SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Nickerson, K., Rein, B., Gottman, J., Stone, R., Davies, R., Petrova, M., & Johnson, A. L. (2026). Should I Stay or Should I Go After Infidelity: Pathways to Relationship Preservation After an Affair Amongst Individuals Accessing Social Media Contents on Post-Infidelity Recovery and Reconciliation. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 1–22. doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2026.2680162

That's actually the first and only controlled study I've found that addresses at all whether there is actually an empirically demonstrable need to cut ties with an affair partner! Without overselling the work as perfect, the study's authors deserve credit for their groundbreaking work. Interestingly, the paper does not actually conclude that blocking an affair partner is mandatory for marital survival. On the contrary, the paper found that some couples still remained together even when the affair partner was not blocked, provided other repair behaviors compensated for it. For example, one pathway with no blocking but increased help at home still showed a relatively high probability of preservation (about 80%).

Very slippery terrain trying to formalize behavioral and trauma response as repeatable and replicable, especially due to the huge bias introduced by social media monitoring, the playground of ego, dysfunctional social behavior, validation and false performance ramped up to 11.

Finding tendencies as discovering the hot water is a thing. Drawing any conclusions needs real tact.

There is a non zero chance that it can be used to justify continuing abusive behaviors based on the dynamics between abused and abusers which are know since Stockholm and before.

I wonder how many might get excited about that 20% chance of keeping the affair partner and still successfully get "reconciled".

20% ain’t that bad, one in five, to keep doing it and still live consequences free for the cheater.

I can see this might get some excited.