After Cheating: Restoring Relationship Trust
When someone you love betrays your trust, it can feel like an insurmountable hurdle. You might feel consumed with how you can ever move past the transgression to a place of forgiveness. How will you ever trust each other again? Will they cheat on me again? Are we going to get divorced?
And if you are the one who engaged in the cheating behavior, what can you do on your part to reassure your partner?
Fortunately, surviving infidelity is completely possible for couples, but only if they're willing to put in the work. It’s important to remember rebuilding trust will take time and patience on the part of both partners, but, with sincere commitment and effort, it can be done.
Definition of Infidelity
According to Psychology Today, infidelity (cheating) is the breaking of trust that occurs when you deliberately keep intimate, meaningful secrets from your primary romantic partner.
Dr. Robert Weiss notes, “I developed this definition because it focuses not on specific sexual behaviors, but on what ultimately matters most to a betrayed partner — the loss of relationship trust. That is the crux of infidelity, and it is what must be repaired if cheaters hope to salvage a deeply damaged primary relationship.”
He adds, “In fact, after more than 25 years as a therapist specializing in sex and intimacy issues, I can state unequivocally that the process of healing a relationship damaged by infidelity begins and ends with the restoration of trust.
Moreover, to repair relationship trust, cheaters must not only come clean — in a general way, with the guidance of an experienced couple’s counselor — about what they have done, they must also become rigorously honest about all other aspects of their life, both in the moment and moving forward.”
Rebuilding trust will absolutely take time and patience. This is not a process that can be hurried. The person who has been unfaithful is going to have to prove, time and time again, that they understand the pain they have caused their partner and that they want nothing more than to repair the damage that’s been done.
The good news is there are ways this can be accomplished. The bad news is, there are mistakes that can be made by both partners that can prolong the healing process.
8 Things You Should Do If You Are Guilty of Infidelity
Sheri Meyers, Marriage & Family Therapist, TV Love and Intimacy expert, and author of Chatting or Cheating: How to Detect Infidelity, Rebuild Love and Affair-Proof Your Relationship, identifies 8 essential steps that should occur to rebuild the trust in your relationship after infidelity.
1. Call when you say you will call
Be home when you say you'll be home. Make yourself and your schedule an open book.
2. Give your partner the time and space to vent their feelings
This includes crying about what you have done, asking you lots and lots of questions, hurling a great deal of judgment and/or even raging at you. Your response is to stand strong, stay faithful, keep apologizing, and display compassion and understanding.
3. Find out what your partner needs
Do what you can do to change the situation and make it better.
4. Accept that sometimes it's going to feel like you are moving two steps forward and three steps back
One day it seems like there's hope for tomorrow, and the next day, you're sleeping on the couch again. Have a plan in place that will help you to stay calm and centered while you navigate through the inevitable bumps, obstacles, landmines and setbacks that will happen. Rather than being shocked and overreacting, be prepared to take positive action.
5. Take full responsibility for your actions and choices
This means taking a deep, hard look at why you cheated and how you can make sure you never cheat again.
6. Be sure that all promises you make are promises you keep
Your words, actions, and deeds must come from total and unwavering integrity. Simply put, what you say you're going to do, you DO. No lies. No excuses. No exceptions.
7. Practice the three A's: Affection, Attention, and Appreciation daily
Show your partner how much you love and appreciate them in big and small ways every day.
8. When you or the relationship feels like it's stuck and struggling, remember to stop and ask yourself the following question: "How would love respond?"
If something sets you or your partner off, or it feels like a cold iceberg has drifted between you or the conversation suddenly shifts from reunion to break up, be sure to do this: Lean in, look your partner in the eye, take deep, long breaths and say these words.... "I love you. You are the one I want. We matter. I am so sorry for the pain I caused you and us. It feels scary right now, but we'll get through this."
8 Things You Should NOT Do If You Are the Victim of Infidelity
1. Ask for far too many details
Even if you're dying to know how the betrayal happened, what went down, where it happened, etc., asking your partner for details is never a good idea. "Rather than feel better, [you will] feel worse because [you] now have vivid images of [your] partner in bed with someone else," says couples therapist Theresa Herring, MS, LMFT. And that can be an image that's difficult to shake.
She adds, “Feel free to ask questions. Get the info you need to know. But resist the urge to learn everything. Too many details can actually make moving on difficult, and way too painful.”
2. Be a Helicopter Partner
Many couples make the mistake of thinking that building trust means watching your partner’s every move. As tempting as it can be to do this, this will actually end up destroying trust in the long run.
If you’re checking your partner’s texts and emails, checking in with them a million times a day, tracking them on their phone, or engaging in any other behavior that involves keeping a close eye on them, you aren’t building trust. All you are doing is giving them a constant reminder that you, in fact, don’t trust them.
3. Try to figure out exactly why your partner did what they did
You might be tempted to figure out what went wrong, or which mistakes led up to the affair. But that, in and of itself, can be a mistake. "Infidelity doesn't mean the relationship was bad," says clinical psychologist Dr. Piper S. Grant. "There is this societal concept that someone cheats only if they are unhappy or their partner is not fulfilling them in some way. In fact many people cheat when they are in very happy and satisfying relationships."
So give yourselves a break, and be OK with not getting to the bottom of things. "When couples get stuck in trying to figure out 'what was wrong' as a way to make meaning of the infidelity, they may actually fail to see that there are in fact many strengths within the relationship," says Grant. Sometimes affairs just happen.
4. Ignore What Happened
One thing that’s even worse than holding in your emotions is to ignore the issue completely.
If you do this, there will constantly be an elephant in the room and you will never be able to rebuild your trust. And, you will never get down to the bottom of the underlying issue in your relationship.
Also, getting to the underlying issue can help you decide whether your partner is worth sticking with or not. For example, if they say the reason they cheated was because of something you did, and they try to shift the blame onto you entirely, it may not be worth fighting for your relationship.
5. Blame yourself
You are the victim. Your partner has betrayed you. It is not your fault. After the affair has been discovered, if your partner does try to blame you, do not accept his or her assertions. This is not to say that you have been perfect in your marriage—no one is perfect. However, your 'mistakes' are not an excuse for your partner to cheat and destroy the family.
Protect your dignity. "IT IS NOT MY FAULT MY PARTNER BETRAYED ME." Repeat this over and over again in your mind. Make it your mantra.
6. Stay in revenge/grudge mode
Your spouse already knows that what they have been doing is wrong, even if they will not admit it to you. Pointing such things out over and over again, especially after months or even years have elapsed since recovery was agreed upon, will usually only serve to push them away. It’s time consuming and counterproductive for you to concern yourself with punishing your cheating husband or wife, seeking revenge, or trying to pay him/her back for having an affair.
7. Have unreasonable expectations about how long it will take to recover
Don’t expect too much too soon. In other words, don’t think that you should heal within a certain time frame. Thinking this way will not only set you up for disappointment but it will add to your frustration, when that time is up and you are still hurting.
You need to be realistic about the enormous amount of time involved in truly healing after an affair. Recovering from the devastation of infidelity takes years of effectively working towards recovery.
Don’t let your spouse rush you. You will “get over it” and “move on” when you’re good and ready. Your partner betrayed you. Hence, they have relinquished any right to set guidelines for resolution. Pay attention to your own needs and emotions. Grieve and move forward in ways that are healthy, supported, and productive for you.
8. Give up on the relationship immediately
The first knee-jerk reaction after a betrayal is to abandon the relationship. While understandable, it’s best not to jump to emotionally-driven, rush conclusions.
Give it at least three more months before deciding. And if afterwards you still feel like leaving, then you know your decision is rational.
Statistically speaking, leaving the marriage to build a relationship with the affair partner is rarely the best solution. Shirley Glass, with decades of clinical experience curing unfaithful couples, says that the regret for not having done enough to save the marriage is extremely common.
Takeaway
While certainly not easy, a relationship can recover after infidelity. Building trust will be hard, but follow the do’s and don’ts of this article to position you and your spouse on the best path of recovery.
