The industry standard response is that it takes around 18 months to recover from an affair. However, as you can see, there are several types of affairs. Some people will recover more quickly than others. If you ask someone who has been through this whether or not they think they'll ever be able to trust their partner again, they might say no, that belief will always be with them. But then again, they might also say yes. It depends on so many factors, like how deeply the affair was involved, what kind of relationship you had before the affair, and so on. It's difficult to say when things will return to normal after an affair, but most people do recover over time. With proper help from family and friends, and by being very honest about what happened, most people can move forward with their lives.