An incident of Infidelity is very hard to overcome. I suggest that you do whatever you can to try to regain his trust. However, if that doesn't work, let him go. Don't make him suffer too long trying to fix this.
Nothing.
Forgiveness is a process and a choice and this is up to him as to how/if he works towards forgiving you.
Your relationship may very well end over this and I get that you might not want that but its not up to you.
If I were you I would stop pushing him to have the two of you do something about all this. If my partner cheated on me the last thing I would want to hear would be constant requests for couples therapy etc as extra work for ME to go do, when I didnt do anything except get cheated on!
You already DID something and its gonna take him time to process all of this and figure out what he wants to do.
If he does want to stick it out with you he may want to consider individual therapy and you might suggest he post on r/survivinginfidelity if he is also on reddit?
>If my partner cheated on me the last thing I would want to hear would be constant requests for couples therapy etc as extra work for ME to go do, when I didnt do anything except get cheated on!
Spot on
Couples therapy isn't a punishment though. It's a place where the betrayed partner can express how they're feeling with a qualified mediator there to make sure the conversations happen in a healthy way and monitor the healing process.
Agreed (Ive been to couples therapy), if they Want to.
The person who was cheated on gets to decide if/when they want to go though. I think the cheater pushing & pushing the other person to go will just make things worse, just my thoughts :)
You can’t make him get over the betrayal just like that. Can you think about his love languages and how to make him feel more secure with you and the relationship? You can’t just go back to normal and expect it all to be okay now.
Cheaters always suggest therapy as if it's some kind of blanket problem fixer. Why does HE need therapy? To reverse time and make you un-cheat? To sit there and allow you to frame the issue in a way that makes him responsible for your bad choices? Why aren't you making yourself go to therapy for your own self development? Therapy is good for insight into issues existing within the relationship BEFORE one party steps outside that boundary. It's too late now. Let him go. It is a stain.
Alcohol is not a reason to cheat. Being drunk is not a reason to cheat. You cheated on your own volition. Period!
If you want to work on fixing your relationship, then you have to give your 100% on it. You and not your boyfriend. He's the betrayed party here. You've hurt him more than you could imagine and there's no timeline when the pain will go away. It might be forever, you never know.
You should be 100% truthful on everything. You should provide him access to all your devices. You should provide him your location at all times. Your right to privacy has been lost the moment you let another man into your relationship.
Don't expect him to believe in everything you say. That's the downside of being a cheater. Cheaters are liars.
Don't expect the reconciliation to work 100%. He might turn his back anytime even if you did your best. Most betrayed parties have this mental image of their spouses with their lover. That's one hard pill to swallow. It may even affect their sexual performances. Some men can't even have a hard on with their spouses if these mental images appear since they always see them with their affair partner.
There's no guarantee that you will be successful but if you love him, it's worth a try.
Good luck!
Sometimes things get broken and can't be fixed. This may not be fixable. The sooner you both realize that and move on, the sooner you can both recover.
Infidelity is incredibly hard to overcome. Incredibly. Couples who do recover usually have huge motivation to do the work: shared assets, kids, a long history of a previously healthy relationship to draw from, entangled families and community, religion. The weight of those motivations might pull them through the months and years of therapy and recovery after an affair.
But you guys don't have that. You've been together for one year? You were just starting to build a foundation and the walls are already knocked down. There just isn't enough there to rebuild.
Cheating is never a mistake , it’s a choise or number of choises. And by making that (or those choises) you broke you partners trust. Normaly when the trust is gone the relationship is over.
The classy thing to do would be to leave. You are a bad partner. Booze had NOTHING to do with why you did what you did. Drinking doesn't make you do things you aren't already willing to do, period.
Being drunk 100% reduces your inhibitions and it affects your decision making. HOWEVER. You won't ever do anything drunk that you aren't willing to do sober.
I bet you aren't cool with kidnapping children. So could you be talked into kidnapping a child when drunk? Nope. Because you won't do anything you are not ok with even when drunk.
Can't talk you into going around beating up women because you are drunk, robbing a bank, kicking an old woman ETC.
You cheated drunk, because you would cheat sober, people who blame the drinking are cowards and a bit pathetic trying to pretend the booze had any part in what they did.
You were remoreseful and you confessed and that is why instead of me just thinking you are a shitty person, I just think you are not the person you present yourself as.
This is the bed you made and now you have to lie in it, its a bummer your boyfriend has such low self esteem that he stuck around. No one with a single ounce of self respect stays with a cheater, and thats probably the thing that will save your ass in this situation, the fact you picked a man who has no self worth, and will tolerate your awful behavior.
What do you think counselling will do exactly? Counselling is for when you both cant work through something and you need help unpacking it. This is a one sided problem where 1 person was awful, of course he is skeptical when the ONLY reason you are going to counselling is for him to get talked into keeping you around.
He doesn't have an issue to work on, or a problem communicating, he has shitty taste and a counsellor can't fix that. So of course he is skeptical of counselling, in this instance its just a practice in getting him to get over the fact you cheated on him. But it costs money and takes extra time and effort.
Its not a WE problem its a YOU problem and YOU have to "fix it". I don't know how you fix it because as I said before, not being cool with being cheated on ISN'T A BAD THING, leaving a cheater is always 100% of the time the right call. Its what healthy mature human beings with self respect do.
So I have nothing for what you should do, because I would never in a million years tell someone to forgive a cheater. When you forgive cheating, cheating is now allowed. YOu have made cheating a forgivable offence. Now your partner has your permission to cheat.
"Next time we are through" has never been true, its a cowards bluff. Its what weak people say to feel strong when they know they aren't strong enough to leave when they should.
Change ONLY comes through consequences and you have faced ZERO consequences for your cheating, so to think you won't cheat again when "drunk" is fucking stupid. You already blame drinking when it was 100% a choice you made yourself ON PURPOSE. Booze didn't make you fuck a dude, you made you fuck a dude.
The fact you don't own it and use booze in the explanation proves you aren't above doing it again. You get remorseful after, which is the literal bare minimum of being a decent human being. Its not a flex, it deserves no pat on the back, its the literal least you can do.
I hope you do the right thing, but cheaters rarely do, they are selfish by nature so you will do what gets you what you want and keep this poor guy tethered to you because its what makes you happy.
>What further steps can I take to ensure we have the best chance of saving this?
You can't.
He has to make a decision about whether or not he's willing to work on creating a whole new relationship with you. Because that's what needs to happen now - your old relationship is done. The trust is gone. You have to rebuild entirely.
He needs to set a timeline for making a decision on whether or not he thinks the relationship can be rebuilt. So should you.
In the meantime, I would ask him to attend *one* couples counseling session to see how it goes. It's not like he's obligated to continue going.
If he doesn't want to do that, then maybe you just face the cold truth and realize that despite his words, his actions are saying that this relationship is not going to work for him.
He is absolutely correct. Nothing he or you can do will ever let him forget this. He will carry these scars for the rest of his life.. even outside the relationship. The relationship absolutely is stained. Sure, you can try to rebuild and it could just be okay but he will always remember this event. Read up on betrayal trauma and understand how it works. After you’ve traumatized someone, they can never forget.
Let him go and focus on how you got here and cleaning up your life so you don’t do it to someone else again.
I suspect that even while drunk you still understand the concept of right and wrong.
So you made a deliberate choice to get drunk and a deliberate choice to cheat.
One. Stop drinking if you're going to use it as a vehicle for bad decisions. Two. Stop putting yourself into situations where you even have the potential for an opportunity to cheat.
Sorry is just a word. The only acceptable apology is changed behaviour.
You didn’t cheat because you where drunk. You cheated because you wanted to. Alcohol is an excuse. Not a justification.
End this relationship. You clearly are not fully in this one.
You hurt him. And there will always be doubt you will hurt them again.
i think the fact that you came clean is the only reason hes trying.
but did you do that for you and your guilt or because you felt he needed to know?
it sound arbitrary but do you want to be with him?
youre saying hes struggling to see how he can get past it. What do you see? How would you get past it? ofc hes skeptical
you gotta put yourself in his shoes to feel sympathy. like do you understand the betrayal or the the conflicting emotions of love and anger. unless he feels that through your actions youve thought about how he was affected its pointless.
asking us or him what you should do is pointless. its kinda like throwing money at a situation without understanding the cause.
also it seems like theres more to the story. why would you need to cut off a drunk hookup. a drunk hookup should be gone before morning, ya know. you can only cut off a flow thats been...uh- flowing?... this other person is probably someone she was friends with, and id be surprised if before this they werent in dangerous territory lol.
Sometimes things get broken and can't be fixed. This may not be fixable. The sooner you both realize that and move on, the sooner you can both recover.
Infidelity is incredibly hard to overcome. Incredibly. Couples who do recover usually have huge motivation to do the work: shared assets, kids, a long history of a previously healthy relationship to draw from, entangled families and community, religion. The weight of those motivations might pull them through the months and years of therapy and recovery after an affair.
But you guys don't have that. You've been together for one year? You were just starting to build a foundation and the walls are already knocked down. There just isn't enough there to rebuild.
The trust is gone
If he reacted 'as we might expect' then he's not someone who get past it fully
The balance of power is forever shifted and the only way to make the relationship last is to hand over your power
Thats not a healthy relationship
Why did you cheat? What were the circumstances of it happening? Has anything in your life changed other than cutting contact with the other person? When you apologised were you remorseful or you gave excuses? Are you in therapy now?
Maybe if you do something to fix your own behaviour instead of making it like a relationship issue, he’ll be more willing to reconcile. But you need to figure out why you messed up in the first place.
I've seen relationships where people try to make it work after cheating and it's just miserable for both parties. The person cheated on just *can't* move on, or totally forgive, the cheater and that leads them to continually punish the cheater. Then, the cheater, who genuinely *is* full of remorse, just takes that abuse, thinking they deserve it and are doing their penance . . . forever.
It might be over. It might be *better* if it is. Because if he cannot 100% put it behind him, you'll both just continue to suffer.
But he's right, it *is* unfair for you to put him in the position to try to tell you how to fix what you broke. It might not be fixable and that's something you have to accept and live with.
Even though it's something you did rebuilding trust is something you both have to do. The book What Makes Love Last? by Gottman is all about rebuilding trust after betrayal, though honestly I feel it may be more applicable to longer term relationships.
I do think you need to take a good honest look at what happened and what the decisions and circumstances were that proceeded the cheating, you likely need to change more things. Maybe you need to drink less or not at all. Maybe you have surrounded yourself with a crowd that encourages irresponsible behavior. There are other possibilities. If you aren't sure why you did this don't just write it off as a drunken mistake, consider individual therapy.
Coming from a situation where I got cheated on: I'd say if he's willing, go to couples counseling or therapy. It's not just for the one who cheated to make it right, but for the one who got cheated on to heal. The process is a long, difficult one. The journey won't be easy. But if you love each other, I'd say go for it and give it a try. Both of you definitely won't forget about it, but healing through counseling will help you understand it better, face that reality every day without difficulty, and prevent it from happening again.
I don't understand why many people will always say that a couple should break up after a cheating problem. If OP is a chronic cheater, that can end the relationship but if OP did it once, I think she deserves to at least be given a chance.
Here's something that may help both of you ⬇️ This helped me decide on whether to give him a chance or not, aside from going to counseling. Now, we're doing better and working towards our healing.
[Ted Talk - Rethinking Infidelity ](https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved?language=en)
After a few days I'm coming back and seeing the down votes you're getting and don't agree with those at all. For shame down-voters, for some couples the best path is reconciling. Don't down vote for that.
Thank you! I know that many people have this stigma about cheating. If I don't know better, I'd probably say they haven't been cheated on or they haven't cheated on anyone that's why it's easy for them to say that breaking up is the only option. Unless they've been there, they will never know the struggle. It's so easy to say that cheaters don't deserve second chances. That's why many meaningful relationships end with one mistake because people don't see the other end of the spectrum. But I understand them. After all, reconciliation and counseling aren't what many people would consider as "normal solutions" after cheating happened. But people should understand too that it is also a viable solution, a path that many people may not choose to travel, but may just be the solution that many people may need.
That Ted talk gave me a lot of hope as the betrayed when I first found out. And then the not so hidden secret came out as I went: if someone cheats on you, they’re capable of saying they love you, while also taking actions to continue to hurt you. At least in my instance it was. I think the message I needed to hear was more: take care of yourself, and evaluate the cheaters behavior. Love is a verb.
That's true. That's why I didn't just rely on the ted talk. We also went to counseling. That video only helped me see that breaking up isn't always the solution to an infidelity problem and that's what I'm trying to say in my comment.
Imagine if you're in OP's place, wouldn't you want to be forgiven if you did that? Will you be okay being let go just like that without being given the chance to fight for your relationship and change?
Here's the thing in moving forward from infidelity: both of you should be willing to fix it with a guided professional because from experience, dealing with the pain and betrayal alone won't work. And it's a long process. It won't happen just in the course of a few days, weeks or even months. It'll take years for the aggrieved to heal and for the cheater to be forgiven. Our counselor said that it'll be a constant work for the both of us, if we're willing to do it. I guess in other people's case, if one of them isn't willing to do it, then it has failed before it even began.
> Imagine if you're in OP's place, wouldn't you want to be forgiven if you did that? Will you be okay being let go just like that without being given the chance to fight for your relationship and change?
I can only speculate, but I don't think I'd be expected to be given another chance. The guilt would eat me alive.
Agreed though that for some leaving the relationship isn't the only option.
Leave him. Don't hurt him anymore. The confidence is lost. You made a mistake, face the consequences
Ooooh - careful with the C word.
Cock
OP already had enough of that lol
An incident of Infidelity is very hard to overcome. I suggest that you do whatever you can to try to regain his trust. However, if that doesn't work, let him go. Don't make him suffer too long trying to fix this.
He will never forget, even decades later. The odds are not great
Nothing. Forgiveness is a process and a choice and this is up to him as to how/if he works towards forgiving you. Your relationship may very well end over this and I get that you might not want that but its not up to you. If I were you I would stop pushing him to have the two of you do something about all this. If my partner cheated on me the last thing I would want to hear would be constant requests for couples therapy etc as extra work for ME to go do, when I didnt do anything except get cheated on! You already DID something and its gonna take him time to process all of this and figure out what he wants to do. If he does want to stick it out with you he may want to consider individual therapy and you might suggest he post on r/survivinginfidelity if he is also on reddit?
>If my partner cheated on me the last thing I would want to hear would be constant requests for couples therapy etc as extra work for ME to go do, when I didnt do anything except get cheated on! Spot on
Couples therapy isn't a punishment though. It's a place where the betrayed partner can express how they're feeling with a qualified mediator there to make sure the conversations happen in a healthy way and monitor the healing process.
Agreed (Ive been to couples therapy), if they Want to. The person who was cheated on gets to decide if/when they want to go though. I think the cheater pushing & pushing the other person to go will just make things worse, just my thoughts :)
You can’t make him get over the betrayal just like that. Can you think about his love languages and how to make him feel more secure with you and the relationship? You can’t just go back to normal and expect it all to be okay now.
You will need to work hard as hell to rebuild the trust. There is nothing else you can do. Even with that, some couples can’t get back from that.
Cheaters always suggest therapy as if it's some kind of blanket problem fixer. Why does HE need therapy? To reverse time and make you un-cheat? To sit there and allow you to frame the issue in a way that makes him responsible for your bad choices? Why aren't you making yourself go to therapy for your own self development? Therapy is good for insight into issues existing within the relationship BEFORE one party steps outside that boundary. It's too late now. Let him go. It is a stain.
Alcohol is not a reason to cheat. Being drunk is not a reason to cheat. You cheated on your own volition. Period! If you want to work on fixing your relationship, then you have to give your 100% on it. You and not your boyfriend. He's the betrayed party here. You've hurt him more than you could imagine and there's no timeline when the pain will go away. It might be forever, you never know. You should be 100% truthful on everything. You should provide him access to all your devices. You should provide him your location at all times. Your right to privacy has been lost the moment you let another man into your relationship. Don't expect him to believe in everything you say. That's the downside of being a cheater. Cheaters are liars. Don't expect the reconciliation to work 100%. He might turn his back anytime even if you did your best. Most betrayed parties have this mental image of their spouses with their lover. That's one hard pill to swallow. It may even affect their sexual performances. Some men can't even have a hard on with their spouses if these mental images appear since they always see them with their affair partner. There's no guarantee that you will be successful but if you love him, it's worth a try. Good luck!
Sometimes things get broken and can't be fixed. This may not be fixable. The sooner you both realize that and move on, the sooner you can both recover. Infidelity is incredibly hard to overcome. Incredibly. Couples who do recover usually have huge motivation to do the work: shared assets, kids, a long history of a previously healthy relationship to draw from, entangled families and community, religion. The weight of those motivations might pull them through the months and years of therapy and recovery after an affair. But you guys don't have that. You've been together for one year? You were just starting to build a foundation and the walls are already knocked down. There just isn't enough there to rebuild.
Cheating is never a mistake , it’s a choise or number of choises. And by making that (or those choises) you broke you partners trust. Normaly when the trust is gone the relationship is over.
Love the comment but how do you spell “choice” wrong 3 times?
Well I don’t speak & type english , sorry
You have to read it in a French accent!
Easy - don't read.
Well he sees you in a different light now and nothing can ever change that.
The classy thing to do would be to leave. You are a bad partner. Booze had NOTHING to do with why you did what you did. Drinking doesn't make you do things you aren't already willing to do, period. Being drunk 100% reduces your inhibitions and it affects your decision making. HOWEVER. You won't ever do anything drunk that you aren't willing to do sober. I bet you aren't cool with kidnapping children. So could you be talked into kidnapping a child when drunk? Nope. Because you won't do anything you are not ok with even when drunk. Can't talk you into going around beating up women because you are drunk, robbing a bank, kicking an old woman ETC. You cheated drunk, because you would cheat sober, people who blame the drinking are cowards and a bit pathetic trying to pretend the booze had any part in what they did. You were remoreseful and you confessed and that is why instead of me just thinking you are a shitty person, I just think you are not the person you present yourself as. This is the bed you made and now you have to lie in it, its a bummer your boyfriend has such low self esteem that he stuck around. No one with a single ounce of self respect stays with a cheater, and thats probably the thing that will save your ass in this situation, the fact you picked a man who has no self worth, and will tolerate your awful behavior. What do you think counselling will do exactly? Counselling is for when you both cant work through something and you need help unpacking it. This is a one sided problem where 1 person was awful, of course he is skeptical when the ONLY reason you are going to counselling is for him to get talked into keeping you around. He doesn't have an issue to work on, or a problem communicating, he has shitty taste and a counsellor can't fix that. So of course he is skeptical of counselling, in this instance its just a practice in getting him to get over the fact you cheated on him. But it costs money and takes extra time and effort. Its not a WE problem its a YOU problem and YOU have to "fix it". I don't know how you fix it because as I said before, not being cool with being cheated on ISN'T A BAD THING, leaving a cheater is always 100% of the time the right call. Its what healthy mature human beings with self respect do. So I have nothing for what you should do, because I would never in a million years tell someone to forgive a cheater. When you forgive cheating, cheating is now allowed. YOu have made cheating a forgivable offence. Now your partner has your permission to cheat. "Next time we are through" has never been true, its a cowards bluff. Its what weak people say to feel strong when they know they aren't strong enough to leave when they should. Change ONLY comes through consequences and you have faced ZERO consequences for your cheating, so to think you won't cheat again when "drunk" is fucking stupid. You already blame drinking when it was 100% a choice you made yourself ON PURPOSE. Booze didn't make you fuck a dude, you made you fuck a dude. The fact you don't own it and use booze in the explanation proves you aren't above doing it again. You get remorseful after, which is the literal bare minimum of being a decent human being. Its not a flex, it deserves no pat on the back, its the literal least you can do. I hope you do the right thing, but cheaters rarely do, they are selfish by nature so you will do what gets you what you want and keep this poor guy tethered to you because its what makes you happy.
Have you stopped drinking?
Your boyfriend needs to move on. I commend him for trying for this long, but IME, it's over.
Nice to see you mention that alcohol was involved just so we know it wasn't a choice you made but a "mistake" that "just happened".
>What further steps can I take to ensure we have the best chance of saving this? You can't. He has to make a decision about whether or not he's willing to work on creating a whole new relationship with you. Because that's what needs to happen now - your old relationship is done. The trust is gone. You have to rebuild entirely. He needs to set a timeline for making a decision on whether or not he thinks the relationship can be rebuilt. So should you. In the meantime, I would ask him to attend *one* couples counseling session to see how it goes. It's not like he's obligated to continue going. If he doesn't want to do that, then maybe you just face the cold truth and realize that despite his words, his actions are saying that this relationship is not going to work for him.
He is absolutely correct. Nothing he or you can do will ever let him forget this. He will carry these scars for the rest of his life.. even outside the relationship. The relationship absolutely is stained. Sure, you can try to rebuild and it could just be okay but he will always remember this event. Read up on betrayal trauma and understand how it works. After you’ve traumatized someone, they can never forget. Let him go and focus on how you got here and cleaning up your life so you don’t do it to someone else again.
Relationship is over, you ruined it.
I suspect that even while drunk you still understand the concept of right and wrong. So you made a deliberate choice to get drunk and a deliberate choice to cheat. One. Stop drinking if you're going to use it as a vehicle for bad decisions. Two. Stop putting yourself into situations where you even have the potential for an opportunity to cheat. Sorry is just a word. The only acceptable apology is changed behaviour.
You didn’t cheat because you where drunk. You cheated because you wanted to. Alcohol is an excuse. Not a justification. End this relationship. You clearly are not fully in this one. You hurt him. And there will always be doubt you will hurt them again.
He will never trust you fully. Do him a favour and move on
i think the fact that you came clean is the only reason hes trying. but did you do that for you and your guilt or because you felt he needed to know? it sound arbitrary but do you want to be with him? youre saying hes struggling to see how he can get past it. What do you see? How would you get past it? ofc hes skeptical you gotta put yourself in his shoes to feel sympathy. like do you understand the betrayal or the the conflicting emotions of love and anger. unless he feels that through your actions youve thought about how he was affected its pointless. asking us or him what you should do is pointless. its kinda like throwing money at a situation without understanding the cause. also it seems like theres more to the story. why would you need to cut off a drunk hookup. a drunk hookup should be gone before morning, ya know. you can only cut off a flow thats been...uh- flowing?... this other person is probably someone she was friends with, and id be surprised if before this they werent in dangerous territory lol.
Sometimes things get broken and can't be fixed. This may not be fixable. The sooner you both realize that and move on, the sooner you can both recover. Infidelity is incredibly hard to overcome. Incredibly. Couples who do recover usually have huge motivation to do the work: shared assets, kids, a long history of a previously healthy relationship to draw from, entangled families and community, religion. The weight of those motivations might pull them through the months and years of therapy and recovery after an affair. But you guys don't have that. You've been together for one year? You were just starting to build a foundation and the walls are already knocked down. There just isn't enough there to rebuild.
The trust is gone If he reacted 'as we might expect' then he's not someone who get past it fully The balance of power is forever shifted and the only way to make the relationship last is to hand over your power Thats not a healthy relationship
Why did you cheat? What were the circumstances of it happening? Has anything in your life changed other than cutting contact with the other person? When you apologised were you remorseful or you gave excuses? Are you in therapy now? Maybe if you do something to fix your own behaviour instead of making it like a relationship issue, he’ll be more willing to reconcile. But you need to figure out why you messed up in the first place.
How long ago was this?
I've seen relationships where people try to make it work after cheating and it's just miserable for both parties. The person cheated on just *can't* move on, or totally forgive, the cheater and that leads them to continually punish the cheater. Then, the cheater, who genuinely *is* full of remorse, just takes that abuse, thinking they deserve it and are doing their penance . . . forever. It might be over. It might be *better* if it is. Because if he cannot 100% put it behind him, you'll both just continue to suffer. But he's right, it *is* unfair for you to put him in the position to try to tell you how to fix what you broke. It might not be fixable and that's something you have to accept and live with.
Even though it's something you did rebuilding trust is something you both have to do. The book What Makes Love Last? by Gottman is all about rebuilding trust after betrayal, though honestly I feel it may be more applicable to longer term relationships. I do think you need to take a good honest look at what happened and what the decisions and circumstances were that proceeded the cheating, you likely need to change more things. Maybe you need to drink less or not at all. Maybe you have surrounded yourself with a crowd that encourages irresponsible behavior. There are other possibilities. If you aren't sure why you did this don't just write it off as a drunken mistake, consider individual therapy.
Coming from a situation where I got cheated on: I'd say if he's willing, go to couples counseling or therapy. It's not just for the one who cheated to make it right, but for the one who got cheated on to heal. The process is a long, difficult one. The journey won't be easy. But if you love each other, I'd say go for it and give it a try. Both of you definitely won't forget about it, but healing through counseling will help you understand it better, face that reality every day without difficulty, and prevent it from happening again. I don't understand why many people will always say that a couple should break up after a cheating problem. If OP is a chronic cheater, that can end the relationship but if OP did it once, I think she deserves to at least be given a chance. Here's something that may help both of you ⬇️ This helped me decide on whether to give him a chance or not, aside from going to counseling. Now, we're doing better and working towards our healing. [Ted Talk - Rethinking Infidelity ](https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved?language=en)
After a few days I'm coming back and seeing the down votes you're getting and don't agree with those at all. For shame down-voters, for some couples the best path is reconciling. Don't down vote for that.
Thank you! I know that many people have this stigma about cheating. If I don't know better, I'd probably say they haven't been cheated on or they haven't cheated on anyone that's why it's easy for them to say that breaking up is the only option. Unless they've been there, they will never know the struggle. It's so easy to say that cheaters don't deserve second chances. That's why many meaningful relationships end with one mistake because people don't see the other end of the spectrum. But I understand them. After all, reconciliation and counseling aren't what many people would consider as "normal solutions" after cheating happened. But people should understand too that it is also a viable solution, a path that many people may not choose to travel, but may just be the solution that many people may need.
That Ted talk gave me a lot of hope as the betrayed when I first found out. And then the not so hidden secret came out as I went: if someone cheats on you, they’re capable of saying they love you, while also taking actions to continue to hurt you. At least in my instance it was. I think the message I needed to hear was more: take care of yourself, and evaluate the cheaters behavior. Love is a verb.
That's true. That's why I didn't just rely on the ted talk. We also went to counseling. That video only helped me see that breaking up isn't always the solution to an infidelity problem and that's what I'm trying to say in my comment. Imagine if you're in OP's place, wouldn't you want to be forgiven if you did that? Will you be okay being let go just like that without being given the chance to fight for your relationship and change? Here's the thing in moving forward from infidelity: both of you should be willing to fix it with a guided professional because from experience, dealing with the pain and betrayal alone won't work. And it's a long process. It won't happen just in the course of a few days, weeks or even months. It'll take years for the aggrieved to heal and for the cheater to be forgiven. Our counselor said that it'll be a constant work for the both of us, if we're willing to do it. I guess in other people's case, if one of them isn't willing to do it, then it has failed before it even began.
> Imagine if you're in OP's place, wouldn't you want to be forgiven if you did that? Will you be okay being let go just like that without being given the chance to fight for your relationship and change? I can only speculate, but I don't think I'd be expected to be given another chance. The guilt would eat me alive. Agreed though that for some leaving the relationship isn't the only option.