An open couples appointment does not answer whether your practice can support the people asking for help after infidelity. The intake process needs qualified assessment of safety, service fit, clinician competence, each person’s participation, urgent needs, and relevant individual supports. Use this checklist to review consultation and referral routes, while keeping clear what intake can and cannot decide. Reconciliation or separation should not be predetermined.
Intake and referral checklist
Immediate safety and appropriateness
- Does the inquiry indicate current danger, coercion, stalking, violence, self-harm risk, or another urgent concern requiring a different response?
- Does the practice have a clinically reviewed process for speaking with partners separately when appropriate?
- Are urgent and emergency routes current and location-aware?
- Is it appropriate to consider seeing the partners together, or is specialized assessment or referral needed first?
Clinician competence
- Does the assigned clinician have specific education, supervised experience, and consultation access for infidelity-related couples work?
- Which needs are beyond the clinician’s or practice’s scope?
- Is specialty consultation available within a clinically appropriate time frame?
- Do the claims in marketing match the skills and capacity the practice actually has?
Early purpose and expectations
- What is each person seeking from the first contact: stabilization, information, decision support, relationship repair, separation support, or something else?
- Has the practice avoided promising forgiveness, trust restoration, reconciliation, or a fixed sequence?
- Are confidentiality, records, communication, cancellations, and partner participation explained clearly?
- Does the intake process avoid treating one partner’s account as the complete clinical assessment?
Referral network
- Which individual, psychiatric, medical, substance-use, legal, safety, or higher-level services may be relevant?
- When were the referral details last checked, and are they still useful?
- Who will follow up if safe participation depends on the referral?
- Can the practice explain the referral without framing it as rejection or blame?
Record the routing decision
Record the next step and who is responsible for it. An impression that the inquiry “seems like a fit” leaves too much unanswered.
| Routing option | Decision owner | Information still needed | Next action and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Continue to the practice’s clinically reviewed assessment process | |||
| Consult before assigning a clinician | |||
| Refer to a more appropriate service or level of care | |||
| Use the practice’s urgent or safety route |
Use the table to record who made the routing decision, what supported it, and what happens next. The table itself does not decide whether the service is clinically appropriate.
Clinical framing and evidence
Research reviews describe infidelity as a potentially highly distressing relational event associated with emotional and relationship consequences. The evidence does not justify applying a diagnosis, assuming every person responds the same way, or presenting one universal path to repair.
Use this evidence to support a qualified assessment. A checklist score cannot capture a complex relationship history.
Sources
- Love and Infidelity: Causes and Consequences—a narrative review
- Affair recovery: injured and involved partners’ experiences
Completion state
Before using the tool, clinical leadership needs to document the safety screen, clinician competence criteria, consultation route, consent and communication process, and current referral thresholds for the practice’s population and jurisdictions. Every next action also needs a named owner.
Completion ledger
Close the guide with an accountable record.
- Decision or next step
- Record the action selected through the practice’s reviewed process.
- Decision owner
- Name the person or role accountable for the next action.
- Review date
- Set the date when the record or policy must be checked again.
This guide does not collect or store practice information.
Ready for the practice record