Forgiving infidelity
Could you imagine forgiving your partner for having an affair? No? I never thought I could either. How does a person get past the knowledge that the person they love and who they’ve been true to has shared intimate moments with another person?
Experts will tell us that nearly 50% of all relationships will have one partner (sometimes both) who will stray from the relationship to form an emotional or sexual bond with another person. They’ll also tell you that a bout of infidelity hurts more than just about anything else that can happen to us in our lives. Infidelity hurts more than the death of a parent, loss of a job or physical abuse. I believe them.
It doesn’t matter how you find out, there is no easy way to get the information that the one person you trusted with every fiber of your being has been intimate with another person. Some people find out with private detectives, some get told by their friends and some of us trip over it on a computer. It hurts no matter how you find out.
I don’t think anyone who strays sets out to hurt their spouse or partner. I believe that. I think it happens in pretty much the same way for everyone. You find someone, get to talking and one thing leads to another and before you know it, you’re in the sack playing hide the sausage.
Once the affair is over and your partner wants to “make it all good again” is it possible? Can you ever look at them without thinking of what they did with someone else? I’m determined to find out.
For me there are four things that must happen for me to begin to trust again.
- Honesty. I want to know all the details. I don’t want to wallow in them but I want to know how it happened. I need to know. How could I have missed it for so long?
- Time. Until I feel confident, I want to know where he is. If he wants me to trust him then he’s got to give me the tools to do so.
- Me. I want face to face, eye to eye contact and I want it often. I want to know that he’s my other half. I want to do things together — like the old times. I suppose I want to be wooed all over again. Sweep me off my feet. Make me feel special like I did before.
- Love. I want him to tell me he loves me. I want to hear it and often. I want to be shown that he loves me. I have always put him first and I want to feel loved like he does.
In return I will do all I can to meet his needs and continue to care for and about him as I have since we met. Will it work? I’m not sure. Will I be ok if it doesn’t work? Absolutely. I’m no clinging vine and regardless what happens I will be just fine. Maybe I have a big ego but I have always told myself, if you’re not happy, do whatever you need to be to get to that state. For me, life is all about being happy and finding joy in every day.
It’s hard actually to know if your partner is cheating or not =)
Honestly, I don’t think I would care if it was with a decent guy. If she went with some slob though… well, that just says a lot about her standards.
Interesting read. Don’t know if I could trust again though if it were to happen to me. He would really have to show me lots of love. Hope it never happens.
Excellent post. I’m sorry you have to go through this experience, however, I do believe you can forgive him. I do know that it is possible. Not easy, but possible. It will take time, patience and his willingness to help you through it. If he is selfish and unwilling to be transparent, you’ll never be able to trust him again. I wish you the best of luck with all of it.
Great information, i am facing the same problem now a days, i have to tell some thing about my past to my special one, it is not about that i have had a person in my life its about my family but i am afraid to tell him that after listening this he will leave me, i dont know what should i do? please help me.
How honest of you to share this with your readers. Seriously this took guts. It’s a great post and you are going to help a lot of people with it. It sounds to me like you are approaching this fairly and with an open mind. Your significantly other should be very grateful to you. I’m sorry for the pain you must be feeling right now. I wish you nothing but the best in the future.
This is theoretical point of view. And obviously a feminine point of view. Have any one thought why man /woman fall in extra marital affairs? No. Because when it happens, he/she don’t know it’s happening. And when it’s happened, the game starts – hide & seek. Two reasons – 1) mental hub and physical hub for either person is required to stay back from this. For this the indispensable support of the other partner is required. Yes, when it’s over, faint traces may crop up at moments but it need to sort out in that moment itself.
It seems silly to me not to forgive infidelity if you were happy to begin with before you found out. You already got hurt by the person cheating but they still want to be with you, so why lose the relationship also? If it was just a physical thing then get over it.
A cheating partner is simply a partner that wants to play around. If you cought him… just tell him that he has to choose right now or I’ll leave you and pls if he said ok, will you tell him I am waiting? LOL!
Wow, you’ve got some guts out there. Great information. We’ll for me, i guess you can forgive him. maybe it can be hard but it is possible. Let’s just wait coz only time will tell.
Yes, sometimes it is so hard to forgive our partner for having an affair. By including reasonable reasons in this post, you can meet his needs and continue to care in order to improve your relationship. Thanks for sharing
Great article. Tiger Woods & his wife & whatever number of actual mistresses there were need to read this
haha.
Affairs and infidelity only happen because someone isn’t used to telling themselves NO when they need to. Spending more time as a selfless person, instead of a selfish person that does whatever makes them feel good and doesn’t think about the consequences, will work wonders! Forgiveness does too. It’s hard to trust someone like that again, and for some people maybe it’ll never happen, but it is absolutely possible to rebuild that which has been broken.
I could get over it, especially if he came out and told me. People can’t always do the right thing and sex is powerful. If it’s just about sex, I can forgive. If it’s also about love, that’s a different story.
Hi, great article! Although I agree that it happens to many of us, why should infidelity occur? Let’s take some time to think about this question. Infidelity is not something innate; we were not programmed at birth to be disloyal to our partners. Something must have transpired along the way to “create” infidelity.
As long as we’re unable to find an answer to this basic question, infidelity would recur.
Cheers!
I think your list of what you need is not bad but I would beware one thing.
Wanting your marriage after infidelity to be like it was before is a bit of a problem because it can never be the way it was.
You should certainly “start again” as this helps you rebuild a relationship but that marriage must be a new one not just the old one again which is like trying to forget the affair even happened for some men and women.
I think that you should try to forgive everything but just “try”, not to go opposite your own inside principles.
Hey
Well it happened to me and we tried to work things out…I told myself that I had trust in my partner again, but I didn’t, I always wondered. Broke up early this year because I got obsessed with wanting to be in contact with him (Our relationship shifted from seeing each other every day to a long distance relationship because of a lack of job opportunities in the area I stay in).
So personally I think it’s an emotional torture to be with someone who has cheated on you. It felt like my emotions were being controlled by my self pity and lack of confidence eventually. I still miss the guy, after 3 years of ups and downs, no thank you, there has to be someone better out there.
ciao!
Some years ago I found out my wife was having an affair. We had been married ten years,and I was left totally devastated.
We agreed to part,Even though I was in pieces I began making plans for the future.
Generally men can’t stand the idea of their wife’s Physical betrayal, women are more concerned with their husband’s emotional betrayal.I felt both in equal measure!
Yes forgiveness is very difficult, and I can understand those that say they could never forgive. But I did just that, and I realized that my plans for the future should include her. I asked her to come back to me.
More than ten years later we have two children and are very happy together. I admit,for more than a year it was very difficult at times between us, but we persevered.
You both need a lot of determination and belief that the relationship is well worth saving.It will help you through the hard times,for us the effort produced the relationship, and our beautiful children that we have today.
I never thought I could either. How does a person get past the knowledge that the person they love and who they’ve been true to has shared intimate moments with another person
Great article. Infidelity is pretty hard to bear much more forgiving and getting back together again. But it is true that there are couples who survived and even made their relationship stronger despite of what happened. There’s no excuse for not forgiving, it will benefit you more than your cheating partner in the long run. Not getting back together is understandable but not forgiving is not. There’s a difference. I hope I made sense