Learning to forgive an affair is important because it’s so hard to do. Few events in your life will be as devastating as learning that your partner has been cheating on you. Also difficult is the decision to make the relationship work rather than just break up, but you can deeply strengthen your relationship and will help both of you to become better people.
Keep in Mind That You’re Not to Blame.
Many people are very clever at deflecting the blame for their transgressions. Don’t let this happen – cheating is a serious thing, and even though you may have contributed in some way, it was free will that drove your partner to cheat, not something you did. It’s not the case that you’re somehow a failure at relationships because this happened. You must forgive yourself before even considering forgiving your partner.
This Isn’t an Opportunity for you to Gain Leverage
You’ve got to let the affair die; reminding your partner of it whenever there’s a dispute will keep it alive and potentially resurrect it. Reminding your partner all the time about the affair isn’t going to do much good in terms of healing your own relationship.
Analyze Your Feelings
If you can’t get past those initial feelings of pain and betrayal, it’s going to be impossible to forgive your partner. Of course your feelings are hurt – but how do they hurt? Are you angry? Do you feel humiliated? Or is it more a feeling of betrayal? How about just “all of the above,” and more? Understand how you feel by drawing out your emotions and examining them.
Remember, don’t let this turn into an opportunity to point fingers and lay blame. The point here is to examine how you feel, not try to figure out who’s responsible. The kind of emotions you’re feeling are pretty strong, and there’s nothing wrong with screaming, or crying. You’ll get past that initial reaction sooner or later.
Forgiving and moving forward should be your focus, and by now you should have gotten past the urge just to react to the affair.
Talk Things Over With Your Partner
You need to do it, and it’s going to be among the more difficult things you’ve ever done, but you’ve still got to do it. With your partner – and only your partner – have an honest conversation about the cause of the infidelity. Talking about such a subject until it’s thoroughly understood will undoubtedly cause some pain, but unless you have this conversation, you’re relationship probably won’t grown and thrive in the future.
Discuss – calmly – what caused the affair. Especially important are your feelings. How did you feel when you learned about it? How did your partner feel during the affair? How did your partner feel when you found out? There’s no doubt that it’s hard to hear the truth. Reconciling after an affair is a very mature, adult course of action to take. Don’t ruin it with immature behavior like name-calling and finger-pointing.
Would you prefer to be acknowledged as being right, or would you prefer to be in a happy relationship? The problem is, if all you do is keep emphasizing that you were the victim, you’re signaling that you’re not willing to acknowledge that anything you may have done contributed to the problem. These are some to the elements of good communication – not just raising your voice louder and louder until you’re certain your partner heard you.
Take Your Relationship to the Next Level Where Neither Partner Cheats
After you’ve thoroughly aired out the issue, you need to discuss with your partner a solid plan for moving forward. If you understand what led to the affair in the first place, you can agree on how to avoid such situations in the future. Likewise, you need to agree on ways to improve your communications. You can’t just commit to maintaining the same relationship that your partner just cheated on. You’ve got to commit to a better relationship, one your partner won’t want to cheat on.
Learning to forgive an affair a challenge is every bit as difficult as learning that your partner has cheated. It depends on your commitment, but if you’re both willing, you can work to build a new future – and a new past – together. Sure it’ll take some time and there’ll be some painful moments along the way, but your faith in each other can be restored and you can work on creating tomorrow’s memories.
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