Infidelity Therapy
When betrayal changes the question from what happened to what is possible now.
Infidelity can unsettle the relationship, the story you told about it and your confidence in your own perception. There may be anger, grief, questions and decisions all at once.
Therapy does not predetermine whether a relationship stays together. It provides a careful place to understand the rupture and what repair, clarity or boundaries would require.
Meet your therapist
Hi, I'm Robert.
I work with couples deciding what is true now, after trust has been broken.
I'm Robert Russell, AMFT — an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist in Murfreesboro and the founder of Kind Therapy. My training is relational: distress usually lives in the patterns between people, not inside one person who is broken.
Sessions are conversations, paced by you. No script to follow, no version of yourself to perform. We start with what is actually happening, and go from there.
Robert Russell, AMFT — pre-licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, practicing under the supervision of Dr. Sara Hopkins, LMFT (TN license #928).
In person in Murfreesboro and online across Tennessee · Endorsed by 13 fellow clinicians on Psychology Today
01 — Recognition
Betrayal reaches farther than the event
People often describe infidelity as a rupture in more than sexual or romantic exclusivity. It can affect safety, history and the future at the same time.
- Questions that return even after an answer has been given.
- A need to know details and a wish to stop thinking about them.
- Hypervigilance around phones, schedules, tone or ordinary absences.
- Shame, anger or grief that changes from hour to hour.
- Uncertainty about whether staying, separating or waiting is the right next step.
- The person who broke trust also carrying fear, guilt, defensiveness or confusion.
There is no requirement to decide the entire future in the first conversation.
02 — Perspective
Accountability and compassion can coexist
Understanding the context around betrayal does not excuse it. Accountability matters, and so does understanding the impact and the pattern that made secrecy possible.
The work makes room for the injured partner's experience without reducing either person to one event or one role forever.
03 — What it costs
When trust becomes a full-time question
After betrayal, ordinary relationship moments can become evidence for or against safety.
- Connection: affection can feel wanted and threatening at the same time.
- Daily life: small inconsistencies can carry the weight of the original rupture.
- Identity: each partner may question who they were in the relationship.
- Future: shared plans can feel impossible to imagine or urgent to decide.
04 — The work
What infidelity therapy actually looks like
Sessions are paced carefully. The work is not about forcing forgiveness or manufacturing trust before it exists.
- Create enough stability for conversations to happen without repeated injury.
- Understand the impact, the questions and the boundaries each person needs.
- Explore the relationship pattern and the individual choices that led here.
- Clarify what repair would require and whether both people want to pursue it.
05 — Why Robert
Who you would be working with
Robert Russell is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT) in Murfreesboro, pre-licensed and practicing under the supervision of Dr. Sara Hopkins, LMFT (TN license #928). He completed graduate training in marriage and family therapy at Trevecca Nazarene University after more than fifteen years in pastoral counseling and helping work.
His training is relational. Distress is usually understood as living in the patterns between people rather than inside one person who is broken. Sessions are conversations — paced by you, without a script you are expected to follow.
06 — Approach
How the work is done
The work is relational and accountability-centered, with attention to the nervous system, attachment and the pace of rebuilding trust.
Attachment-based therapy
Looks at what closeness, dependence and safety have meant for you, and how those early lessons still shape the present.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Maps the cycle between you and the people closest to you so the conflict stops being about who is right.
Parts-informed work
Separates the protective parts — the critic, the fixer, the one who goes quiet — from the person underneath them.
Practical relational understanding
Language and responses you can actually use in the moment, not only insight about why something happens.
07 — Logistics
Fees, length and location
- $150 per 50-minute session
- In person in Murfreesboro at River Tree Center, 212 Heritage Park Drive
- Online across Tennessee
- Free 15-minute consultation before you commit to anything
08 — Common questions
Questions people ask first
- Can therapy help if we do not know whether we will stay together?
- Yes. Therapy can help you slow down, understand what happened and make decisions with more clarity. It does not direct you toward staying or leaving.
- Does the affair have to be over before we start?
- Ongoing contact or uncertainty affects the work and needs to be discussed honestly. The first step is understanding what is happening now and what boundaries are possible.
- Will you make us talk about every detail?
- No. Details may matter for some questions, but sessions are paced around what is useful and safe rather than curiosity or punishment.
- How long does rebuilding trust take?
- There is no reliable timetable. Trust is rebuilt through consistent actions over time, not one conversation or promise.
- Can one person come alone?
- Yes. Individual sessions can provide a place to process the rupture and clarify what you want, even if couples work happens later.
09 — Read more
Related Kind Therapy guides
This guide offers a longer look at betrayal, trust and the questions that follow.
- Infidelity and BetrayalWhat betrayal can disrupt and what repair may require.
- Couples CommunicationThe cycle that can make difficult conversations harder.
- Relationship DisconnectionHow distance can develop before a rupture is named.
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10 — Next step
Start with a private conversation
A free 15-minute call is a chance to describe what is going on and ask whether therapy seems worth trying. No commitment, no intake paperwork, no pressure.
Kind Therapy · Murfreesboro, Tennessee and online across Tennessee. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call or text 988, or dial 911.