A couple got over an affair and got married after taking a 7-step infidelity course

• A man cheated on his partner of two years for 10 months, so they called off their wedding plans.
• They got married a year later, after a special couples therapy regimen with therapist Talal Alsaleem.

A woman sat right next to her fiancé, a man she had been with for two years, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

Her heart pounding, she instead locked eyes with their therapist, Talal Alsaleem, who was sitting across from them. She bristled as her fiancé explained how he slept with another woman in their home during a 10-month long affair that she learned about three months ago, after they'd gotten engaged.

The woman said he had cheated before — with her. That was how their romantic relationship began. In that instance, the woman said she viewed her affair as a means to the end of an unfulfilling marriage, and assumed her fiancé felt the same. But learning of his latest transgression, her brain swirled with confusion. Until they decided to meet with Alsaleem, the woman had cut off contact with the man, saying she felt stupid for trusting him and that she wanted him out of her life for good.

But in December 2020, the California-based couple got married. They told Insider their relationship resolution was possible thanks to following a regimen created by Alsaleem, a licensed marriage and family therapist who dedicates his practice to helping people heal after infidelity. In 2019, they took Alsaleem's $4,920 three-day intensive course and did a year of $245-an-hour in-person, weekly sessions with him. The total bill was around $17,660, not including the individual therapy they both attended on their own, but agree the cost was worth it.

Both say they're different people than they were before the affair. The woman says the man is thoughtful in ways he never was before he cheated on her, while the man said Alsaleem is an "emotional engineer" who helped him finally confront, understand, and change his lack of accountability.

"It's soul-crushing because you get exposed to ugly things that have been within you for many years, but you've been blindly ignoring it because that's the easiest thing to do," the man told Insider.

A last-ditch effort after feeling stuck in traditional couples therapy

There's no standardized clinical treatment for helping couples heal after an affair, therapist Tammy Nelson, author of "When You're the One Who Cheats" told Insider. Since cheating motives and couples' dynamics vastly differ, what they need to heal differs, too.

The woman said the first therapist she and her husband saw together, who he found through a Google search, instructed them to communicate and feel their emotions.

But she felt so many things at once — shame for being naive about her husband's behavior, disappointment in him, disappointment in herself, desperation to understand where she went wrong — that it felt impossible to share or process her emotions without completely unraveling.

Then, the woman read Alsaleem's book, after a recommendation from her personal therapist. His step-by-step breakdown gave her a new perspective on why the man may have cheated. For the first time, she felt like getting closure was possible. While the woman read Alsaleem's book on her own, the man was frantically Googling "therapists who specialize in infidelity," he told Insider. Finding Alsaleem during that search, the man emailed him for more details, then persisted until he convinced the woman to take Alsaleem's three-day intensive course.

Creating a cheating recovery game plan, complete with non-negotiable homework

Unlike traditional couple's counseling, where couples are often encouraged to discuss their feelings and reasons for cheating until they reach forgiveness, Alsaleem walks couples through his seven-step process. The beginning steps focus on setting ground rules and expectations to avoid emotional gridlocks, while the later steps guide the couple on building a new relationship and practicing their new communication skills.

Alsaleem's process does not require forgiveness, but it does require the cheater to write a letter to their partner to acknowledge wrongdoings. It also includes steps like partners agreeing not to post about their relationship on social media, upholding a months-long period of no contact outside of therapy, and creating a custom relationship satisfaction rating system, all things that encourage the couple to focus on recovery.

The woman said she was skeptical that their relationship could recover. If anything, she believed Alsaleem could help her understand why their relationship devolved.

But when they worked with Alsaleem to create a game plan so she could trust the man again, the woman said she became more hopeful. As part of the process, they agreed to have one challenging conversation during each weekly session. They'd talk about work stress, behavior patterns they wanted to change, and hurt feelings.

The man also attended a weekly support group in his community and volunteered to deliver food for a local charity to help work on his selfish mindset. He shared his account passwords and texts with the woman to prove he was committed to honesty. To round out the game plan, the man went to individual therapy through all of this, which he said helped him understand how unresolved childhood trauma led him to have a lack of accountability in his adult relationships.

The man said Alsaleem told him that if he shirked responsibility on any of these steps, they could no longer work together. The strict requirements kept the man motivated, he said, because he viewed Alsaleem as his "lifeline" to becoming a better partner.

A whole new relationship

According to the woman, it took a year of work with Alsaleem to build a "normal and new'' relationship with her husband. Now, she says her once-arrogant husband is humble and thoughtful.

When they argue, he reaches out to make amends. He thinks before he speaks, but also shares when he's stressed or upset, which he never used to do, she said. That's when she knew she could marry him.

Even though the man imploded their relationship with his affair, the woman said it led to the most solid relationship she's ever had. She said that she used to view their pre-affair life as perfect because of their chemistry and financial success, but loves their deeper connection even more now.

"It's really meaningful to build something beautiful like trust," the woman said. They've now been married for three years. Last year, they adopted a puppy together.