Cheaters. Being unfaithful is one way to break the trust of your significant other, not just because the person shared an intimate moment with someone else, but also because the person showed an utter lack of regard and respect for their significant other.
There are many reasons for cheating, and none of them are valid. No matter how inattentive your partner is, no matter how abusive, or lazy, or how angry they make you, or how drunk you were, there is no excuse for cheating. If you’re unhappy, leave. If you’re not sexually satisfied, TELL your partner. If you’re drunk, call a cab and GO HOME.
Is there life after cheating? Yes, absolutely. Is there life after cheating with the person who cheated? No. If you so choose to stay in a relationship with that person, you will never trust them again. Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never.
I tried to make it work in relationships where they cheated. I tried to forgive. I did my best to believe it would never happen again, that he loved me, that it was a mistake. Did I ever forget? No. In fact, I spent most of our time together analyzing every single move he made. Every single time he picked up his phone it was, “Who are you texting? Who called you? Who was that?” Every time he left the house, “Where are you going? When will you be home? Who will you be with?” No matter what his answer was, no matter how often I knew the truth, I could never believe a word that came out of his mouth.
There was no trust left. I simply sat around, thought about the what-ifs, compared every move to when he had cheated before, and could not stop picking at everything for all the “red flags” that he was cheating again. With no trust, there can be no relationship. No one wants to live like that.
My husband experienced something similar with his ex-wife. She had an affair, he confronted her, she lied and he gave her the benefit of the doubt. When he had evidence and she confessed, he thought he was done. He attempted to give her another chance, to forgive and forget, but he couldn’t.
Instead of letting it go, he began to prepare for the worst, setting aside money to move out in case it went wrong, having a plan on what to do once he started noticing the “cheating signs” again. I suppose in the end, when she started up another affair, it worked for him. He was able to make his get-away in a reasonably smooth manner, with little conflict and relatively no chaos.
It didn’t make things any easier, after the fact, however. Not because he missed her, but because the trust was gone and when you try to force trust where there is none, it scars you. It doesn’t mean you can’t trust another person again, but it does make it harder. If it weren’t for the fact that he and I were both scarred with shared understanding of how devastating being cheated on can be, we might not have been able to understand and appreciate the trust we had in each other. We might not know exactly how to maintain that trust to build a strong, solid foundation for our marriage.
That leads me to a flip-side of the conversation. Can you have a trusting, upright relationship with someone if you were the one doing the cheating? What if you’re cheating, and you decide to have a relationship with the person you’re cheating with? Can your relationship have trust?
I’ve never been that person, so I can’t say first hand. I do know that any relationship I’ve seen where the couple got together due to cheating has been very hectic and full of accusations. The cheater is constantly on the defensive, trying to prove themselves, holding on to guilt because they know they got into the relationship in the wrong way. The other person is constantly wondering, “Well they’re with me because they were cheating on their spouse. Are they going to cheat on me that same way?”
I can’t say it’s impossible to build that trust, but I can say it’s always in the backs of their minds as they go through life. The person who cheated is always afraid karma is going to bite them in the ass, so they cling to their significant other, becoming controlling and paranoid that if they were capable of it, their significant other might be too. The partner is feeling smothered, but at the same time terrified that the pattern might repeat itself, except instead of being the one who is being cheated with, they’re the ones now going to be cheated on.
Trust is a fragile thing. It can be easy to come by in the beginning, but even easier to lose. Once it’s gone, it’s almost impossible to regain. The secret to a happy marriage? Trust, honesty and laughter.
Don’t begin a relationship with dishonesty. If you’re not happy, leave. If you meet someone that you think might be a better fit for you, break up with the person you’re with first. Tell them the truth, and walk away with your head held high, knowing that you did everything right.
Only then can you move forward into your future with a clean slate, guilt free, with trust intact. Believe me, I know from experience, it will provide a happy, trusting, comfortable, and above all, healthy, happy relationship. And how many people do you see each day on facebook begging for one of those?