Few things compare with the pain of betrayal.
When you love someone it feels like you’re in a nice, safe, love-infused bubble that no-one can penetrate.
Then, overnight, with a confession or a discovery, that bubble bursts. And boy does it burst with a bang.
Some couples do survive infidelity but only if both of you honestly think the relationship is worth it and the guilty person is prepared to do everything it takes to win back your trust and love.
This is a practical, step-by-step guide designed to hopefully help you through the process.
STEP ONE: Are they worth another chance?
Some cheating partners don’t deserve to be forgiven.
Ask yourself these five crucial questions.
1. Have they cheated on other people in the past?
If someone has developed a pattern of cheating over and over, they will continue to do it again (and again) until someone – hopefully you – dumps them brutally and they realise they can’t get away with it. No second chances in this case. Ever.
2. Why did they do it?
A one-off incident with seemingly genuine reasons to explain it is a lot easier to forgive than repeated slip-ups or a long-term affair.
Put yourself in his shoes: if you were him, feeling the way he did, in the situation he was in, what would you do? Can you understand it?
3. What do you think he will do if he’s in the same predicament in the future?
Top Comments
Continual cheating with numerous partners is one thing, but when one of them is a first cousin, that's overstepping the mark completely in this day and age.
This article is spot on. the advice is sound. My FIFO husband had a little 'playmate' on the worksite. We've been married 15 years. The pain of finding out he wasn't faithful was incredible, and yes, our relationship has changed. i no longer see him the way I did. The fact he was secretly communicating at home under my nose is what hurt the most. BUT - he did do all the right things and his apology and tears were real. He changed jobs and wiped all contact with her. What he said was, it wasn't sex, it was just the attention he loved, he just responded to her attention to him. So I hope one day, when she gets married and believes with every cell of her body that her husband is faithful, perhaps someone does this to her by way of karma. We moved on, but only because he did all the right things including moving in to the spare room for a few weeks, giving me space, and apologising in way I knew was real. I did tear up the wedding vows that we had, and said our 'old' marriage was over. You do have to start again. You can never have back what you did. Apparently he is quite needy for attention and positive strokes, and I didn't really see that and took him for granted. We have a built a new relationship - it took a good few months to let him touch me again, and probably a year to let myself love him again, and there will always be a part of me that won't trust him fully and completely ever again like I did before, but I don't harp on it, I don't question him, I don't go through his phone or emails (there is fifty ways to hide a secret with technology these days). I am glad I didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, what we have now was worth saving and he is a great guy and I can't imagine being married to anyone else. But there is no second chances.