How to Heal Relationships After
Cheating
An affair of any sort can have a devastating
effect on a relationship. Although the
common misconception is that the most
affected person is the one that was cheated
on, however that is not always true. The
person who cheated has a lot of personal
changes to make if he or she chooses to
continue being a contributing partner in the
relationship. This healing process is an
emotional one and takes some real work from
both parties involved. The process of
reconciliation and having a healthy
relationship is difficult but it is not
impossible to achieve.


•1
Decide if the relationship is worth
saving; Make a list of reasons for you to
stay together, or not. The reasons for
reconciliation may be different between
two people who are just dating, as
opposed to those for a couple that has
been married for 20 years. The length or
the seriousness of the relationship does
not make the pain any easier to deal with.
Consider why you want to stay. Many
people will stay in destructive
relationships because they are scared
at the thought of being alone or
because they feel that they cannot find
another person who will want to be
with them.
Think about what you expect from the
relationship. The matrix of the
relationship will be obviously changed,
at least for a while. Do not stay with a
cheating partner simply out of
competition; this is not a situation
where the better man or woman wins.
Do not fall into the destructive pattern
where you always feel that you have to
fight for your relationship.

•2
Talk about the feelings and be willing
to listen; Be prepared to do the work.
There is a lot to resolve when dealing with
infidelity in a relationship. When you have
been cheated on, the first thing that you
may want to know is why. It is important to
realize that you may never know the
reason why your partner cheated on you.
If you have been cheated on, it is
important to tell your partner how you
feel about the situation. Holding onto
these feelings will not help. Your
partner needs to know how his or her
actions have affected you. You will
have feelings of hurt, betrayal,
embarrassment, resentment and
outright anger. There are phases that
you may go through as far as your
feelings are concerned. At first, you will
feel hurt and you may cry. Once the
initial shock of the situation has
subsided, you will want to know why
and you may even feel the urge to
internalize the situation, meaning you
may look to blame yourself. The next
phase is usually anger. These feelings
are completely natural and expected
and you may even cycle through them
multiple times and experience more of
certain emotions than others during
the healing process.
If you are the party that was unfaithful,
be prepared to listen to your partner’s
feelings. Do not make excuses or try to
substantiate your actions. Trying to
make excuses will not only cause
further pain to your partner, but it will
also make the situation worse, making
the reconciliation even more difficult.
Do not tell your partner what he or she
did wrong to drive you to cheat. You
made the choice to cheat, and that is
not something that you were forced to
do.

•3
Keep in mind that cheating is a
symptom of the problem ; Often times,
people make the mistake of labeling the
act of infidelity as the main issue at hand.
However, in most relationships, cheating is
merely a symptom of a deeper-rooted
issue. In order to make your relationship a
success, you have to work on it
continuously and talk about what the real
issue is that brought you to the place you
find yourselves.
This is where honesty really comes into
play. Talk about the things that you
were feeling that led you to stray from
the relationship. Understand that these
reasons are not excuses, but they are
reasons that need to be explored. For
example, if you felt neglected in some
way or felt that your partner was not
affectionate, that may have been the
reason that you looked elsewhere for
this attention.
Once you figure out what those deeper
issues are, think about what you should
have done differently. For example,
instead of looking for attention outside
of your relationship, maybe you could
have talked to your partner about your
feelings and planned to spend some
extra time with them.

•4
Take responsibility. Take ownership of
your actions; It is all too easy to place
blame, especially when it comes to affairs
of the heart. Take responsibility for your
actions that caused the relationship to get
to this stage. Remember, even if your
actions were in reaction to something that
has happened, it was your decision to go
the route you did. No matter how much
you may want to think that your partner
pushed you into the arms of another,
again, it was your choice to cheat.

•5
Forgive and forget; One of the integral
parts of reconciliation is to forgive. Once
you have made the decision to remain in
the relationship, you have to be fair. You
will be hurt for a long time and those ill
feelings won’t go away overnight.
However, it is not fair to throw the affair in
your partner's face weeks, months and
years later.

Easy talk...

Long story........simply move on.

Too long to read...

My healing vice: vodka