The Courage to Stay: How to Heal From an Affair and Save Your Marriage is an important must-read for anyone who is dealing with infidelity.

Reviewed by Christine Nguyen for Readers’ Favorite

The Courage to Stay: How to Heal From an Affair and Save Your Marriage by Kathy Nickerson, Ph.D., is a detailed guide to helping couples heal from infidelity. She immediately dives into this painful process of healing from the very beginning to the end. She offers clear guidelines and questions to ask throughout the process, individually and together, to reach healing. It was so easy to follow for both partners, as she labeled it the straying partner and the hurt partner. The questions she shared were very insightful and deep, pushing each person to be honest with themselves and their partners. The subject of cheating is always treated with sensitivity and great care. Many explanations of why cheating occurred were introduced, making the behavior easier to understand and forgive.

The step-by-step instructions by author Kathy Nickerson are meticulously laid out as if holding your hand to take each step as it comes, slowly and thoughtfully, through such a raw minefield of explosive emotions. There is so much emphasis on kindness and compassion that it makes this excruciating journey somehow better and easier. I love how Nickerson is kind and reassuring to both sides of the marriage at the end of each chapter as she takes time out to encourage each person. I learned much about how pain is the root of many bad behaviors. The Courage to Stay: How to Heal From an Affair and Save Your Marriage is an important must-read for anyone who is dealing with infidelity.