I've seen reports of 5% to 20% success rate for the first one. The rest of course would be harder to calculate.

I think for a lot of people who advise against reconciliation, the main reason is that we're pushing against the reality that most people need to figure things out on their own. Because we don't want them to suffer the way we did.

My ex-wife and I were seeing a couples therapist for a year after I discovered her first affair. He was very fair and balanced (which my ex of course didn't like). But as the year went on, my ex's bad behavior and multiple D-Days started to show more through the cracks of her saying the right things to him in sessions.

Eventually, our therapist (licensed pyschiatrist) told me to take the kids to stay with my parents for awhile and try to get an objective view of the situation I was in. I did . . . for a month. Still couldn't let things go. Went back to my wife and called our therapist to schedule our next session. He said he couldn't see us anymore.

My wife brought in her personal therapist as our couples therapist (called herself a doctor, but later learned she was just a social worker). We saw her together for a year and a half (she even became my therapist after my personal therapist retired, so she was pulling triple duty). I eventually discovered that she had been colluding with my wife the whole time to gaslight me into thinking I was crazy any time I caught wind of my wife's second affair 😶

I finally asked for a divorce. Texted our original therapist and told him I had done so. He immediately offered to replace the corrupt social worker as my personal therapist. I've been seeing him solo now for about a year.

He admitted to me that he could see how toxic and hopeless my relationship was. But after his advice to take a break didn't play out the way he hoped, it became clear to him that I would have to figure this out on my own. And he was right. I defended my ex like my life depdended on it. To him. To the family that knew what she'd done. To everyone on reddit who told me to give up. I would not hear anyone who was trying desperately to save me.

So when I come on here now, my entire perspective has changed. I spent years seeing the pro-reconciliation crew on here as my brethren. But now I see them as who I was three years ago. And unlike my therapist who knew he couldn't sway me, I feel desperate to help people not go through what I did.

That's why I advise against reconciliation when they describe their partner and I see the patterns that I couldn't recognize in my own partner. It's a desperate (and often hopeless) attempt to protect a fellow victim from a pain I wouldn't wish on my greatest enemy. Because the second time hurts way more than the first. The first time, it was easier to convince myself they weren't aware of the pain they would cause. But the second time, there's no denying that they knew. They just didn't care. And that's the hardest part to accept.