How To Forgive A Cheater
“Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.” — Emma Goldman
Ok, I realize that’s a pretty big title that could lead some devastated soul to the conclusion that this 39-year-old-wannabe-psychologist-but-who-is-currently-still-in-school-and-happens-to-love-to-blog has the answer to end his or her pain. I don’t. I’m sorry.
Well actually, I kind of do.
When you are betrayed by your spouse in this horrific way, you involuntarily become a victim. You feel shocked, hurt, angry, humiliated, and probably every other emotion that it’s even possible to have. One minute you want revenge and the next you just want everything to go back to “normal”.
Unfortunately, after an affair, there is no “normal” anymore. In reality, there never really was. Otherwise, the affair would never have taken place, right? Your world is turned upside down. Everything you believed about yourself, your marriage, and probably the world in general has been completely eradicated and you feel alone and confused, beaten down and abandoned. I’m not even certain that there are sufficient words to describe all the wretched feelings. Suffice it to say…..I get it.
For the purpose of this blog post, let’s assume that we are talking about a cheating spouse who has been caught, has ended the affair (and I mean really ended it…you are positive), expressed sincere remorse and the willingness to do anything to repair your marriage. This is someone you can work with. This is someone who may actually deserve forgiveness. Anything short of all of the above and forgiveness will not be possible.
First, and I cannot stress this enough, I believe that marriage counseling along with individual counseling for each of you is essential. I’m not exaggerating. Essential. Yes, for each of you.
Marriage counseling is rough under any circumstances, but immediately following an affair, it’s got to be just horrific. You each need your own therapist to help you through all of the emotions you are feeling and everything you are going through as an individual.
This leads me back to the quote I chose for this post. Your cheating, but now remorseful, spouse, is going through an emotional roller coaster too. You don’t realize it and you don’t care and I don’t blame you. Nonetheless, it’s happening, and if the two of you are serious about repairing the marriage you are going to have to get to a point where you do care again.
Understanding where your spouse’s head was at the time of the affair can be a huge help in moving towards forgiveness. Ever since you were unwittingly placed in that victim role, you have stayed there. You are the injured party. You are the victim. It’s all about you. You weren’t good enough. You weren’t sexy enough. You weren’t….whatever enough. NOT TRUE. Whatever caused your spouse to cheat is a deficiency that lies within your spouse. It had nothing to do with you. It will take a long time for that to sink in but it had nothing to do with you. I t h a d n o t h i n g t o d o w i t h y o u.
Once you can remove yourself from the equation, which believe me, I know can take a very, very long time, and see where your spouse was coming from, truly understand your spouse, forgiveness isn’t too far away.
Thanks for stopping by!
I’m really not sure I could forgive a cheater. IF. and only IF it were under the circumstances you mentioned, I would at least try to work at it. But they’d need to get the hell out of my sight for awhile, and work around MY time and MY comfort level.
I agree, if a cheating spouse sincerely wants to work on repairing the marriage, it is solely on the injured spouse’s terms. Some people can never forgive an affair and I can completely understand why.
Loved this post, WOW. Spouses who take responsibility for themselves rock. The ones who make mistakes and correct them, they are keepers for life.
i think it is important to recognize that grief is the primary emotion following the discovery that your spouse has betrayed you, whether through an affair, substance abuse, gambling, domestic violence, lying…
grief comes out as anger, sadness, depression, paralysis, irritability, whatever you can think of. the grief is similar in many ways to that of losing a loved one, because, in fact, in a way you have lost a loved one — the person you believed you shared a life with. the life you loved that you shared with that person.
the grief must be dealt with first, otherwise it is impossible to make sound decisions. i am still dealing with mine, 10 years later. maybe it would take someone else less time. still with the guy too. maybe someone else would not have stayed.
have i forgiven him? no. i just can’t. yet.
Yes, dealing with your own grief and all of the emotions that I mentioned and all those that I didn’t mention do have to be dealt with. I’m not sure that finding out that your spouse has a drug or gambling problem carries the same emotions, since you are not being “replaced” by another flesh and blood person (whom you imagine to be more attractive, better in bed etc…) but I’m sure there are levels of grief attached to all of the types of betrayals you mentioned.
The only way to truly forgive an affair is to get through all of your own feelings and then, and only then, will you be able to attempt to understand what your spouse was thinking at the time, realize it had nothing to do with you, and hopefully move past it.
Hanging onto anything for 10 years is not good for you (believe me, I know because I did exactly that). It’s hurting you more than it’s hurting him, whatever the betrayal.
i don’t know, i think it depends on the circumstances. i almost wish my husband would have cheated on me — i would find that more understandable than screaming at my face that i am worthless and no wonder people hate me and i’m crazy and dragging me down the hall. i could deal with someone leaving me because they became involved with someone else. i can’t get my mind around someone turning me into their punching bag, “just because”.
normal sexual urges i get. abusive behavior i don’t. it would be easier to leave if i could just say he had an affair. people would get that. although since when have i turned into someone who cares what people think? stepford….
and i actually have known people who found out their spouses wiped out their entire life savings on gambling or drugs, or would say they were off working but were really off doing something else that was damaging to their relationship. that is a pretty big betrayal, and relationship-ending.
i do believe that it is all betrayal in the end — betrayal of the vows to love, cherish, care for, honor… sexual or not.
And for the record, I consider abuse (verbal, sexual, emotional or physical) to be in a separate category and not something I could forgive as an adult. Ever. I grew up with it and will never allow myself to be subjected to it again. You will never see a blog post from me on “forgiving your abusive spouse”. It would take only one incident. I fought off a much bigger man when I was a much littler person.
those are true words of wisdom — that is something i will be thinking about.
and really, kudos to you, for learning how to keep yourself safe. some of us don’t learn too quickly…
LOL – I didn’t learn quickly either!
Of the emotions that go along with grief, the most important and life giving one for me was anger. Directing it to the one who inflicted the harm. People who lie and are violent complicate my life … the men I have loved in this life have each suffered with some form of entitlement I think. Consequently, not one of them could acknowledge they had done anything wrong at the time: one was a cocaine addict, one was a cheater, and one was excessively abusive.
Had any of them had it within themselves, to be honest and accept responsibility, I may have remained married. Chaos brings transformation or it doesn’t.
Setting aside the question of who is guilty and how scores might be settled, ask yourself if you are still expecting the worst.
And I read these questions a few months, these made sense to me again today at your blog:
If you judge a person to be bad, how then do you deal with them? Do you harbor the unpleasantness of an experience within yourself, or do you experience it and go on? How do you deal with the one who offended you? Do you harbor the resentment and anger, or do you experience the emotion and go on? What happens to the offender? Have you chosen to ignore them, or to address them? If you address them, how do you handle what you say? How do you resolve same within self? Will you choose to truly forgive another for an offense, or will you just mutter the words without feeling?
Not everyone is capable of transforming their marriage through things like you have Cyndi. It’s truly inspiring.
These are excellent questions and ones that I struggled with for 10 years. I chose to ignore it all for a very long time. I had one foot in the door and one foot out the door. I mutered the words without feeling. I harbored anger and resentment and at the same time attempted to do it all to make sure I was “good enough”. My marriage has been transformed, but is far from perfect, and even that took many many years and a lot of soul searching, on both of our parts. As far as dealing with someone who does hurtful things, what I’ve learned is that you have to change the way you deal with them since you can’t control how they behave in any way. Once you do that, the rest follows. You either realize you need to move on or they make sufficient changes that you determine it’s worth working on.
Very interesting…. I think if I, God forbid, was in the same predicament that I would be able to forgive. Not that forgiving comes easy to me (for the record it DOESN’T) but because I understand & know my husband. That quote was so on target. When you know someone and understand that people fall short it makes it easier to embrace a sincere mistake – not the pain – but certainly the mistake. The problem is deciphering whether or not that person is truly repentant about what they’ve done to you and the marriage and whether you are determined to work for what you don’t want to lose. Certainly a great post.
Thank you. BTW…I love your new blog design but I can’t leave comments! I haven’t tried today but as of yesterday, it wasn’t working. Not sure if it’s something on my end or yours….
I found this post and the comments that followed very interesting. Cyndi, you make a very important point when you talk about people becoming a victim. Once in that role it is so hard to step out of it. The way we do it is to really get underneath what our emotions are trying to tell us. Anger always has a message – that something needs to change- and that something is within us. Once we understand what that is do not put yourself under anymore guilt trip! When we get insight into anything it gives us an opportunity to make different choices and that is what empowers us to step out of the victim role. Easier said than done sometimes and this is where counseling can help in giving you the support you need to take those first steps. By the way, I have written a book called “Finding Forgiveness: A 7 Step Program for Letting Go of Anger and Bitterness” which describes the steps to help people heal from betrayal and empower themselves to have a rich and fulfilling life.
Thank you for your comments and for letting me know about your book…yet another for my very long to-read list!
Just made an attempt to fix it – hope it doesn’t continue to interfere though – just keep trying or I’ll see you when I drop by your blog.
It’s fixed! I left a comment today.
A one-time weakness does not need to be the end of a relationship. If both parties can work through the feelings of guilt and betrayal, a marriage can survive. It may be a little different, but it can still be a strong and vibrant marriage.