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.

You’re not the one who cheated, and your partner’s decision to cheat is your partner’s responsibility, not yours.  If you contributed to it by things you did, that still doesn’t make the affair your fault.  Your partner should have talked it over with you if your behavior was so disturbing, not cheated.  You can’t eat your heart out – these things happen, and life goes on.  Your partner’s affair doesn’t diminish your value as a person.  Before you even consider forgiving your partner for the affair, you must first forgive yourself.

Don’t Keep Hurling this in Your Partner’s Face!

You’re not at fault, but if you think you’re going to hurl the affair in your partner’s face every time you too have a disagreement, then you’ll actually be more responsible for the death of the relationship than the affair was.  Reminding your partner all the time about the affair isn’t going to do much good in terms of healing your own relationship.

Get in Touch with Your Feelings

Forgiving your partner’s affair is never easy, but it’s not going to happen if you don’t get over those initial feelings of betrayal and pain.  Of course your feelings are hurt – but how do they hurt?  Are you angry?  Do you feel humiliated?  Or is it more a feeling of betrayal?  How about just “all of the above,” and more?  Understand how you feel by drawing out your emotions and examining them.

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.

At this point, you’ll be able to reflect more clearly and concentrate on the things you can do to forgive your partner rather than simply react to the affair.

Talk Things Over With Your Partner

It’s going to be one of the most difficult conversations you’ll ever have in your life, but your relationship will thrive if you do it right. With your partner – and only your partner – have an honest conversation about the cause of the infidelity. 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.

Discuss – calmly – what caused the affair.  Especially important are your feelings.  How did you feel when you learned about it?  How did your partner feel during the affair?  How did your partner feel when you found out?  Like much medicine, the truth is painful, but in the long run, it’s the best thing.  Finger-pointing, blaming each other and generally acting adolescent aren’t going to do either of you any good.

Would you prefer to be acknowledged as being right, or would you prefer to be in a happy relationship?  It’s much harder to admit that you may have been at fault and contributed to the problem than it is to insist that you were wronged.  These are some to the elements of good communication – not just raising your voice louder and louder until you’re certain your partner heard you.

Build Yourself a Relationship that’s too Good for an Affair

After you’ve thoroughly aired out the issue, you need to discuss with your partner a solid plan for moving forward. 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.

Learning to forgive a challenge is every bit as difficult as learning that your partner has cheated.  This unhappy time can be left in the past if the two of you will devote your time and energy to moving on and forging a new life 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: healing infidelity and forgive an affair.

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