How to Forgive Yourself Once You’ve Cheated

It was a Tuesday afternoon. I called my wife on the phone. I wasn’t even brave even to tell her face to face.

“Babe… I need to tell you something.”

“I lost my job today, and I cheated on you.”

Tears erupted on both sides on the line. I was called a bastard, told I ruined her life, and that she hates me (Rightfully so). The woman i vowed to love and protect through sickness and health was now gone.

Confessions

We were married young. I was 21, she was 22. We had been together since I was 18. I left my hometown the summer after graduating high school, to move in with a girl I had been talking to for three months. It was an excuse for me to leave my small town and make a name for myself. At the time it seems like the stars aligned and all things were right in the world. I had an amazing girlfriend who wanted to live with me, I was leaving I had a job offer that would jump start my career.

Everything started out great, as flourishing relationships tend to do. We lived in the “honeymoon phase” for years. I was happy then… or at least I that’s what I told myself.

I think I knew even in the beginning that something was off. Being in a new state and living with someone for the first time, I began to realize I was very lonely. I missed being in my normal rhythm. I missed my family, my friends. I missed the familiarity. The feeling sank deeper and deeper and began to take hold of me.

Searching For Fulfillment

Long story short, I buried that feeling of displacement and began striving each day to make my partner happy. Life went on, and although there were definitely good times in the bad I never truly felt like my life was whole. I began putting all my effort into her life, her wants, and her needs. Throughout those years i slowly lost who I was. I was so obsessed with filling her own needs that I didn’t even realize I had my own anymore. This is a dangerous cycle to place yourself in. If my partner was upset, I would blame myself… even if it was something that I had no hand in. If I couldn’t make her happy in times where she was sad or stressed, I blamed myself. I was my own worst enemy, and i gradually wore down any self-esteem I had.

Naturally, the thing that would make both of us feel whole and complete would be marriage. I proposed at the age of 20. As awful as it sounds, looking back, I’m not sure why I did. It wasn’t out of love… it was out of “why not?”. We had been living together for two years. I had cemented the fact that I wasn’t moving back home. The harsh reality of everything was this: I wasn’t brave enough to tell her I was unhappy. I wasn’t brave enough to break her heart and tell her how I felt. I pushed forward for myself, hoping life would get better.

We spent years searching for happiness after that. My now wife finished school, went from job to job. I did the same. After I graduated with my degree I took a job offer to open restaurant concepts around the country. It was exciting to travel, and experience new places with my wife. We were both very good at looking towards the future, but the problem is we were both striving… not thriving. We ignored the problems that were glaring us in the face daily, and thought the next job, the next state, would be would be where we would find the holy grail of happiness.

I’ll spare the details of my sinful act, but it happened. I cheated. After years of being married I felt nothing. No love for myself, no love of life, and quite frankly no love towards my wife. To say I felt defeated would be inaccurate… I just felt numb to everything. It was almost an out of body experience. It was so very far from who I was. It took my character and morals and flipped everything on its head. I look back and can’t even remember the other woman’s name… and I will always hate myself for that.

The Road Towards Redemption

Initially, it seems that someone who has cheated is unworthy of forgiveness… of grace. That is a lie we frequently tell ourselves in today’s culture. It also seems backwards to think that the spouse who committed the act would have a harder time dealing with the cheating then the recipient of the news. On my side of things my friends and family would recite me lines like these:

“You’re the one who did it, there must have been a reason for it.”

“You need to lay in the bed you made for yourself.”

“Why do you feel bad for yourself? It’s her life you destroyed.”

Those are the lines I heard over and over again. It took me a long time to cope with what I did. I tried processing in my head why I did it, how it happened, what had I done.

There was a six month separation between us where my wife and I were trying to figure out if we still had space in the other’s life. We were living on opposite coasts from each other, had gotten new jobs, and essentially established a new life being alone. You find a new rhythm that seems foreign. The person you once called best friend, the person you spent all your free time with, is just gone.

My wife’s family was supportive and wanted us to work out. I had good relations with all of them. People who were supposed to be on her side sounded like they were on mine. It sounded like an excuse for my actions to help us move forward.

“It’s just what men do… You have to accept that.”

“He never had with ‘wild college phase’, he just needed to experiment.”

“You obviously weren’t giving him enough in the bedroom.”

Those are the lines that hurt the most. I knew that I was in the wrong. I wasn’t looking for excuses… I was looking for forgiveness.

A Hard Pill to Swallow

I had decided to go to therapy and find help for myself. I was depressed, lonely, and felt like nothing else mattered in the world. I honestly felt like i deserved to live, but deserved to live in pain. My counselor was able to help me build back a healthier lifestyle for myself. It wasn’t and overnight battle though.

After another six months i had proven to my wife I was able to put in the work to be a better man. We had many conversations through that year journey, but she eventually said the words “I forgive you, I love you, and always will.”

I thought that would have been enough. I accomplished my goal, I had achieved forgiveness… right?

I realized after that conversation that the problem was still me. She wanted to move back in, and start our life over anew. I wasn’t ready for that. The thought of seeing my wife’s face again was an impossible task to me. I couldn’t imagine a world where I would wake up next to her without feeling guilty. The thought of sleeping together made me physically ill because of how much shame i associated with that act. I realized that for my own mental health I couldn’t be with her ever again.

Seeking Help

Depression hit hard when I was legally separated. It hit harder when i realized I wanted an actual divorce. I spun into a dangerous cycle of regret. Regretting dating her, regretting not breaking up with her, regretting marrying her, and regretting cheating on her. I felt like there was nothing good that had come out of my entire life. The woman who I called my wife, who gave me forgiveness after breaking our vows, was still not someone I wanted to be back with. I had very little willingness left to live.

The holidays were the hardest. In particular Christmas, as my birthday falls right before it and I was all alone. It was around this time I started looking for anything to distract me, alcohol, social media, work. I remember clocking out at 80 hours three weeks in a row. I didn’t know what else to do, so I picked up every shift I could, went home to feed my dog, and went back into work. It wasn’t healthy… It wasn’t coping… It was just distracting.

I was tired, and at a complete loss for ideas. I remembered a church I went to over two years prior to this. I hadn’t been since, but thought it was worth a shot to pop in on a Sunday. I sat in the back and listened to the pastor speak. I couldn’t tell you what it was about, but at the end of the sermon the speaker was asking for volunteers to serve pizza at a local high school later that week. I went outside of my comfort zone and signed my name on the volunteer sheet. Everything else in life was uncomfortable now, so why not this too?

Little did I know that saved my life.

I ended up meeting a great group of men there. They too were in their 30’s, and ended up inviting me to a community group for members of the church. I attended the following week, not knowing it was the first one of the year. I was introduced to the leadership and connected me to resources and people that could help me with whatever I was going through. The week after I volunteered to share my story, of what I had done and the life that had made me who I was. Despite my hesitation to share the grueling details of my life in a room of 30 strangers I realized I had nothing left to lose.

To my surprise, there was no judgement. No gazes of “you’re going to burn in Hell” or awkward silences. It was just real people allowing me the grace to show my humanness. It was a huge confidence booster and set me on the next course of life.

The Journey Onward

Since then I have been connected with multiple counselors who have diagnosed me with depression, anxiety, and minor bi-polar-ism. I never thought I would have those titles imbued upon me, but I do and it makes me human. They are not flaws in my eyes, they are aspects of my existence. My mistakes don’t define me. There are plenty of articles out there to help cope with those diagnosis… I may write some myself in the future. There are free resources out there from crisis text lines, to free therapy sessions for those without financial stability. I encourage everyone to seek out the help you need, when you need it.

I want everyone to know there is hope. I still struggle daily with my loss and regret. It is a scar that I shall carry with me the rest of my life, and I must live with the burden of my past misjudgment. The road to forgiveness is a long one, and the challenges I faced were not always the obvious ones. I learned that forgiving yourself is sometimes harder than earning forgiveness from the ones you hurt. I’ve been blessed with amazing people who have been encouraging every step of the way, and I would encourage anyone reading this to seek out a strong support group as well. It is worth it, it showed me I deserve love, grace, and life. Hope will triumph. Always.