Dating 104: Handling A Cheating Partner

When you realise your partner is cheating on you, there are different things to consider. First and most importantly, don’t act based on emotions. Give yourself time to think it through and process. Making spontaneous decision in that situation might result to something you’d regret afterwards.

When a partner is caught in the act of unfaithfulness, it is a serious breach of trust and might be a little difficult or impossible for such trust to be rebuilt. There is the mental and emotional side effect that stays with you for a lifetime, makes you question your personal qualities and self-worth and could change your personality for a while.

Know that there is never a positive justification for cheating. You did that for an advantage that either lasted few minutes or more. So moving forward, it should be a case of you being remorseful or unrepentant.

However, cheating is relative. From holding of hands or showing affection or emotion to the opposite sex in the absence of your partner, that is cheating. But going to the extreme of having sexual relationship with someone asides your partner is going a little overboard.

Peradventure you find yourself in the web of a cheating partner, here are some realist points on how to handle them.

1. Either you find out your partner is cheating or they told you, you should not rush into making decision on what to do next. Take your time to process the whole scenario and communicate with your partner when you are ready. Don’t force communication either and don’t push too much. Hold a conversation, understand why they dabbled into such act of infidelity. They may not know why they did, it might be a medical or emotional disorder, stress or poor communication. Help them understand not believe their excuse for what it is.

2. The person being cheated on is shattered emotionally, seeing that they committed so much to you and the relationship. It is left to the victim to decide if they want to re-establish trust. After the conversation, was your partner remorseful or did they glory in their infidelity? Are they willing to make amends? Can you sense such traits in them or you sense the tendency that they might continue in the act? Instincts can be undeceiving sometimes. Whatever you do, do at your own pace with no pressure.

3. In re-establishing trust, forgiveness steps in. Forgive and not punish. Your partner admits it already and you are willing to trust them again, so forgive them but on your terms. Request that communication with the third party be caught off. If they are truly repentant, they will do at least that. This could also cause a change in lifestyle for the cheating partner but if you really mean much to them, they will do whatever it is to keep what they have with you going.

4. Whatever happened has been dealt with and so you need to move on. Build a better relationship with your partner. Feelings won’t be the same but with time, it’ll change. Just give both of you a chance to be a thing again. Encourage your partner to be better, be considerate about eachothers needs, encourage them to be more open and just genuinely show your feelings to them. It’ll definitely hurt but don’t resent them too much.

5. In case you can’t handle it alone, you could seek counsel from relationship experts and in a situation where your partner’s act of infidelity is due to an health disorder, an expert in that regard should be consulted too.

6. Most importantly, know when to end the relationship if it’s not working anymore. When you fight too much, argue a lot, can’t seem to find the strength to forgive or trust your partner anymore. Rather than forcing it to happen just call it a quit.

Healing from this kind of hurt might be a little hard but you need to heal. If it’s taking too long, seek help, talk to someone. Talk to a friend or family member, they will help. And even if they don’r have the right answers to your questions, you talking about it is the first step to healing. Don’t bottle up such. Talk to someone about it.

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