• Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson are apparently still together after Thompson's public cheating scandal in April.
• The couple is reportedly in therapy together, according to Kris Jenner's friend Lisa Stanley.
• "She's working hard; he's working hard. You can't just earn trust back in two months," Stanley recently said on KIIS FM's Celeb HQ.
• Two clinical psychologists told INSIDER that it's actually common and advisable for couples to enter therapy before marriage — and that infidelity is a leading reason why.

In the months since photos and videos surfaced of Tristan Thompson apparently cheating on a pregnant Khloe Kardashian, their relationship has been scrutinized from every angle. Although many thought Kardashian should leave her longtime boyfriend following the scandal, the couple has been spotted on dates and in Snapchat videos since the birth of their daughter, True Thompson. 

"You have no knowledge of what goes on in our household or the enormous rebuilding this takes to even coexist. I'm proud of my strength," Kardashian wrote on Twitter, responding to a fan who criticized her decision to stay with Thompson.

Indeed, according Kris Jenner's friend Lisa Stanley, both Kardashian and Thompson have been "working hard" in couples therapy to rebuild their relationship — and that Kardashian was "never planning on leaving him."

"You can't just earn trust back in two months," Stanley said on KIIS FM's Celeb HQ, as reported by the Daily Mail. "Khloe was always going to try make this work, for a plethora of reasons. The first reason is she has a child now, and she feels very connected to [Thompson] in that way. The second reason is she loves him. She clearly loves the man."

Stanley also revealed that the majority of the Kardashians would prefer that Thompson "just be the baby daddy."

"If Kris and the family had it their way, [Khloe] probably would be leaving. They're not OK with this," Stanley continued. "This guy not only cheated on her, it was on video and the world saw it. And she was humiliated. But she's choosing to stay."

Kardashian and Thompson are far from the only celebrity couple to seek therapy.

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard may boast a beloved repartee, but the two have opened up about relationship strain plenty of times — including about their experience on the proverbial couch.

Shepard told Us Weekly that "it has taken a tremendous amount of work and therapy" for he and his wife "to coexist," and Bell told People that couples counseling is what has allowed their relationship to arrive at a healthy place.

"We both take responsibility when we are wrong, and I think it is easy to work with him because I married him, because I enjoy spending time with him and I trust him," Bell told the magazine. "That is exactly what I want in someone that I work with."

Many other celebrities, like Will Smith and Patrick Dempsey, have opened up about enlisting professional help with their partners.

Pursuing couples therapy should not be reserved until after marriage.

Licensed clinical psychologists Dr. Andrea Bonior and Dr. Bukky Kolawole both told INSIDER that they've seen couples therapy become more popular for non-married couples, and speculate that seeking professional help is becoming less taboo.

"There's a misconception that couples therapy is reserved for marriage or when things really get bad in a relationship," Kolawole, who founded Relationship HQ in New York City and has specialized in couples therapy for almost 10 years, told INSIDER. "A lot of people think, 'if we go into couples therapy at the beginning of our relationship, it really means that we're not meant for each other.' The question people should always ask instead is, 'is this relationship worth the extra worth and the investment?'"

Kolawole added that couples who enter therapy earlier have the benefit of learning to navigate the relationship in a healthy way before becoming accustomed to unhealthy or toxic patterns. 

Infidelity is one of the leading reasons why couples may seek therapy. 

Bonior — the author of multiple books and host of The Washington Post's weekly live chat about mental health and relationships — notes that many non-married couples, barring those who seek premarital counseling for religious or cultural reasons, seek therapy for the same reasons as married couples.

According to a recent survey of 1,000 engaged, married, and divorced people, from MidAmerica Nazarene University, found that the leading reasons why couples report finding themselves in therapy are communication, infidelity, money, children, parenting, in-laws, and work, in that order.

Post-infidelity therapy sessions attempt to achieve stabilization and understanding.

"The main focus would be, 'what is a realistic expectation in terms of how trust will be rebuilt?'" Bonior told INSIDER. "It's hard to find that sweet spot because a lot of the time, in the aftermath of infidelity, the natural reaction is for one person to be like, 'OK, I have to have access to your phone at all times, I always want to track what's going on with you.' And that's understandable, but that's not a long-term solution."

Both therapists told INSIDER that the first step in post-infidelity therapy is helping the offender hear, understand, and empathize with their partner's reaction.

"What can happen when couples experience infidelity, the offending partner is usually trying to minimize — as a way of making their mistake go away — how much emotion comes up around it, which actually ends up inflaming things even more," Kolawole said. "If I see that my house is burning down and you're saying, 'this is not a big deal, it's not as bad as you're thinking,' then I have to turn up to get your attention."

These initial therapy sessions will focus on "stabilizing" the relationship and the emotional trauma, according to Kolawole. The next step is for the couple to understand each other's triggers and coping mechanisms.

Vulnerability and emotional openness is key in rebuilding trust.

"I've never seen infidelity where one partner just woke up one day and decided to be an a--hole," Kolawole told INSIDER. "There are usually really important emotional reasons why they ended up turning to people outside of the relationship ... When the other partner understands that, it becomes much more forgivable."

Bonior agreed that, while there may not be an excuse or a justification for cheating, the couple needs to "understand what dynamics were created that made the partner want to go elsewhere, either for sex or emotional intimacy."

Once the couple has experienced success with "addressing the hurt," Kolawole said, "now we have the opportunity to do the deeper work of changing the ways the partners learn to show up and expose their bellies to one another. That is the heart of what we are trying to do in couples work: helping partners really know how to be emotionally accepting, emotionally responsive, and engaged with one another. If those three factors are present, no problem is too big for them."

Fame can make working through these complicated issues far more difficult, especially when it comes to cheating.

Bonior noted that temptation is much more intense and widespread for celebrities, who are often beloved and lusted after by hundreds of thousands of people. She also admitted that it's a "double-edged sword" because people are quick to assume they know about celebrities' love lives based on paparazzi shots or speculation.

"It makes it ultimately much more difficult, not only because you might be taking trust for granted and assuming that somebody is not becoming the temptation, because it's everywhere — but it's also got to be very complicated to constantly read the headlines that are suspicious, to see the photos and social media and gossip and rumors. That must take a toll," Bonior said.

When a couple is already having issues, both Bonior and Kolawole agreed that those in the public eye can have a much harder time working through them — particularly when "outsiders" and strangers constantly feel the need to weigh in on the relationship.

"When you're in your own personal relationship and these things happen, you have to face yourself and maybe also your family and friends about why you're staying with someone who's hurt you this way," Kolawole told INSIDER. "[With fame,] now you have eyes on you, so it intensifies all the emotional reactions that you're having. You're not only contending with what this means and what it says about you, but also what the world thinks about you."

Kolawole also noted that the offending partner's feelings of pain and shame can become unbearable under the pressure of public scrutiny — and the instinct can be to hide or run away.

"Fame makes everything more complicated and it takes a lot of strength and courage, in the midst of all of that, to then still make that choice and say, 'we do need that professional support at the end of the day,'" Kolawole said.

If you are considering couples therapy, there's no shame in making that decision.

Having an unbiased third party weigh in on your intimate issues may offer a great deal of insight. And while there's no universal rule for the "right time" to see a professional, Bonior suggests paying attention to patterns in your relationship.

"See if whatever feels bad or uncomfortable about a relationship seems to be a pattern — rather than just, 'we're fighting this week because we're both stressed and tired,'" Bonior told INSIDER. "Is there something that continually comes up as an issue? Is there something that is there no matter what? ... It doesn't have to be rainbows and ponies all the time. But do you feel, overall, that your relationship is functional?"

If you seem to be having the same fight repeatedly and can't seem to communicate your emotions effectively, then you may benefit from therapy. 

"Good relationships are able to be flexible and adapt to changes," Bonior advised. "Some people really need that space to be encouraged to open up to each other."

Sign up here to get INSIDER's favorite stories straight to your inbox.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Rolex watches are so expensive