I see it as a one time event and not an ongoing thing. I believe it is a wake up call that it is time to make some changes and not take each other for granted.
I have to say, I don't agree.
To my way of thinking, DBing (or much of it) is not really appropriate to this situation. These are young unmarried people without kids. The whole POINT of dating is to take your time to get to know someone to see if they are marriage material.
She has shown him she is NOT marriage material, at least not at this point in her life. And this IS a character issue - not just to have a drunken one night stand, but to cheat on him with his best friend???
And frankly, if your son had her call you as part of her "punishment" - he's nowhere near mature enough to be in a marriage either.
I ignored the red flags about my husband, and when he cheated on me in the first year of marriage, but it down to a one-time mistake and we reconciled. But really it was a HUGE red flag about his character, and the children that I later had with him paid the price when our marriage broke up many years later over his cheating. They were 17-22 at the time we split, and 7 years later they still have mental health issues related to the divorce.
If it were my son, I would advise they split and see other people. If they're "meant to be" they can get back together in 5 years when they've both matured. But it would be a mistake to accept cheating this early in a relationship, and like I said, it says something important about her character that he should not ignore.
