How to Get Over Being Cheated On: 15 Tips from a Therapist

How to Get Over Cheating

The first step to get over cheating is deciding if it’s worth it to you to do the work of repairing your relationship, because you will need to have strong motivation to get through the pain and effort it will take.  Was the cheating a one-off situation?  Or is it part of an abusive pattern and toxic relationship? Try asking your partner questions after infidelity to gain clarity and decide on your next steps. Talking to a therapist individually might help you to figure this out.

Infidelity can be incredibly painful to deal with. It can lead to infidelity Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),  betrayal trauma, and long-term trust issues.  Infidelity can take several forms:  emotional affairs, physical/sexual affairs, sexting or other online cheating, overt flirting, among other forms.

Can relationships survive infidelity? Repairing a relationship after cheating will take commitment and hard work on the part of both partners, but it can be done.

Below are 15 ways to get over infidelity:

1. The Affair Must End

In order to heal after being cheated on, the partner who was cheating must end the affair and end all contact with the other person.¹ The partner who was betrayed will have difficulty moving forward if they know their partner continues to see or communicate with the person they had the affair with.

2.  Rebuild Trust

Rebuilding trust after your partner has cheated on you will not be easy for most.  A number of essential components to rebuilding trust have been identified through research.

Tips for rebuilding trust include:²

• Accountability and remorse by the offending partner for the pain the affair has caused
• Strong motivation and commitment to work on the relationship – on the part of both partners
• Reengaging or “opening up” and being very honest with each other not only about the affair, but also about the issues in the relationship
• Improving communication
• Forgiveness

3. Accountability/Atonement

In order to move forward following infidelity, it will be important that your partner shows genuine remorse and accountability, without defensiveness or blaming you for the affair.[^{1, 2} Honest and full disclosure regarding the affair is often necessary so that there are no more secrets.

4. Find Your Motivation

Research has demonstrated that moving forward after an affair requires both partners to be highly motivated and want to do the difficult work to repair the relationship.³

Some motivations identified by individuals trying to heal from an affair include:

• The time invested already in the relationship
• Memories of how good the relationship once was
• Financial considerations
• Impact on children
• Feeling of responsibility to work out problems
• Fear of failure

5.  Identify Relationship Issues

Getting over being cheated on requires identifying and understanding, without accusing or blaming, what the issues are in your relationship.  Reflecting on the truth of what happened, and how it happened, can help partners recognize and talk about the factors that contributed to the affair happening – while still acknowledging that the partner who cheated is wholly responsible for their choices and behaviors.

Developing and implementing strategies to address these issues together as a team, can strengthen your relationship and help rebuild trust, as well as improving positive, hopeful feelings about the relationship.

6. Engage in Couples Counseling

You might benefit from finding a couples counseling therapist to help you and your partner to identify and address the issues in the relationship, and the injury to the relationship caused by the affair.  The safe and supportive environment that a therapist provides, along with therapeutic interventions, can help you to have the difficult conversations needed to address issues and implement active strategies to repair the relationship.

7. Focus on Appreciating Acts of Kindness

If you are trying to heal from being cheated on, it can be important to notice acts of kindness your partner is making to try to atone for hurting you.  This can help to heal your heart and motivate you to move toward rebuilding trust.

If you were the one who engaged in the affair, acts of “mercy” or forgiveness in the form of kindnesses by your partner, can also be very healing to your relationship.³ Take time to notice these acts, feel their impact on you, and acknowledge your appreciation for them to your partner.

8. Improve Communication

Improving communication with your partner might mean making a concerted effort to have regular time set aside to talk, while giving each other your undivided attention. This might involve letting each other know what you want from the relationship, and working on strategies together to get there.   A couples therapist can also help address ways that the communication style in the relationship can be improved.

9. Work Towards Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not easy. It’s difficult for the non-cheating partner to forgive the partner doing the cheating, but it can also be difficult for the cheating partner to learn how to forgive yourself. If you have been cheated on, the thought of forgiveness might feel beyond your ability at the moment, especially if you view forgiveness as meaning that you will act like the affair never happened.  This approach does not address the underlying issues.  It might be more helpful instead, to view forgiveness as an intention, as well as an ongoing action.

Active forgiveness and reconciliation means you and your partner will work together, to identify and understand the truth of the issues that contributed to the affair.  Approaching this through a lens of curiosity, rather than judgment, can help.  At the same time, the pain caused by the affair needs to be acknowledged and attended to, as you rebuild trust and fortify the foundations of your relationship.

10: Manage Negative Thoughts and Memories

You might, at times, be bombarded by negative thoughts and memories related to your partner’s affair.  This is not unusual as your body and mind try to deal with the shock and grief.  You have a right to grieve.  At the same time, if these negative thoughts are allowed to run rampant, they can derail attempts to heal the relationship.

Some strategies to try to manage negative thoughts and memories include:

• Write them down in a private journal.  This allows you to get them out of your mind.
• Schedule 20-30 minutes a day to allow your body and mind to process your shock and grief.  Set a timer.  Allow thoughts and memories to come, and allow yourself to experience the emotions and physical sensations that come with them.  When you reach your time limit, shut it down and go do something else.  Shut down any negative thoughts or memories that arise outside the scheduled time by reminding yourself you will get to them during the next scheduled time.  (This can allow you to process and honor your grief and shock, while containing it).
• Engage in individual therapy so that you have a safe, supportive, non-judgmental professional to help your work through your pain, and identify ways you can support yourself through the grieving and healing process.

11.  Manage Distressing Emotions

Learning that your partner has been cheating on you can evoke very strong distressing emotions.  Anger, shame, hurt, grief, and sadness might become overwhelming at times.  Know your emotional reactions are valid and allow yourself the time and space to feel them.  At the same time, remember to separate emotions from behaviors.

Intense emotions can cause considerable distress, however, you are still responsible for your behaviors. You’ll need to learn how to control anger, how to deal with frustration, and how to manage repressed anger.  Reflect on what outcome you are hoping for (i.e., healing and rebuilding the relationship) prior to lashing out verbally or in other ways that might jeopardize the outcome you and your partner are working towards.

12. Be Patient

Be patient and kind with yourself and your partner.  Healing and rebuilding a relationship doesn’t happen overnight. There might be times when your sadness and grief over the betrayal feel overwhelming.  Know that the grief will pass over time, and that the work the two of you are doing to heal and rebuild, will make your relationship stronger than it was before.

13.  Gather Support

If you and your partner have decided you want to work on repairing your relationship, it might help to have the support of close family members and or friends.¹ You and your partner might want to share the state of your relationship with adult children and/or other loved ones, and ask for their understanding and support as you work on rebuilding.

14.  Rebuild Intimacy

Rebuilding physical and sexual intimacy following an affair will also be part of the healing process.¹ For some, sexual intimacy will only happen after significant work has been done on improving communication, rebuilding trust, and reestablishing emotional intimacy.  If you are apprehensive, you might want to start with non-sexual physical contact, and work from there as the relationship heals.

15. Don’t Feel Obligated to Stay

For some people, an affair is a deal-breaker.  If you know in your heart that this is something you can never forgive, leaving the relationship for good might be best for you. Understanding when to walk away after infidelity is important to feeling at peace with your decision. Staying when you should leave often ends up with feelings of resentment in a marriage.  Likewise, If you do not have the motivation to do the work needed to repair the relationship, you are not obligated to stay.

If the affair is part of a pattern of disrespect and abuse in the relationship, the healthiest choice for you might also be to leave the relationship for good. You have no obligation to stay in a relationship where you are being subjected to emotional, physical, sexual, and/or financial abuse.

When It Might Be Best to Break Up

There are times when, despite your intentions and efforts, it might be best to end a relationship.  You are the only one who can decide that time has come for you.

Some indicators it might be time to break up include:

• Your partner is not committed to doing the work needed to repair the relationship
• Your partner is not taking responsibility for the affair and/or is blaming you for it
• Your partner refuses to go to couples therapy with you
• You and your partner are unable to rebuild trust
• You don’t believe you will ever be able to forgive your partner
• Cheating is an ongoing pattern in the relationship
• Signs that it is an abusive or toxic relationship

Can Counseling Help with Infidelity?

If both partners are highly motivated and committed to the relationship, couples counseling can assist with repairing the relationship following infidelity.  Couple counseling provides a structured time and a safe place to better understand what happened, the issues in the relationship, relationship expectations, and the steps needed to repair the relationship.

For some, individual therapy can be beneficial in addition to couples therapy to help you to identify your own thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the affair, as well as your motivations to repair the relationships and what your expectations are going forward.  This clarity might help you to better express yourself in couples’ therapy.

If you need help finding a therapist, you might want to check out an online therapist directory.

Final Thoughts

Making the relationship a priority, trying the tips provided, and seeking individual and/or couples therapy, are ways to begin to repair your relationship after an affair. As devastating as infidelity can be, you and your partner can still choose to use this experience as a catalyst to deepen your understanding of each other and strengthen your bond over the longer term.