How to Forgive Someone for Cheating

How to Forgive a Cheating Spouse?

Infidelity of a loved one is a heavy and quite a painful blow. Some try to forget the past and move on, finding a new partner, new love, new experiences. Yet some feel compelled to forget their partner. It’s a very hard thing to do, yet it can potentially unite you back together if both of you realize all of the work that has to be done. Today we will answer the following questions, “How to forgive someone for cheating?”, “How to forgive emotional cheating?” and “How many times should we forgive?”

Do not try to talk till you calm down

How to forgive someone who hurt you? This is the most important part of the entire process. There are numerous downsides to trying to rebuild a relationship when it broke apart. However, if you want to do it properly, in a healthy and rational way – you should give yourself some time.

Give yourself some free space

To be able to look back and analyze your broken love, it’s better to relax, clear your mind and think of what should happen next, how should you act? Professional psychiatrist and marriage agency director Maria Wong strongly recommends taking some much-needed time off to those couples who want to heal their love and be able to move on without any harsh feelings towards each other.

Ask yourself if you are capable of complete forgiveness

How to forgive someone who broke your heart? This is the first question that you should ask yourself, and no further work can be done if the answer is no. And don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything wrong in saying no because you are not anyone else’s slave, you are a free individual with your goals and desires. However, what if the answer to this question is yes? Tracy Cox says that stepping over infidelity will be much harder for those whose parents have experienced a harsh breakup of their relationships after their own infidelity. It will be harder for them to come to this, but it is still possible to allow them to regain trust in the future.

Reestablish friendship

How to forgive a cheater? It is naive to expect your relationship to return its normal state, just as it was back in the good old days. Don’t play with this idea, don’t disappoint yourself. This doesn’t mean that everything is lost, but it will take a lot of effort and patience to reestablish what has been broken. In order for you two to move on, you have to become friends again, and you shouldn't jump into the same bed after one successful dialogue, give it some time.

The key word is the responsibility

While a couple may not realize that two of them need to work hard to heal their mutual life, it’s exactly what they need. Because, when you rationally think about it, infidelity is a sign of a problem in a relationship, problems can and should be fixed, these problems may lie on the surface.

Ryan says that it is quite helpful to work side by side, as a unit, arrange calm dialogues on why it has happened and what led one or both partners to infidelity, and try to rationally discuss why it all has come to be this way, what should be fixed in order to move on.

Do not be afraid to establish basic rules

Here’s yet another tip on how to forgive and move on. You have to make up some new rules to help restore your confidence again. The one who got cheated on needs some time to regain their normal psychological state. Focus and think of what specifically caused you all the anger and frustration in your partner’s actions.

Yet remember that this won’t solve the problem, at least in most of the situations. A cheater may try harder to repeat their actions on you and go out of their way to hide it from you.

If your partner seems uninterested in all of the new rules that have been established in front of them, all of the new lengths to which they have to go to regain your trust – there is no point in wasting your time on this person.

How Long Does It Take to Forgive a Cheating Spouse?

Now that you know how to forgive and forget, let’s answer the question of how long will it take for you two to move on.

Have patience

No matter how much you want to believe it, your love will not travel back in the past, and the restoration of your normal relationship will take some time.

How long does it take to forgive a cheating spouse? A long time, some may even require years for such a giant step. Whether or not this is a step forward or back is a completely different thing. If you want to fix it faster – strive for establishing a rational dialogue, try to hotfix all the issues that have bothered you and your partner.

Be patient and remember why all the positive aspects of the character that you liked in a person when you met them. You must try your best not to accumulate anger and negativity, what’s done is done, try to analyze a situation with as much rationality as possible.

Once you will find yourself in a relatively normal state of mind, it will mean that you’ve got over infidelity, and you are ready to love again, to feel the world around you and not to be bothered by the images of the past – only then you should think about approaching your ex.

How to Forgive Someone Who Isn't Sorry?

It takes little effort to offend someone, yet not everyone can sense their guilt in a situation. The most difficult thing is to learn to forgive, in spite of all the pain you have suffered. Nevertheless, if you succeed in this, you will suffer less and recover faster from this pain.

We are not able to control other people's actions, but with the help of certain practices, we can control how we react to them. How can you forgive someone who doesn’t seem to be sorry? Here are some tips on this issue.

1. Focus on yourself

A big percentage of people forget about their own interests in relationships, especially when it comes down to giving second chances and establishing long-term commitments. Yet the only way to properly move on with your life or try to heal your old relationship is to heal yourself first. As we’ve said, it will take a long time for you to escape the prison of anger and be able to look back with a clear and open mind.

2. Answer for your feelings

How to forgive someone who keeps hurting you? The words and actions of other people can hurt us. When we learn to forgive, we must also learn to answer for our own feelings. At first, it will be difficult, and you will blame others for what you feel. You must understand that by continuing to hold a grudge, you hurt yourself even more.

3. Recognize your influence on the situation

This step is the most monumental one that a person can take in personal development and love. Our Ego wants us to feel resentment and at the same time, not to find anything wrong in our actions. The truth is that everything has two sides. Remember that love involves two individuals, both of which have their own feelings, and an act of infidelity is a reaction to something that went horribly wrong in your mutual feelings. Be ready to open up your eyes to your own personal guilt, don’t fear it.

4. Stop living in the past

We know how hard this should be, we would not be writing this article if we haven’t gone through it ourselves. The most important thing in this entire process, no matter whether you want to forgive your partner for what they have done or not, is to learn to move on. Here’s a thing, you will find yourself doing something else in just a few months and thinking about something completely else. Look at the absurdity of the fact that it will all go away, and you should just accept it. Consider this way of thinking about the future.

5. Talk to someone you trust

It is important to have a good friend who will let you to get it all out there, to let you speak and not get accused of anything. Another point of view can help you see what you are not noticing. People around you can advise you how to learn to forgive as well as share similar stories from the past that will inspire you.

To learn to forgive, you will need a lot of time and patience. Be softer with yourself. Work hard to let go of the past, even if it means taking small little steps. Over time, you will find that the actions of other people are beginning to influence you less, and you will gain freedom.

The last important thing to mention is this: how many times should I forgive? As a rule, one instance of cheating should be enough for a person to change their ways, and we would not recommend anyone to tolerate a person who has cheated on them more than once.

How to Forgive Yourself?

The first thing that usually occurs inside a person who has cheated on their partner is a painful sense of guilt. This is one of the basic human feelings, which then affects their perception of the world, behavior, and thinking. For some, the feeling of guilt is a productive state, a stimulus for deep self-analysis, the motivation to “work on your own mistakes,” while for others it is a destructive, painful feeling that literally “eats away” a person from the inside. The first thing that you need to decide for yourself when have faced with your own infidelity is to realize that the feeling of guilt should be “transformed” into a productive one, otherwise, it can seriously destroy not only your current relationship but also you as a person. Subconsciously launching the “self-destruction” program is not the best thing you can do for your body and mind.

Yet it was not just an accident, it was a conscious decision in which you were wrong, and certainly, it does not mean that it will be easy to do. But for a start, it’s enough to decide and talk it over with yourself, “I take responsibility for this act, I’ll deal with it internally to survive it. I will not destroy myself, I still love and respect myself as a person, despite what I have done.” Someone is strong enough to go through this alone, someone will need the help of a psychologist: everyone chooses an option that is acceptable to them.

How do you forgive yourself? Have pity for your inner child, as a wise parent does, “I don’t love what you did, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you anymore.” Agree with your inner parent, "I will not torment myself because of this, I will find a way to move on," agree with the inner adult, "I accept my actions, I realize my guilt, I am ready to move on."

The best way to atone for one’s treason is to admit one’s own mistake, analyze its causes, forgive oneself for such an act (even if a partner couldn’t or didn’t want to do it) and get a push, a stimulus for change. You can do this, as it has already been mentioned, by yourself or with the help of a specialist. A person is measured not by the ability to avoid making mistakes (I make them in absolutely everything), but by the ability to adequately get out of an unpleasant and painful situation with fewer losses for oneself and their loved ones. To make yourself and your partner happy, to step over the corpse of your mutual agony and frustration – you have to learn some lessons, accept your actions and not commit them in the future.