Online throughout Florida
Individual Therapy for the Unfaithful Spouse in Florida
You Never Thought You’d Be Someone Who Had an Affair.
You know exactly how much damage the affair caused. You don’t need a therapist, or anyone else, to spell it out for you.
But knowing the damage hasn’t helped you figure out what to do with the guilt, the confusion, or the weight of trying to keep functioning while the rest of your life feels like it’s collapsing in on you.
You might not be able to explain how this happened, even to yourself. Or you have some idea of why, but every attempt to put it into words sounds like blame or justification, and you can hear yourself doing it even as you’re saying it.
Either way, your spouse keeps asking why you did it, and any answers you may have tend to make things worse.
The reality is, you didn’t wake up one morning and decide to have an affair. It happened through a sequence of smaller moments that didn’t feel risky or inappropriate at the time: a conversation that drifted further than it should have, a connection that built itself up so slowly you didn’t see what it actually was until you were already inside it. Each rationalization felt reasonable in the moment. At some point, you crossed a line you genuinely believed you would never cross.
Now you’re trying to explain something you never consciously chose, to a spouse who understandably needs you to explain it, and either you don’t have the words at all, or the words you have sound like excuses. Guilt and shame make it almost impossible to find an acceptable answer, which makes the conversations at home worse, which makes the shame worse. On and on the cycle goes.
Sleep has been bad for a while, you find yourself losing your patience with your kids over things that don’t actually matter, and the drinking has crept up enough that you’ve started keeping track.
And the people you would normally turn to with something this big are all out of reach. The closest friend you’d normally call would never see you the same way again. The friends you have through your spouse are off-limits for obvious reasons. Your siblings would tell your parents within a week.
So, you’ve been carrying the affair entirely alone, with the only other person who knows being the person you hurt.
What you need is a therapist who specializes in betrayal and isn’t going to flinch at any of it.
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 therapy with me is that you had an affair for reasons (some of which you don’t fully understand yet), and until you understand them, you can’t give your spouse the honest account they’re asking for, and you can’t do the internal work required to prevent it from happening again.
Sessions are aimed at three things: understanding more fully why the affair happened, understanding what it means about you and your marriage, and figuring out who you want to be from here.
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 means for you: I don’t treat clients who cheated as sex addicts, I don’t treat them as narcissistic, and I don’t treat the affair as a one-off mistake to apologize for and move past as quickly as possible.
I treat it as a symptom of how the marital dynamic went wrong in a way that you participated in, that we can name, that we can understand, and that you are empowered to do something about.
How individual therapy for infidelity can help.
You can answer your spouse’s questions honestly.
Not “I don’t know,” and not a rehearsed apology, 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.
You can trace the path from the first boundary crossing to the last, and you understand what was happening inside you at each step.
Your spouse may not like everything they hear, but for the first time, they’re getting the truth instead of a blank stare or a defensive wall.
This kind of honest narrative is one of the most important things your spouse needs in order to heal.
01
You’ll stop shame-spiraling.
You still feel the effects of what you did, and that’s appropriate. But the guilt becomes something you can carry and learn from rather than something that flattens you at 2am and leaves you useless the next day.
You stop replaying the worst version of yourself on a loop.
You sleep through the night more often than not. You wake up and you can function, be present with your kids at breakfast, focus on your work for more than twenty minutes at a time, instead of dragging yourself through the day on three hours of broken sleep and a pit in your stomach.
02
You stop going through the motions of your own life.
You’ve been physically present but emotionally somewhere else for longer than you’d like to admit, and that started well before the affair.
Your kids talk to you at dinner and you realize you heard the words but missed the whole point. You get through a whole Saturday and can’t remember what you did.
After this work, you start catching those moments. You notice when you’ve checked out, and you come back. Not perfectly, and not every time, but enough that you’re living your life again instead of just getting through it.
03
You’ll recognize the early warning signs that used to be invisible to you.
A coworker starts confiding in you about their marriage, and instead of leaning into the conversation, you notice what’s happening and pull back.
You hear yourself thinking “it’s not a big deal” or “we’re just talking” and you recognize those thoughts for what they are, because you’ve learned exactly how the small rationalizations work, how each one makes the next one easier, and where that road ends.
The affair didn’t start with a big decision. It started with a series of small ones that you didn’t see clearly at the time. Now you see them.
04
You say the hard thing instead of brushing it under the rug.
Something is bothering you. Maybe you feel unappreciated, maybe a decision your spouse made landed wrong, maybe you’re lonely in your own home and you don’t know how to say that out loud.
Before, you would have smiled, said “it’s fine,” and added it to the quiet pile of things you never brought up. That pile is what made you vulnerable in the first place, and you know that now.
So, you say the uncomfortable thing. It’s awkward and imperfect, but you say it, because you know exactly what it costs when you don’t.
05
You trust yourself again, and this time it’s based on something real.
The first time you promised the infidelity would never happen again, you meant it, but you were making that promise without understanding how you got here in the first place. Now you do.
You know what your own rationalizations sound like. You know how boundary erosion works, how one small concession leads to the next until you've crossed a line you never saw coming. You know what happens when you swallow your frustration with your partner instead of saying it out loud. And you’ve built the skills to do it differently.
That’s a kind of confidence a promise can’t give you, and whether you stay in this marriage or not, you carry it forward to the next relationship.
06
This 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.
This 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 choose 60-minute weekly sessions or 90-minute biweekly sessions. I also offer intensives for clients who want focused momentum.
Investment
My fee is $500 for 60-minute sessions or $750 for 90-minute sessions. I am not in-network with any insurance company and cannot bill insurance directly. Please see my fees page for more information.
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.
Getting started
Reach out through the contact page or 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 1-2 business days, but usually much faster.
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 flexible and fully engaged. Please check my HIPAA-compliant calendar here for current openings.
Therapist For the Unfaithful Partner in Florida
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, which means I understand what your spouse is going through, what the repair process requires, and what individual work needs to happen for any of it to hold.
I built this part of my practice 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 ordinary people end up here.
Someone who gets it, who will be honest with you even when it's uncomfortable, and who knows how to help you heal and move forward.
Areas Served in Florida
I’m registered to provide telehealth services to clients physically located in Florida (registration TPSW2). This is done via secure, HIPAA-compliant Zoom across the state.
This includes:
Miami, Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, and Miami Beach
Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and Broward County
Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and Jupiter
Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater
Orlando, Winter Park, and Central Florida
Naples, Sarasota, and Southwest Florida
Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, and Northeast Florida
Tallahassee, Gainesville, and the Panhandle
If you’re anywhere in Florida, 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.
