Cheaters: This is how you’re going to bounce back from your infidelity
Rebuilding your life after cheating on your partner is a delicate process. This is how you’re going to navigate it.
by: E.B. Johnson
No matter how perfect you might believe yourself to be, and no matter how much you might love your partner — it’s possible to find yourself treading into the toxic waters of infidelity. Infidelity occurs whenever we break the bounds of our partnerships, to bond intimately (on a physical or emotional level) with someone else. It’s betrayal of the highest form, but we have to learn to take responsibility for our actions if we want to come back from cheating on the person we’re supposed to love the most.
It’s possible to rebuild your life after straying into the uncharted wilds of infidelity. By learning how to apologize, apply action, and get focused on future solutions, you can rebuild. It takes commitment, however, and it takes summoning the courage to open up and be honest about the mistakes you’ve made. If you’re looking to come back from cheating on your partner, read on. This is how you’re going to rebuild your life and your sense of right and wrong.
When opportunities become infidelities.
Our partnerships are a sacred space and — for many of us — provide a safe and secure place in which to express ourselves or otherwise find solace and comfort. Our partners provide a sounding board, but they also provide a protective barrier against the world, which can shield us from the nastier effects of the heartaches and adversities we face on this road of life.
These relationships can become wracked with pain too, however. They can be nuances and they can become the wounds which turn into even deeper insecurities or misunderstandings. When we stop communicating honestly (with our partners and ourselves) we can find ourselves falling into some sticky situations, and that includes a nebulous “gray-zone” between infidelity and carelessness.
Though you might think cheating only encompasses the obvious physical and emotional over-extensions, infidelity is actually a lot more complicated than that. There are a number of ways in which we can cross important lines with our partners, and it’s up to us to make sure we are utilizing efficient and effective communication to avoid such mistakes. We have to be honest about what we want and what we need from our relationships, or we risk losing them — and ourselves — in the process.
The different types of infidelity.
Infidelity isn’t always as simple as getting sexually intimate with someone who isn’t your partner or spouse. There are a number of ways we can betray our partners, and they aren’t all strictly limited to the physical realm.
Emotional connections
Not all infidelity occurs in the physical realm. Sometimes, emotional infidelity is what wrecks our relationships and pulls us away from our partners. This occurs whenever you make a deep, intimate connection with someone outside the bonds of your partnership — and open up in ways that are reserved for your partner alone. When you begin to feel something real and genuine for someone who is not your partner or your spouse, it’s time to take a step back and reassess.
Romantic confusion
Though we tend to think of love as a one-at-a-time experience, it’s possible to fall in love with more than one person at a time…no matter what your intentions are. Romantic confusion occurs when the friendships we share (with people who are not our partners) turn into something akin to genuine love or connection. You might start to imagine your future with them, or you might just outright fall in love with them. It’s a tricky situation, and one that can only be managed with honesty and openness.
Sense of entitlement
Entitlement is a dangerous place to be, and one that can lead to a lot of heartbreak in our lives. When we don’t genuinely love our partners anymore — or feel a sexual connection with them — we can begin to feel entitled to seek what we want elsewhere. Blinded by your own sense of deservedness, you make careless moves, even if it hurts your partner or violates the connection that you share with them. This sense of entitlement can permeate every level of your relationship and personality, developing some toxic behavioral patterns.
Opening up and telling the truth.
It’s not enough to know that what you’ve done is wrong. If you’ve cheated on your partner, you have to open up to them — but there’s a good and a bad way to do that. Come from the right place and make sure you’re delivering this news with the best intentions in mind.
Figure out the pros and cons
Before you tell your partner what you’ve done, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of revealing your infidelity. Revealing your truth to them is the right thing to do, but it has to be done for the right reasons. Intention is everything, and you need to make sure you’re being honest about your mistake because you want to do the right thing — rather than just seeking to alleviate or absolve your own guilt. Spend some time figuring out how you want to open up and why, before splitting your relationship wide open.
Get the timing right
It’s critical that you approach your partner in the right place and at the right time. What you have to share is emotional, and it can be embarrassing and world-shattering. Trust is a delicate thing to damage, so be considerate of your partner and do things in the right setting. Pick a time and a place in which you’re both comfortable and both able to express yourselves without the fear of prying eyes and ears. Get the timing right, and strive to make comfortable the elemental aspects you can control.
Stick to the facts
When it comes to opening up about infidelity to your partner, it’s critical that you stick to the facts and leave the emotions to them. Don’t lean into blame language to alleviate your guilt; don’t reveal factors that won’t help find a resolution. Stick to the what, who, where, when and how. Answer their questions and don’t allow yourself to get swept up in the pain and the sorrow of it all. Be there for your partner and deal with your emotions together when you’re both ready to work as a team.
Don’t get defensive
Perhaps the worst thing you can do, when it comes to revealing your infidelity to a partner, is to get defensive about your behavior. There is no real excuse for infidelity. While you might have been looking for something that you have a right to have in your life, doing it deceitfully behind someone’s back cannot be excused. Take the hit and take responsibility for what you’ve done. Don’t try to defend yourself or put your partner on a level playing field with you.
Making it right to yourself and others.
After you’ve revealed your infidelity, you’ve got to make it right — both to yourself and others. This isn’t as simple as apologizing, and it’s not as easy as simply “moving on”. You’ve got to put action behind your words and commit to the process of becoming a better person who’s above committing such indiscretions again.
Apologize
Whether you and your partner work things out, or never speak to one another again after your revelations, it’s imperative that you apologize for what you’ve done — and understand how it hurt the other person. Put yourself in their shoes and try to look at the situation with a little empathy. How would you feel if someone betrayed you in the world possible way? If someone took something from you that you badly loved and coveted? Apologize and let the cards fall where they may.
Follow up with actions
Words alone are not enough when it comes to making it right in the wake of our infidelities. Once you’ve hurt your partner (and yourself) with your actions, you have to make your apologies concrete by following through with actions. Show your regret by working hard to be the best possible version of yourself. Dig deep. Work on your insecurities. Be there for your partner and yourself, instead of simply paying lip-service. Follow up your words with actions.
Make solutions your focus
Infidelity is a serious hurdle in our lives, and one that can consume or overwhelm our sense of perspective. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion and the drama, but have to stay focused on the future and the solutions we can build under the circumstances. Rather than focusing on what was done, focus on what needs to happen next. Be forward facing and stop living your life in regret. There’s no happiness that way.
Figure out what you want
Before you move on or start healing, or working on a new start with your partner, you need to get real about what you want. You also have to confront how those desires or needs contributed to your infidelity, and your need to find comfort outside your relationships. Spend some time on your own figuring out precisely what it is that you want from your future and your relationship, then bring your partner in on the journey (or cut the ties).
How to heal after betraying yourself and your partner with infidelity.
Once everything is out in the open, you’ve got to create a plan that allows you both to move forward in whatever direction you need to go. In order to get to that final resolution, you both need time and space to explore what you want. These are the techniques that can help you get there.
1. Embrace the art of personal responsibility
In order to truly move past the mistakes you have made, you have to embrace your personal responsibility. You alone are the person who makes the decisions around your behaviors and reactions. If you had an affair, it’s because you made the conscious decision — somewhere along the line — to overstep the bounds of your partnership, and get intimate with someone else. No one made that choice but you, and you have to accept that if you want to move on.
Embrace the art of personal responsibility and start stepping up for all the things you get right and wrong. Don’t shy away from uncomfortable truths. Don’t run away from important realizations. The only way out is through, so hold on tight and embrace what you’ve done wrong, and know that you alone are at fault for it.
After you have embraced the part you played, you can bravely get proactive about making things right. Even if your relationship doesn’t survive your indiscretion, you still need to heal yourself and the insecurities that led to your affair. Stop running away from what you got wrong, and turn those things into what you get right. Face your mistakes, your missteps and the pain you’ve caused with courage. Once you face up, you can move on and find the future you were always meant to have.
2. Allow for time and space
Infidelity wrecks our sense of self, as well as our relationships. Once your partner has discovered your betrayal, they might feel emotionally lost and within that — need their own space to recover. You have to give both yourself and your partner or spouse the time and space you need to get right. Infidelity is confusing. It’s painful, and it makes it hard to understand ourselves and the truth. If you want a shot at making things right, take a step back and give both of yourselves the emotional and physical distance you need.
After opening up, take some time to reassess who you are and what you want from your partnership. Dig deep into the reasons behind your infidelity and find that lost sense of self that cast you adrift. Give your partner time too, to figure out what they want, and what they want to do. Unfortunately, you don’t get to make the sole decision regarding what happens next. Let them think and bolster your courage and emotional strength in the meantime.
Lean into this time apart and use it to explore those insecurities and fears that are still plaguing your decision-making process. Ask yourself probing questions and don’t run away from the answers. There’s no perfect time limit, and there’s no wrong one either. Take as much time as you need and allow your other half to do the same. We all react differently to the pain and trauma of betrayal. Be gentle with yourself and encourage your partner to do the same.
3. Get into the 3 A’s
The 3 A’s are one of the best ways to rebuild our partnerships and our lives in the wake of a recently discovered infidelity. By leaning deeper into our understanding of affection, attention and appreciation — we can refocus on our partners and our relationships in the best possible way. Move from allowing time space to heal, and get proactive by engaging your partnership through greater emotional attention, romantic affection and general appreciation and gratitude.
Don’t just tell your partner that you love them. Don’t just apologize and promise that you’ll never hurt them again. Demonstrate the passion you still have for them by finding your affection again. Leave them little notes, and slowly get physical with one another again. The subtlest of gestures (a small touch of the hand, a squeeze of the shoulder) can go a long way.
Give your partner attention and give your relationship the attention it needs. Don’t let things get stagnant or stuck in a rut. Consciously make time for your partner and consciously make time to nurture your partnership through spending time together and creating new experiences. Show gratitude for your partner and thank them for being a part of your life. Display that gratitude by being there for them and helping them when they need it (and even when they don’t). Again, little gestures are key here. Pick up one of their chores, or do something simple that says, “I love you.”
4. Start following through
Giving your partner apologies and guarantees isn’t enough. If you’ve been the perpetrator of imploding your partnership, you have to take action and follow through on the things that you guarantee them. Don’t just tell them that you’ll cut the other person out of your life — do it, and don’t wait for further drama, or further requests from your partner to do the things you know are right in the first place.
Keep your promises and walk the walk when you tell your partner you’re going to do something. Follow through on the changes you’ve voiced and be the motion behind the movement; the driving force behind the change your relationship critically needs. Stop being selfish and start following through.
Avoid sitting around and waiting until “the right moment”. That moment never comes. All we have is right here and right now, and we alone are responsible for correcting the wrongs we’ve created. Commit to the journey and understand that it’s going to take consciously hard work from start to finish. Infidelity is a big choice to make, and it comes with a heavy price tag. Correct your mistakes by learning to follow through on your promises.
5. Choose the slow path
Once we’ve been outed for our affairs, it can be a painful and humiliating journey back to the top. Because this journey is so hard and so uncomfortable, we can often push our partners (and ourselves) for a total resolution faster than we should. Coming back from an affair is no easy thing, and it’s a very nuanced process. Sometimes, it’s necessary to choose the slow path back to happiness, but that alone is a decision that takes courage and commitment on both sides.
Slow down and let both of yourselves relax into the journey and your natural responses. Embrace the slip-ups and the backslides as a part of the process and take enough time to see the changes that are being made within and without.
We become different people in the wake of infidelity, but we can often lose sight of these changes by getting caught up in the rush to get back to “normal”. Understand that those definitions of normal (which were clearly not satisfactory for both of you) are gone. If you and your partner or spouse choose to rebuild your relationship, it will look nothing like the one you knew before the affair took place. Slow down and choose the slow path back to happiness.
6. Honesty, honesty, honesty
Infidelity happens because we lie. We lie to ourselves about what we want, and the impact our decisions will have. We lie to our partners, and we allow them to lie to themselves about what our relationship really is. If you truly want to come back from cheating on someone you love, you have to focus on making honesty a part of everything you do in the future. Be honest with them. Be honest with yourself. Be honest about everything in your relationship and the way it touches others.
Make honesty the focus of everything that you do, even if you and your partner decide to end your relationship. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with other people. Focus on honesty, whether you’re choosing a new job, or telling someone what you want for dinner. The more honest you are across the different planes of your life, the easier it will become.
Stop running from uncomfortable emotions, or saying the things that matter to you. Say how you feel the first time and don’t wait until you’re stuck in an awkward situation or dealing with a toxic confrontation. Stop running from your feelings until you’re looking for solace outside of your partnership. Be honest. If you’re at the point where you’re ready to walk into the arms of someone else, then there may be little to lose at home in reality. Get real about what you want in this life and then share that honesty with the people whose lives you touch.
Putting it all together…
Infidelity is a challenge that many couples don’t overcome, but it’s one that we can manage with a little know-how and courage. Whether your indiscretion has occurred on the physical plane or an emotional one, the only way to heal is by being honest and embracing the journey. Figure out what you want from your relationship, then discover the best ways to open up and reveal your mistake. Healing a partnership (and yourself) after you’ve cheated is possible…but it’s going to take courage, and a big dose of humility.
Embrace your personal responsibility and hold your hand up for what you’ve done wrong. If you’ve cheated on your partner, the only way to have any hope of coming back is by stepping up to the plate for the mistakes you’ve made. Give yourself and your partner the time and space you both need to heal and consider what you want to do next. Focus on the three A’s, and find your way back to a resolution by showing your partner that (no matter what) you appreciate, you hold affection for them, and you appreciate what they’ve done for you from then to now. Follow through on your promises and put action behind the apologies you’re lending. Don’t just tell your partner that you’re sorry. Don’t just say it will never happen again. Demonstrate your regret through becoming a (better) person of action. Choose the slow path and understand that it won’t all clear up overnight. Infidelity is a hard hurdle to jump. Give yourselves time and cultivate a culture of honesty in everything you do moving forward.
