Trust and Cheating - Can a Relationship Recover from Infedelity?
- have confidence or faith in
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- reliance: certainty based on past experience
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- allow without fear
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- believe: be confident about something
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- the trait of believing in the honesty and reliability of others
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- hope: expect and wish
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- faith: complete confidence in a person or plan
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- confidence: a trustful relationship
Lies break trust, and don't think that just because you only tell part of the truth that this means you are not lying. Telling someone what they want to hear - or what you want them to hear, however founded in the truth, if it is not the complete truth, it is still a lie.
Cheating breaks trust. Cheating is the ultimate trust breaker - one it is difficult if not impossible to come back from, because not only was there a lie, but there was a total and complete abuse of faith and trust placed in a person.
Cheating usually comes with lies too - so not only does one cheat, but one lies about the cheating to cover up the indiscretion. And then the lies get bigger and the trust gets more abused - and this snowball effect comes into play - and it's nearly impossible - if at all, to recover from cheating. No trust. No faith.
No chance to "allow without fear."
If they have cheated - do you want to know? Is ignorance truly bliss this time? Can you ever look at the past the same if you realize that there was a break of trust there...will the memories ever be the same again? Would you want them to be the same?
When it comes right down to it - it's not the cheating that hurts. It is the break of trust, the loss of faith, the changing of perspectives that destroys the heart and brings the anger. It is the realignment of perceptions that really stings the most, when you go back over everything that happened and wonder what was real and what was illusion. That's what hurts.
It's when the good memories are stripped from you because the truth changes the perspective that hurts. The cheating doesn't hurt - it's the loss of the dream, the loss of faith, the loss of trust - it's seeing someone you love in a light that makes you hate what they've done...and the duality of holding the love and the hate in the same place in your heart at the same time.
Hating someone actually hurts less than saying, "I don't love you anymore." Saying that hurts less than saying, "I trusted you and now I don't."
I have a friend I speak to about the philosophical things in life...a friend I do not always agree with, but whom I respect his opinion, even when different than mine. I spoke to this friend this morning about trust. He said we don't need to know the whole truth to make decisions - effectively, when you know someone has cheated on you, you just needed to make the decisions based on the information you have - cut your losses and move forward.
To my friend, I mentioned something about learning from my mistakes.
He asked me what my mistake was. I said, "Trusting again."
He told me that trusting wasn't a mistake, that you have to go into every relationship and extend the trust, no matter the risk. The mistake would have been not trusting.
He's right. (and I don't admit that to him often), but he is right. You can't come at a perspective when someone has cheated on you and ask, "What did I do wrong."
There is nothing you did so wrong that warrants someone cheating on you. If the relationship is bad, if you did do something wrong, then the other person has the right to talk to you, to confront you, or if worse comes to worst, to leave you...but he or she doesn't have the right to cheat.
Cheating is the cheater's mistake - not yours. You did nothing wrong that deserve you having been cheated on. Even if you made mistakes in the relationship, even if you withheld intimacy, even if you and your partner fought constantly, there is nothing that justifies cheating - period.
Nothing.
The other party can leave, break it off, ask for a divorce, or do any number of other things in response to a relationship gone bad, but cheating is never an acceptable solution.
But the question I have to ask is - can you recover from the cheating - yes. Can you recover from the loss of trust and ever be able to extend it - to "allow without fear" ever again?
I don't think so, at least not to that person. But one cannot judge other people by the mistakes that the people from our past have made. That isn't fair.
Barbara De Angelis was once quoted as saying, "If he cheats once, get help. If he cheats twice get out."
Not bad advice, really, because sometimes one can make a mistake and realize all they stood to lose in choosing to cheat. When that happens, if the party who cheated realizes this, makes amends, and comes back together to the relationship with total honesty, that relationship could actually become stronger than it was before, because they will realize just what they stood to lose and will do everything in their power not to lose it again.
However, if the cheater cheats again, then it's time to let go and move on to better relationships. There can be no trust without faithfulness, no trust without lies, no trust without cheating, and where there is not trust, there is no chance to "allow without fear" again.
Published by Michy Lynn - Featured Contributor in Health & Wellness
Michy is an author & freelance writer, with a penchant for fiction, creative nonfiction and topics that pique her passion: alternative medicine, animals & pets, love & relationships, and her all-time favorit... View profile
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46 Comments
Post a CommentAbout cheating. What you say is true. It is a like. It is an extreme breaking of trust and almost impossible to reconcile. But I do think almost is the word here. If the partner has had multiple cheats, I can see where there might not be hope. But if the couple really love each other and want to make a go of it, we shouldn't discourage them. It's up to the 2 people involved.
One thing they can take a look at is a book about that very thing. Easily available. on the Internet.
Hi am married for 6 years and I found out that my husband cheated on me that he has a woman that pegnant for five months. He hurt me so much but he ask for forgiveness and I forgave him but it's hard to trust him again.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself". Well, fear kept me in a bad marriage for 10 years. I found out my husband cheated 7 years into the marriage. My son was a new born and I decided to stay. Bad choice! I told myself that if I were to get back with him I would be the best wife, lover and mother. I did my best... but it was never good enough! A couple of months before our 10th anniversary, I caught him a second time with a girl much younger!!! My self-esteem too a beating, I didn't understand. I decided to get divorced & left him everything including our house. Our divorce is final and now he comes along begging and pleading. I have to admit I hate being single but I also enjoy not having someone nagging me about pointless irrelavant stuff. I sometimes feel alone but not enough to allow him back and nothing a glass of wine with a good friend can't fix. What I learned the most is that I am worth more than his lies and a relationship with myself and God is mu
i just found out that my gf was back on this dating site witha profile that we met on , we have been togeather a year and had some issues lately as she seemed distant and also spending time around a friend of mine and saying nothing going on , well i asked her why she needed to be back on the dating site and if i could see the emails , she sidetracked it and wouldnt answer me . i saw her last nite in the driveway with this guy , i am so hurt as she told me nothing was going on and to give her trust , she wsnt like my ex who also cheated and thats what made me suspicous, i cant forgive her
My husband cheated on me after exactly 7.5yrs and no I did not see it coming. I am not the average twenty something self involved wife. I have devoted my life to our relationship. Moving around the world with him. Raising our special needs child. I am an excellent cook and housekeeper. I have been charming and graceful at his stupid work functions which I hate. I have had tunnel vision. Never even eyeballing another man. Oh by the way I am pretty well thought of as a knockout. No weight gain, Always attractively put together, 100% devoted to my man and he hooks up with some overweight nasty mexican skank. Not because anything was lacking at home, but because as it turns out he is less than a respectable human being . He is disgusting and not worth me. His low self esteem ruined our family. Heres a tip guys sex with a grade f woman wont make you a stud. It just means you will put it in any hole you find. I am going to kick my husbands *$$ in the divorce. He earned it.
My Husband Jeff and I will have been married 26 years in April this year. When we were married 7 years he had an affair. I forgave him and "I" went through counceling to help me get through the pain of it because I wanted to keep our marriage together for our three children at the time. Now we are much older and our children are grown and I can't understand why he would throw away 26years away like this. He didn't actually sleeep with my sister, thank god but he wrote her. He told her how good she looks now that she lost alot of weight. Then through a few more emails he ends up asking to meet up with her some where when she came to town. I was totally out of my mind when she finially told me that he had been writting her this stuff. I Just don't know what to do anymore. It took so long to trust him again after the first time, I don't know if I can go throught this again with him and with my sister, I love him...I can't just turn that off. But how can I ev
Me and BF been tow year now,I met him, after a year of relationship i found out that he was cheating with a girl he has introduced to me as a class mate.The thing that hurt me the most is not only him cheating,but cheating with someone that we all live in the same apt building.After i realized he was cheating, i separated from him and move to me own apt.A month later he called me that he was ready for a change and i should him, i accepted because of the love i had for him.After three month,i went to visit him again in his apt and i met the same girl he cheated with before with him.I decided to leave and promise not accept him again.After a few months, he called me that he wanted to explain something to me,i invit him over to my apt,he confess to me that not that he dont love but fact is the girl promise him money to start his business so i should give him time to get the after which i will come back to me.should i accept him, please help
how can you trust him if you still love and hate him at the same time. he told me he was going to leave me for her he didnt but the sec time i saw them in her car just talking but i cant trust him now more then never help me what can i do
this is an amazing article. I have, myself, been cheated on several times by ex boyfriends and have had many trust issues with my current partner. This helped me a lot to open my eyes to whats real and whats not. Sometimes, you have to forget about what you want and go for what you deserve and never be afraid to say 'enough'. Good things fall apart so better ones could come together.
ok my boyfriend use to go out with my best friend over the summer now that we are to geter at this summer camp they went out then she domped him and now he is going out with me but he does act like he likes me but he tells me that im so speical to him and he loves me but when he gets around his friends he says that we are not togeter and when i ask him about he lies when his friends are right there saying he is lying. i belive that he likes my friend more than me . what should i do