Rebuilding the City: Post-Affair Growth and the American Reinvention Myth

Once upon a time—and not so long ago, really—the discovery of an affair ended the conversation. Or more precisely, it shifted the conversation into a one-note dirge about betrayal, shame, and possibly lawyer retainers.

The affair was a bomb that leveled the house. Most therapists didn’t talk about rebuilding. They helped couples decide who got to keep the furniture.

But something has shifted in the past decade.

Not just in therapy, but in the broader American imagination.

The old narrative—infidelity as moral failing, recovery as reluctant forgiveness—no longer fits the emotional, erotic, or existential complexity many couples bring into the room.

Now? The best therapists aren’t patching cracks. They’re rebuilding cities.

They are treating the affair not as a terminal diagnosis, but as an earthquake.

And while some couples still decide to move out of the rubble for good, an increasing number are asking: What could we build here that’s better than what we had before?