5 Crucial Elements Of Moving On After An Affair
It's so hard to forgive an affair, you need to learn how. Learning that your partner's been stepping out on you can hurt as much as a physical beating. 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.
Remember, You're Not the One Who Cheated.
It may be that something you did contributed to your partner's decision to cheat, but in the final analysis remember that it was your partner, and not you, who undertook such hazardous behavior, and it can't be blamed on you. You cannot be beating yourself up over this – the fact that your partner strayed doesn't mean you're a bad person. You cannot forgive your partner until you're at peace with yourself – so go ahead and forgive yourself.
Don't Use This as Ammunition
Don't think for a moment that you're going to be able to dredge up your partner's affair and use it in every argument to come – that way lies disaster. You know things that make your partner feel bad – do you constantly bring them up to inflict pain? So why would you want to keep bringing up the issue of the affair?
Analyze Your Feelings
It's not going to be easy to forgive your partner's affair, but before you even try, you've got to get over those initial feelings of betrayal and pain. How do you feel? Do you feel angry? Betrayed? Humiliated? Everything? Times like this are the best time for letting all your emotions out.
Don't let this degenerate into an exercise in figuring out what a terrible person your partner is, or how you're always being mistreated. The point here is to examine what you feel. You pretty much know why you feel like that, and continually blaming your partner isn't going to help anything. You really should do whatever is necessary to really get it out – you can scream or cry or whatever, just get past that initial reaction. Sooner or later, you really will get past that initial reaction.
Obviously, reacting to the affair with mostly negative emotions doesn't do anyone any good; hopefully, you're now at a point where you can focus clearly and concentrate on growing together and moving forward.
Sit Down Together and Talk Things Through
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. In a quiet place with only you and your partner, have a frank and open conversation about why the affair happened. 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.
You need to find out why the affair occurred if you want to get past it – so have a civil, adult-type conversation about it. Your feelings are very important, and you and your partner need to explore thoroughly how you each felt during and after the affair, and especially when you found out about it. There's no doubt that it's hard to hear the truth. Once you're talking together, don't get defensive or engage in any other immature behavior, like blaming each other.
Would you prefer to be acknowledged as being right, or would you prefer to be in a happy relationship? It's easy to keep playing the victim card, but it's much harder to acknowledge those of your shortcomings that may have contributed to the problem, and to work to correct them. Good communication isn't just making sure you're heard – it involves a great deal of listening and opening up your heart.
Build Yourself a Relationship that's too Good for an Affair
Moving forward is the next step of your planning, but only after you and your partner have thoroughly discussed the issue. Two things you need to agree upon right away are how to avoid the type of situations that led to the affair in the first place, and how to communicate better. You can't just commit now to the relationship; you've got to commit to improving it.
Cheating, and then learning to forgive it, are two formidable challenges that come hard at you almost together. Like all sorrowful times, this can be overcome as you work together to forge new memories and good times together. Depending on the depth of your commitment to each other, you may one day look back on this episode as one of victory and joy, rather than one of pain and sorrow.
If you found this information helpful and you want to learn even more ways to move on after an affair, check out: how to heal infidelity and how to forgive an affiar.
