Discover how to heal after being cheated on with these 5 essential tips. Overcoming infidelity can be a painful process, but by remembering these key points, you can begin to move on and find closure.
We all know that only a few things are as hurtful and emotionally devastating as a romantic partner straying away from their fidelity. It’s one of those painful experiences that can force out lots of negative emotions and feelings from one.
Because apart from feelings that make one question the core of his or her identity, feelings of being betrayed, and even the ones that make one extremely stressed, anxious, and depressed, it can make one so disorganized and messed up to forget the most important things to always remember when in pain of being cheated on.
Experiencing the betrayal of being cheated on can feel like enduring intense pain, shaking your trust, and making you question the fairness of such a hurtful experience despite your honesty and faithfulness. It can even cause you to lose focus and interest in everything that mattered to you. However, understanding how to heal after being cheated on is crucial, and there are a few things you must never forget during this painful journey.
Because they’ll make it easier for you to not deal with the pain of being cheated on but will also make it more likely for you to recover and get over everything easier and quicker than you’ll otherwise do should you ignore them.
That being said, here are five things you should always remember if you’re in pain of being cheated on.
1. It’s not necessarily about you.
So your heart is filled with not just the pain of being cheated on, but also bursting with self-blaming maybe’s where you’re practically looking for reasons to pin your partner’s infidelity on yourself?
Let’s be honest; a lot of us also do.
As soon as we learned that our partners have strayed away from their fidelity, we rationalize, muse over, and try to make sense of everything. We wrack our brains to figure out where things went wrong. And we mostly end up blaming ourselves for our partners’ conscious decisions to disrespect us.
No doubt, self-blame is a common response to traumatic experiences, and for some of us, it has been a survival mechanism or response we developed growing up: We easily blame ourselves with thoughts such as “I’m not good enough” or “I’m unlovable” when our caregivers somehow failed to meet our needs, instead of seeing things for what they were — They were incapable of meeting our needs.
And hence, we’ll end up blaming ourselves to make us feel better about the whole situation. The same thing happens when we find our partners cheating.
But the truth is, even though our sole intentions are to feel better or cope better with the pains of being cheated on, blaming ourselves is just one of the worst ways to do so.
Blaming yourself for inadequacies, unattractiveness, or things you failed to do can lead to a dark spiral of intrusive thoughts, often seen with anxiety and depression. Understanding how to heal after being cheated on involves breaking this cycle and fostering self-compassion.
That’s why you don’t have to get yourself drowned in a pool of self-blaming anxiety because of a cheating partner’s conscious acts of disrespect that has 100 percent more things to do with them than it has to do with you.
It could be because they wanted to experience the thrill of something new, they couldn’t deal with some problems within the relationship, or they had abandonment issues right from childhood … All of which have nothing to do with you. It’s just the level of their maturity and ethics.
Ultimately, understanding how to heal after being cheated on starts with recognizing your own worth. While you were focused on building a future together, they were immature and broke their promises. It all comes down to differing levels of maturity.
Also read: 9 Simple Ways To Stop Loving Someone Who Doesn’t Love You Back
2. Forgiving them is very vital.
The outcome of your life aftermath of the affair of a cheating partner is often determined by what you do with the anger and resentment that came as a result of their infidelity.
Whether you decide to continue with the relationship or not, both are valid choices. What truly matters is how to heal after being cheated on and whether the experience feels liberating or enslaving to you.
Did you choose to “forgive” and continue with the relationship only to be wallowing in bitterness, resentment, hostility, hate, or even fear of being hurt again?
Or did you choose to move on with your life only to be carrying with you all the baggage that’s full of unforgiving emotions from the experience?
These are some of the ways a lot of people deal with traumatic experiences like being cheated on by a romantic partner.
They, in either or both ways, hope to put the experiences behind them and make way for better and more meaningful experiences and partnerships that are full of love, honesty, loyalty, and respect, only to be sabotaging everything themselves.
Understanding how to heal after being cheated on is crucial, as the subconscious attachment to past traumas can unknowingly sabotage the relationship they hoped to salvage or negatively impact new connections with others.
That’s why you’ll need to choose to forgive a cheating partner and let go of the anger, resentment, and other negative emotions they triggered even when you will be breaking up with them.
Because when you do, you won’t ruin your subsequent relationships because someone cheated on you before. And even if you stay back, you won’t ruin what might have been one of the best romantic partnerships you’ll ever enjoy because you can’t let go of your partner’s transgression. Sure, it isn’t easy, but you have to do it because of yourself.
Read also: Four Reasons Why Some People Have It Hard Falling In Love
3. Never try to suppress or act on your feelings but do this instead.
Like what we saw in the previous point, carrying with one the counterproductive and enslaving anger and resentment of being cheated on is one of the worst ways to deal with such experiences.
Refusing to forgive and let go of the mistake an ex or current partner made only harms oneself and potentially their partners. Learning how to heal after being cheated on is crucial to moving forward and finding peace.
Now, maybe you might not be consumed by the anger, bitterness, and other negative emotions associated with the experience of being cheated on. But suppressing your emotions or even acting on them doesn’t make you any better.
And you know what’s funny about suppressing your feelings or acting on them? They won’t only give you delusional feelings that you’ve gotten over everything, but might eventually mess up your dating and love life thereafter.
Want to stand a better chance of enjoying a better, deeper, and more meaningful love life after the traumatic experience of being cheated on?
Be patient, kind, and fair enough to yourself to walk through your feelings and gradually, but eventually and completely heal from the traumatic experience.
When learning how to heal after being cheated on, it’s important to walk through your feelings. Acknowledge that feeling disappointed or betrayed is normal, and allow yourself to move through the stages of grief—shock/denial, anger/defiance, depression, remorse, and acceptance. By doing so, you’ll avoid acting in ways that could sabotage your love life and relationships due to suppressed emotions.
And on the other hand, you won’t make the mistake of jumping too early into new relationships or even becoming a serial cheater yourself — By choosing the quickest path to avoid pain or being hurt, and even hurting others instead.
Because the truth is, nothing beats going through the painful but worthwhile process of self-heal.
Also read: 5 Signs Someone Never Really Loved You
4. It doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be permanent.
A lot of us naturally have the worst beliefs, views, or mindsets toward pain. We often think of pain as the effects of unfortunate events that’ll last forever after their occurrence.
When we are experiencing pain, we often feel like we’ll never be comfortable again and like the pain will never go away.
The truth of the matter is that they’re very few pain that’ll never go away — If there are at all. Meaning that most pains aren’t permanent and will go away as long as the affected victims hang on until they gradually and completely heal.
Healing after being cheated on might take significantly less time than you imagine. Often, understanding how to heal after being cheated on involves actively seeking to heal, knowing that the pain won’t last forever unless you let it.
The latter is the case for people who’ve ruined a lot of their relationships and are still sabotaging their love lives because someone, some time ago, disrespected them by straying away from their fidelity — They’re still prisoners of the traumatic experience and subconsciously want to remain there forever.
But if you want your case to be not just different, but more than better, you’ll need to see the pain for what it is: Something that’s temporal. And hence, honor your feelings and emotions, feel everything but don’t stay there for too long. You might want to lean on your family or friends for support. Talk to them about your feelings and everything.
And don’t forget self-care. It can be a very rewarding and worthwhile coping strategy that’ll eventually boost your healing process. Music, meditation, relaxation, or time in nature can do unimaginable wonders. And last but not the least, be patient. Take things one day at a time as you recover because all of these will eventually make everything pass away whether you continue with the relationship or not.
Also Read: 7 Really Small Things that Will Tell if You’re with the Right Person
5. It can be a life-changing cause of transformation.
How often do you think of unfortunate events or situations as the worst possible things to have ever happened to you?
Chances are: You’ve always thought so of all the ill-fortunate things that have ever happened to you. And you might even be thinking so of your partner’s infidelity.
And the thing is, while it’s unimaginably painful to be cheated on by a romantic partner one loves so much, most times, it often turns out to be everything but the worst possible thing that has no good sides at all.
Even though it might not always seem so immediately after you learn about a cheating partners’ infidelity, it can be the reason for a life-changing transformation or greater experience.
I know a lot of couples whose relationship, love, and bond experienced a transformational turnaround after making up again following the infidelity of one partner.
And sometimes, people end up in better relationships with even better partners that are just better in all ramifications compared to their cheating ex.
Sure, for the former to be a reality, both parties must be willing to make things work better from the deepest parts of their hearts enough to put in the necessary work. But the affair of the cheating partner is the main wake-up call for them to work towards having a better and healthier relationship.
And for the latter, the key turning point might be the decision to end things and make way for something better.
In both cases, learning how to heal after being cheated on can be a blessing in disguise. Amidst the painful experience, it’s important to remember that there’s always a brighter side to every difficult situation. Being cheated on is no exception.
