The steps one can take to cope while the public watches on.
Megan Kerrigan is a relatively private educator and mother of at least two who recently changed her name on Facebook—and people from various parts of the world know this because of the man who prompted it.
Enter Andy Bryon, her husband: the former chief executive officer tech solutions company Astronomer, the man whose name became one of the most Googled items in the third week of this month.
On July 16, 2025, Bryon attended a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium and was caught canoodling with another woman during the kiss-cam segment. He was seen on the jumbotron with his arms wrapped around Kristin Cobot, a co-worker. The pair looked horrified when they realized they were being broadcast; Bryon quickly ducked out of frame, leaving Cobot to turn around before eventually walking away.
Chris Martin, the band’s front man, mused before the crowd that the two were “either having an affair” or were “very shy.” After a quick video of the incident spread across the Internet, it was confirmed to be the former and, suddenly, the world was latching onto them.
Couples caught on jumbotrons at various events began parodying Bryon and Cobot; even mascots were joining in on the fun. Gossip about how bad Bryon supposedly was as a boss surfaced, along with numerous videos alleging many unverified details about his personal life. And then there was Kerrigan, dragged into the spotlight by a public hungry for more of the scandal. They dug her up—the aggrieved party. Suddenly there were articles profiling her, strangers sending messages of support on her social media pages, and people scrutinizing her every move, going so far as to broadcast when she removed Bryon’s last name from hers on Facebook.
Not only has she been betrayed by her husband—the man featured in family photos she once shared on social media—she has also been introduced to the public as the victim, the one who needs justice, the woman whose partner preferred another. Now, if she is to grieve, it won’t just be for her marriage, she must also grieve the end of her privacy.
According to various sources, situations like this can be psychologically taxing. Roamers Therapy, a service that specializes in individuals and couples, states that a “person confronted with a partner’s infidelity may experience significant psychological distress and go through a process of grief.” It is often described as a form of relational trauma, the group’s website adds, which can lead to “intense feelings of anger and mistrust toward the partner, the relationship, and even oneself.”
Psychotherapist Claudia Behnke agrees. Writing for Counselling Directory last year, she explored the subject after watching “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal,” a Netflix documentary series examining the affairs website and the 2015 hack that exposed millions of unfaithful partners. In her write-up, she explained the impact of infidelity on both the aggrieved and guilty parties and touched on an issue now relevant to the likes of Kerrigan: the involvement of the public.
“The series highlights several personal stories of individuals grappling with these intense emotions,” she noted. Among them was Nia Rader, a Christian vlogger married to fellow vlogger Sam Rader. Together, the two made videos documenting their family life but after the leak and Sam’s infidelity was exposed, Nia was thrust into a difficult mental state compounded by their status as public figures.
“The public exposure of her husband’s infidelity was particularly devastating,” Behnke wrote. “The exposure brought intense scrutiny and embarrassment, compounding her feelings of betrayal.”
And such feelings are no longer too uncommon. In an algorithm-driven age where digital attention is rewarded enough to become a livelihood, devices remain constantly on in the service of content creation. As a result, the details of other people’s lives that accidentally spill into public view are detained, dragged deeper into the spotlight, and mined until the next subject comes along—hence the difficulties now faced by relatively private people like Kerrigan.
There are, however, ways to cope—steps that people can take to minimize the public’s capacity to magnify the already traumatic effects of a partner’s betrayal. Kerrigan seems to have taken one of them since her Facebook profile has disappeared.
1. Log off
For people like Kerrigan—those whose grievances are immortalized in a viral video of a spouse’s indiscretion—the Internet can feel like a place of comfort and validation. People, after all, cheered when she changed her name on Facebook; reports of her husband’s resignation from Astronomer were met with comments celebrating the “find out” part succeeding the time when “fucked around.”
But what begins as a wellspring of support can quickly turn into quicksand of doomscrolling, that modern age ritual of consuming content that, according to outlets like Verywell Mind, spikes cortisol, fragments sleep, and deepens emotional wounds. In a world of strangers vying for digital attention, genuine care can seem plentiful enough to encourage its opposite—especially when concern for the aggrieved is little more than a performance engineered to generate engagement.
A deliberate digital detox, then, becomes an act of self-preservation—a chance to recalibrate, to grieve in private, and to reclaim one’s agency while making sense of what’s happening within.
2. Understand what’s going on
When a person is betrayed by a partner, it doesn’t merely wound pride; it can leave a psychic scar more commonly associated with trauma. Psychologists call this betrayal trauma—a rupture that severs the bedrock of safety and trust on which intimacy rests. Research published in the National Library of Medicine suggests that 30 to 60 percent of people betrayed in romantic relationships experience clinically significant symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD: intrusive memories, hypervigilance, emotional numbness, and disrupted sleep.
The injury cuts deeper than other harms because it originates with someone entrusted with one’s innermost self. Ronnie Janoff-Bulman’s “shattered assumptions theory,” introduced in 1992, captures this psychic disorientation: when the person you once turned to for comfort becomes the source of your pain, it shatters your most basic beliefs about the world, others, and yourself.
Betrayal from a partner, then, may be more than a heartbreak; it activates the same neural stress-response systems triggered by life-threatening danger, leaving many unable to trust long after the event. It’s why the experience is rightly called trauma—and why those who endure it respond as they would to any other form of deep psychological wounding.
3. Reach out to those you trust
In the face of public betrayal, the instinct of the aggrieved is to counter the narrative, to seek out people who can restore a sense of trust and safety. Reaching out to family and friends often feels necessary—and that impulse isn’t merely emotional; it’s biologically and psychologically fundamental. A study published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology found that social support “may be a particularly important buffer” against the PTSD-like symptoms experienced by those betrayed by a partner. Such support can help re-anchor people whose sense of self has been shattered, providing the scaffolding to begin rebuilding trust and emotional equilibrium.
If betrayal isolates, empathy interrupts the dangerous silence with validation. This is why it’s crucial to seek out not only familiar connections but those who offer nonjudgmental responses—relief that extends far beyond simple venting. It’s a restoration of social balm and psychic infrastructure. Relational support even has measurable physiological effects: lowered cortisol, reduced inflammation, and a steadier emotional baseline. In the chaos of betrayal, this isn’t a luxury; it’s essential survival medicine.
There are times, however, when even this isn’t enough.
4. Seek professional help
When betrayal goes viral, even the most stoic individuals can feel unmoored, which is why trained professionals become indispensable guides through the wreckage. Unlike the well-meaning but often chaotic and unscientific dynamics of peer-led spaces, therapists bring a structure rooted in evidence-based practice—trauma-informed care that can keep a group from tipping into retraumatization and turn raw disclosure into actual repair.
To reach out to close friends and relatives is to avail of first aid; to reach out to people who were trained to help is to avail of actual treatment—which of course will only work if one adheres to its demands.
5. Care for the mind and body
As mentioned earlier, to suffer betrayal is to put the body through trauma. And trauma doesn’t just affect the mental, as stated in resources like Bessel van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score;” it also affects the physical. Ergo, to recover from it is to embark in a process that cares for both the body and the mind.
At the face of trauma, body and mind are not separate battlegrounds. A large amount of research shows that regular exercise, restorative sleep, and balanced nutrition regulate the very systems that govern mood and resilience (these include cortisol rhythms, neurotransmitter levels, and inflammatory pathways.) To address these is to make the body less hospitable to anxiety and depression. This makes a person more responsive to treatments dealing with the mind.
And when one is in a better place both mentally and physically, one would be considered fit—perhaps fit enough to choose where to go next.
6. Move forward–cautiously
Will the relationship end or will it continue? To choose one of the two might sometimes fall on the shoulders of the party aggrieved by the infidelity.
According to Rachel Needle who wrote about the Coldplay incident for Psychology Today, affairs—however hurtful they may be—don’t necessarily end relationships especially since they happen for a myriad of reasons. It isn’t simply a case of one person being more attractive than the other. There are even instances when they have little to do with the one who was cheated on.
“As a psychologist, I’ve worked with many couples navigating infidelity,” she wrote. “Is it devastating? Often, yes. But it can also be a turning point—toward honesty, repair, and even transformation.”
When discussing the situation of Bryon and Kerrigan, however, her writing became less optimistic.
“Healing requires space,” she said. “And shame—especially public, viral shame—is one of the biggest barriers to repair.
There isn’t a single point in her article, however, wherein she stated that repair, at this point, is impossible.
In another write up from the publication (one written by Stacy Freeman,) there is a roadmap to situations like this. One might repair a relationship especially if the couple involved is willing to try counselling and having candid but respectful conversations about their state. If the couple is married, the article also said that it’ll help to consult a family law attorney who can give a good idea as to what may happen should divorce be pursued. The writer stressed however that the said lawyer must be someone with emotional intelligence–one that won’t immediately thrust a client into the “vengeance bandwagon.” Of course, exploring these avenues can also lead to separation. But even if it does, it will be a thought-out decision—not a rash (and oftentimes) cataclysmic one; much like the numerous choices that made this betrayal much bigger and more damaging spectacle than it ought to be.
