#222: Can a Fearful Avoidant Change After Cheating? (Ask Steph)
This question comes up far more often than you might think, and understandably so. Infidelity cuts deep, and when it happens in the context of fearful-avoidant attachment, it can feel especially confusing and destabilising.
In this first Ask Steph episode, I want to offer some grounded reflections on what actually matters when you’re trying to discern whether change is possible—not just in theory, but in reality.
Because while I genuinely believe that most people are capable of change, a far more important question is this:
Is this person likely to change?
Possibility vs. Likelihood
Asking whether someone can change often keeps us stuck in hope. Asking whether they are likely to change brings us back into discernment.
Likelihood isn’t about promises, remorseful words, or emotional displays in the immediate aftermath. It’s about patterns, capacity, and self-awareness. If I were in this situation, these are the key areas I would be paying close attention to.
How Are They Responding to What Happened?
The first thing to look at is how your partner is responding to the infidelity itself.
Did they tell you, or did you find out?
Are they minimising, deflecting, or blaming circumstances?
Or are they taking full responsibility for the harm caused?
There’s a big difference between someone saying, “I got caught” and someone saying, “I did something deeply harmful and I need to own that.” Remorse isn’t just about feeling bad—it’s about accountability.
Do They Understand Why They Cheated?
This is a crucial piece that often gets overlooked.
“I’m an idiot” or “I messed up” isn’t insight—it’s self-flagellation. And while shame might look like accountability on the surface, it doesn’t actually create change.
For someone with fearful-avoidant attachment, cheating can be an expression of deep internal conflict: a simultaneous yearning for intimacy and terror of it. At a certain point, that tension can reach a boiling point and lead to a self-destructive rupture—one that implodes the relationship before the feared abandonment can happen to them.
In that sense, cheating can function as:
A way to regain control
A way to confirm an old narrative (“I ruin relationships”)
A way to avoid vulnerability by burning everything down
So the question becomes: Can your partner articulate the deeper drivers behind their behaviour? Do they understand the unhealed wounds, fears, or protective strategies that led them there—and do they have a plan to address them?
Without this level of self-awareness, promises to “never do it again” are often made from guilt and shame rather than true capacity.
Can They Hold Space for Your Pain?
Repair after infidelity requires an enormous amount of emotional maturity—especially from the person who cheated.
One of the most common breakdowns I see happens when the cheating partner wants to “move on” far quicker than the betrayed partner is able to. You might hear things like:
“I’ve said I’m sorry.”
“Do we really need to keep talking about this?”
“Why can’t we just move forward?”
But rebuilding trust is not a one-off conversation. It’s a long, non-linear process that requires the person who caused the harm to stay present with the pain they created—again and again—without becoming defensive, avoidant, or shut down.
So a vital question to ask yourself is:
Does this person have the capacity to witness my hurt without turning away from it?
If they can’t tolerate their own guilt and shame, they’re unlikely to be able to support your healing in the way that trust repair demands.
Considering the Relationship Context (Later On)
Infidelity never happens in a vacuum. Over time, it can be important to explore what was happening in the relational field—unmet needs, disconnection, misalignment, or unresolved issues.
However, that conversation comes after accountability—not instead of it. Understanding relational dynamics should never be used to excuse betrayal, but it can be part of building something healthier if both people are doing the work.
So… Can a Fearful-Avoidant Partner Change?
Yes, change is possible. And many couples do emerge stronger after infidelity.
But it takes:
Deep self-awareness
Genuine accountability
Emotional capacity for repair
A willingness to confront uncomfortable internal truths
And sustained effort over time
Ultimately, the question isn’t just whether your partner can change—but whether you feel safe enough, resourced enough, and invested enough to walk that path with them, assuming they’re truly willing.
If you’re navigating something like this, I’m so sorry—you’re carrying a lot. I hope these reflections help you focus on what actually matters as you decide what’s right for you.
You deserve honesty, safety, and repair—not just promises.
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[00:00:00]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is the first episode of a new series called Ask Steph, which as the title suggests is a Q and A submitted from the audience. And I'm going to be answering one of your questions. So I'm going to be doing one of these each week alongside my regular episodes. So that means that we are going to two episodes a week, which hopefully is good news for those of you who love the podcast. So in today's episode of Ask Steph, the question that I'm answering is, is it possible for a fearful, avoidant partner to change after having cheated? So obviously this is a big one and the whole topic of repair after infidelity is probably one that needs at least one full length episode. But here I just want to give a few pointers for things that I'd be looking for if I were in that situation.
[00:00:50]:
And as a side note, that's going to be the tone of these Ask Steph episodes is that they're shorter answers to listener questions rather than a deep, which is what my other episodes are. Okay, so the starting point for me is I believe that most anyone can change. I think change is always available and possible. But whether someone is likely to change is a different question. And that is the one that I would be focusing on if I were in that situation rather than is it possible for someone to change? So pivoting to is it likely that this person is going to change, I think gives rise to some other really important questions that I would be sitting with. The first being how are they responding to what happened? What is their telling of the storey? How did it come out that they had cheated on you? Did you find out? Did they tell you? Are they expressing remorse? I think there's lots of different ways that this can happen. And if you confronted them and said I know about what happened, that's a very different set of circumstances than if they came to you and said I've done something terrible and I need to tell you about it and I'm so sorry. And really critically here, I think something focus on in terms of is it likely that they are going to change? Is are they able to articulate why they did it? Not just I'm an idiot and I up because yes, that may be true, but why? What is it within you? What shadowy part, what unhealed wound drove you to self destruct in such a big way? And particularly for someone with fearful avoided patterns, that can be, you know, part of their struggle is that they are so terrified of intimacy at the same time as they really deeply yearn for it.
[00:02:36]:
But they can reach this boiling point and then do something really self destructive like cheating. That feels like such a line in the sand and it's almost like in crossing that line they, they kind of implode the relationship. They ruin things before someone could leave them and in so doing they save themselves from the potential rejection or abandonment of someone else. But they also keep the storey intact. You know, I'm just not good at relationships, I always ruin everything. I everything up, I should just be alone. And so there can be a lot of subconscious wounding and self sabotage protective strategies at play there that might lead someone to have done that. And so what I'd be looking for if it were me in this situation and it were my partner is do you have really clear remorse and full responsibility for the hurt that you've caused and, and do you know why you did it and have you got a plan for dealing with that stuff or tending to those wounds and those shadowy parts within you such that this is not going to come up again.
[00:03:41]:
Because of course in the aftermath of something like that happening someone is going to feel terrible and they're going to say I can't believe I did this and I'm never going to do it again. But they probably didn't set out to do it in the first place. So they need to understand whatever it is within them that drove them to that behaviour. So, so that they can actually address it at the root rather than, you know, making commitments based on the guilt and shame that they feel that maybe they don't actually have the capacity to follow through on. Particularly if there's a lot of shame there. For fearful avoidance that can be very powerful and it can actually make them more likely to do it again if it's unhealthy rather than healthy. Shame, you know, if it becomes this toxic shame where they just have the storey of, you know, I always hurt everyone, I'm bad at relationships, I'm a lost cause, that kind of thing that can lead someone into further patterns of self destruction and just burn the whole thing down kind of energy. The other thing that I think is really important is does this person have capacity to witness and really hold space for the hurt that they've caused? Because I think that's a key piece in repair is, you know, are you able to stay sturdy in the face of my incredible hurt and pain that you've caused me? Because a lot of people, irrespective of attachment style, will be so confronted by that and it will bring them so much guilt and shame that they instinctively want to turn away from it.
[00:05:08]:
And you'll often hear this, or maybe you've experienced it in cases of infidelity repair, that the partner who cheated just wants to kind of move on. They're like, okay, I've said sorry, I get it, I know. Can we just stop talking about it? Do we really have to go over this again? I've told you, I'm sorry. I've told you I'm not going to do it again, again. But their discomfort with being brought face to face with the immense hurt that they've caused leads them to just want to move forward and stop dwelling on the past. But of course that feels incredibly invalidating for the partner who's been cheated on, who just wants to have their pain recognised to the full extent. And that is a long process. A lot of the time it's not just a one and done thing.
[00:05:50]:
It's not like we have a couple of conversations in the days or weeks following. The process of rebuilding trust is a long one and it requires a lot of emotional maturity on both sides, but particularly from the person who cheated to be able to stay in that and really hold space for that and recognise and keep taking responsibility. I think that that requires a lot of maturity and kind of internal strength in someone. So if they don't have that capacity, then it may throw into question whether you are ever going to get the validation and the repair that you need in order for trust to be meaningfully rebuilt. So I think that that's another key piece, is like, what is the likelihood that I'm going to be able to trust you again based on your likely capacity to really be in that repair process with me. And I think that the final piece I'll add is when it comes to rebuilding trust after infidelity and repairing, we do also need to consider, like, what was there in the relational field that led to this happening? And I think that comes later. And it's not really the focus here because I think the question of can someone change cheating is mostly concerned with these first two points that I've raised. But on the broader point of infidelity repair, I do think there has to be a conversation down the track about what were the unmet needs or what were the circumstances in the relationship between us that led to this happening, what was the precursor to this? Because we need to be able to address that and talk honestly and openly about that to the extent there were unmet needs or certain things that didn't feel aligned or whatever, because infidelity doesn't happen in a vacuum.
[00:07:35]:
And certainly I think it can happen because of someone's internal storm that is raging. But there tend to be relational pieces there that need to be acknowledged as well. So I think that's something to look at down the track. But certainly in the immediate aftermath, I'd be focusing on those questions. How is this person taking responsibility? Do they have self awareness around what drove them to that? And do they have a plan for dealing with it? And are they demonstrating capacity to really take ownership and to witness my pain to the extent that I need them to in order that I can really feel validated in the hurt that has been caused so that we can start that process of rebuilding? I think in the absence of those things, it may be that the relationship won't be able to survive that and rebuild to something stronger, which I think is possible. After infidelity, many couples do emerge stronger, but it takes a lot of work. So really asking yourself, does this person have the capacity and am I invested enough that I want to do that work with this person, provided that they're willing as well? Okay, I hope that was helpful. Sending you lots of love, and I'm really sorry that you're going through that, but hopefully that gives you a bit of a sense of what to be focusing on.
[00:08:46]:
Okay, thanks guys.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
fearful avoidant partner, change after cheating, infidelity repair, attachment styles, relationships, self-sabotage, intimacy issues, emotional maturity, trust rebuilding, responsibility, remorse, capacity for change, relational wounds, self-awareness, communication, shame, toxic shame, unmet needs, validation, healing, taking ownership, holding space, cheating in relationships, abandonment, relationship repair, self-destructive behaviour, relational dynamics, forgiveness, emotional hurt, Ask Steph series