for your own life again.
You might not think of it this way, but your attention left the marriage long before the affair happened, in ordinary moments: half-listening while your spouse talked about their day, answering every question but not asking one back, a whole weekend that stayed on pickup times and grocery lists and never included asking how anyone was doing.
Catching that moment while it’s happening is a skill that can be learned, and it’s specifically what my training is built around: recognizing when your spouse is trying to connect with you, even in something as small as a comment about their day, and giving it your full attention instead of answering while you’re already thinking about something else.
Once you’re responding to those moments instead of letting them go by, you watch a movie with your spouse and can talk about it two days later, or you ask about the work meeting they mentioned last week before they have to bring it up themselves.
Those moments are the proof your spouse needs: not another promise to take on faith, but something they watched happen themselves, real evidence the change will last.
03
You’ll recognize the early warning signs of crossing a line.
A former partner messages you out of nowhere, or someone new starts paying you the kind of attention you haven’t gotten at home in a while, and instead of leaning into the attention, you notice what’s happening and step back.
You catch yourself thinking “it’s harmless” or “we’re just friends,” and you recognize those thoughts for what they are, because you’ve learned exactly how the small rationalizations work, how each one clears the way for the next, and where that road ends.
The affair didn’t start with one big decision. It started with a string of small ones you didn’t see clearly at the time. Now you do.
04
You speak up for what you need instead of brushing it under the rug.
Something’s bothering you. Maybe you feel taken for granted, maybe your spouse made a call about money or family you didn’t agree with, maybe you’re lonely inside your own marriage and haven’t found a way to say so.
Before, you’d have said “it’s fine” and moved on without saying what was really bothering you. Doing that for years is part of what made you vulnerable to having an affair in the first place. The resentment didn’t disappear just because you didn’t say it.
Saying it early instead of brushing it aside is a skill that can be learned, and it’s what I help my wayward clients practice: naming what you feel and what you need without the blame that puts your spouse on the defensive.
So the next time your spouse makes a decision you don’t like, or you feel overlooked, you say something, instead of telling yourself it’s fine and it’s not that important.
That’s the difference between dealing with things as they come up, and letting them build into exactly the kind of resentment and chronic disconnection that made you vulnerable to infidelity the first time.
05
You trust yourself not to repeat the behaviors that led you to being unfaithful.
You've already promised your spouse, probably more than once by now, that the affair would never happen again, and you meant it every time. But a promise like that only means something if you understand what led to the affair in the first place, and the first time you said it, you likely didn't yet. You couldn't catch a rationalization you didn't know you were capable of. You couldn't name a boundary you didn't realize you were eroding.
That gap closes here. Through our work together, you’ll learn to recognize a rationalization the moment it starts, not months later in hindsight. You learn to say what's bothering you before it turns into bottling things up.
Those are the two specific things that were missing the first time, and they're what makes this promise different: not just more sincerity, but the skills that would have caught it happening the first time around.
That confidence goes with you into whatever comes next, whether this marriage continues or not.
06
Therapy with me is a good fit for you if you…
Had an affair and carry real guilt and remorse about it. You see the damage it caused, and you want to understand why it happened so that it never happens again.
Need a space to process this that isn’t your marriage, your friendships, or your couples therapy sessions.
Are willing to look at your own behaviors and choices honestly, including the parts that are uncomfortable and unflattering.
Want a therapist who won’t label you or pathologize you.
Are open to doing the work regardless of what happens with your marriage, whether you’re staying, leaving, or don’t know yet.
Therapy with me is not a good fit for you if you…
Don’t feel genuine remorse about the affair and are primarily looking for a therapist to validate that it was justified.
Want a therapist who will take your side against your spouse.
Are looking for couples therapy. If you and your spouse want to work on the marriage together, I would be happy to provide referrals to trusted colleagues who provide couples therapy.
Getting Started in Therapy & What to Expect
Format
Individual therapy sessions conducted online via secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth. You can be located anywhere in Colorado. You can choose 60-minute weekly sessions or 90-minute biweekly sessions.
Availability
I keep my caseload intentionally small. I work with just 2-3 individual clients at a time for this particular service, which means availability is limited, but it also means you get a therapist who is fully engaged. Please note, I am not available during evenings, but I can see you on Sunday if you require an appointment outside of normal work hours.
Please check my HIPAA-compliant calendar here for current openings.
Investment
My fee is $500 for 60-minute sessions or $750 for 90-minute sessions. I also offer extended therapy sessions (3-6 hours over 1-2 days) for clients who want to build momentum quickly.
I am not in-network with any insurance company and cannot bill insurance directly. I can provide a Superbill (an itemized receipt with a mental health diagnosis) for you to submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement. Not all plans reimburse for out-of-network providers, so I recommend checking with your insurance before your first session.
Please see my fees page for more information.
Getting started
Click here to self-schedule your first session. I’ve done my best to include everything you need to make an informed decision on this page.
If you have a question that isn’t answered here, email me and I’ll get back to you within 48 to 72 hours, but usually much faster.
Colorado Infidelity Therapist
I’M ALLYSON.
Gottman-trained therapist with specialized training in infidelity
I trained as a couples therapist through the Gottman Institute and completed their specialized training on treating affairs. I’ve spent years sitting with both partners in the aftermath of infidelity.
I built a practice focused on the unfaithful partner (the “wayward spouse”) because I kept seeing the same gap: the partner who had the affair needed their own space to do real, honest work, and there weren't many therapists equipped to provide it.
Not someone who would over-validate you because they’re only hearing your side of the story, and not someone who would jump to a description of you that doesn’t fit because they don’t understand how good people end up having an affair.
If you’re looking for someone who gets it, who will be honest with you even when it's uncomfortable, and who knows how to help you heal and prevent this from happening again, regardless of what happens to your marriage, you’ve come to the right place.
Areas Served in Colorado
I’m able to independently provide telehealth services in Colorado as an LCSW (license #CSW.09933527) and I work with clients via secure, HIPAA-compliant Zoom across the state.
This includes:
Denver, Aurora, and the greater Denver metro area
Colorado Springs and El Paso County
Boulder, Longmont, and Broomfield
Fort Collins and the northern Front Range
Lakewood, Arvada, Westminster, and the western suburbs
Colorado’s Western Slope, including Grand Junction
Pueblo and southern Colorado
If you’re anywhere in Colorado, I can work with you.
FAQs
Questions About Therapy for the Unfaithful Spouse
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My understanding of how and why affairs happen is grounded in the Gottman Institute’s 50 years of research on relationships and infidelity. I completed the Gottman Institute’s specialized training on treating affairs, which provides a research-based framework for understanding the chain of events that leads to infidelity and what genuine recovery requires.
I also use Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) at specific points in the process, particularly for processing guilt and shame. ART is an evidence-based therapy that helps your brain reprocess painful experiences in a way that talk therapy alone often can’t. ART is uniquely equipped to help reduce the shame to a level where you can think clearly, engage honestly, and do the repair work that matters.
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Yes, and many of my clients do. Individual therapy with me is designed to complement couples therapy, not compete with it. I value collaborating with my clients’ couples therapists so that our work helps the couples therapy.
The couples room is for working on the relationship together. This room is for working on the parts that are yours alone: the guilt, the shame, the avoidance behaviors that led here, and the individual changes you need to make.
Most clients find that they show up to couples therapy differently once they’ve started doing this individual work, because they have more clarity, more self-awareness, and less of the knee-jerk defensiveness that makes hard conversations even harder.
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Yes. Whether or not your spouse is willing to work on the marriage, you still need a place to process what happened, understand your own behaviors, and figure out who you want to be going forward.
If your spouse isn’t open to couples work, this individual therapy becomes even more important. You’re likely going to need to make some major decisions about your future, and you’ll make much better ones when you’re not drowning in unprocessed guilt and shame.
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Yes, and this is something we can work through carefully together. Disclosure is a deeply personal and consequential decision, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
I can help you think through what disclosure would look like, how to prepare for the range of possible outcomes, and what you’d need to have in place before having that conversation if you decide to. What I won’t do is tell you what to do. That decision is yours.
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Yes. If you’re in the middle of an ongoing affair and feeling guilt about it, that guilt is telling you something important, and this is a place where you can figure out what to do about it.
The work here requires a willingness to look honestly at what you’re doing and why. I’m not going to pressure you into a decision before you’re ready, but I’m also not going to help you feel better about continuing something that’s causing damage to your spouse, your family, and yourself.
If you’re ready to examine what’s happening honestly, even if you don’t yet know what you want to do about it, you’re welcome here.
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I do work with betrayed partners, but through a separate arm of my practice with its own website. I keep those services intentionally separate so that each client knows the space they’re in is fully dedicated to their experience.
You can read more about my work with betrayed partners here.
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My fee is $500 for 60-minute sessions and $750 for 90-minute sessions. Please see the fees page for more information.
I am not in-network with any insurance company and cannot bill insurance directly. I can provide a Superbill (an itemized receipt with a mental health diagnosis) for you to submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement. Not all plans reimburse for out-of-network providers, so I recommend checking with your insurance before your first session.
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You may self-schedule on my HIPAA-compliant calendar here.
Alternatively, please reach out through the contact page if you have questions first. I typically respond within 48 to 72 hours, but usually much faster.
