6 Ways to Rebuild Trust After Cheating by contributor, Content Geek.
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So, you’ve cheated on your partner. The knowledge has come out. At the end of it all, you’ve decided to stay together and try to rebuild. How do you do that? How do you put the relationship first, especially as the partner who cheated? If you want to continue this relationship, you need to make a concerted effort to do so. Here’s how you can do that.
1. Truly Understand Your Partner’s Feelings
Your partner’s probably dealing with a lot of negative emotions. Some of those emotions are probably targeted at you. It’s easy for this to feel like an intentional attack. Try to avoid the urge to fire back, however. Let your partner have those emotions, as long as they’re not being abusive toward you. As you rebuild trust, those emotions will fade.
2. Tackle the Root Problem
There’s a reason you cheated. You may not even personally know the reason, but there’s a reason behind every decision, even ones made in the heat of the moment. What drove you to make this decision? What’s driving you to make sure you don’t repeat it? Whether this requires couple’s counseling or just lots of introspection, make sure you know the thing that caused this in the first place.
3. Don’t Lie, Even About the Little Things
When you lie to your partner, you’re getting more and more comfortable with lying. That can spiral into very big lies, even ones regarding cheating. Make it a point not to lie. If you’ve had problems with compulsive lying before, consider making an explicit agreement with your spouse that you can always correct a lie, even a white lie. If you realize you’ve lied, state that to your partner, then state the truth. You may be surprised at the impact it makes.
4. Make Sure You’re Honest About the Cheating
It’s very hard to talk about the cheating incident, especially if you feel genuinely guilty about it. However, your partner deserves to know the whole story, even if it hurts both of you. Your partner may want you to tell the story step-by-step, or they may not want to hear exactly what happened. Either way, when your partner asks questions about what happened, don’t hide the truth because you’re worried about causing pain. Be open and honest, even about this painful topic.
5. Don’t Treat the Relationship Like a Negotiation
You’re going to run into negotiation-like issues in this relationship. If you want to go out with friends, your partner may ask that you say when you’ll be home and keep to it. However, don’t turn the whole relationship into a negotiation. At the end of the day, you’re staying together because you love each other. That should be your guiding principle. Avoid the temptation to argue your way into a better situation, because that’s not going to work.
6. Take Steps to Show You’ve Changed
You have to actively show that you’ve changed. You can’t just leave it to a passive set of behaviors. Reach out to your partner in a way that shows you’ve changed. For example, if you met the other person through your phone, you may want to give your partner access to your phone records. Your partner can run contact numbers through an online people search to know exactly who you’re talking to.
Conclusion: Your relationship can survive cheating. Even though not every relationship can get through that storm, if you’ve chosen to try, you can do it. However, it requires a lot of hard work on both sides. You need to be willing to accept your faults. Whether it’s because you drank too much, you were jealous, or you wanted to get back at your partner for a slight, you did something with lasting consequences.
If you’re willing to let your love keep you together, you can make it through this. Building trust is hard, but if you take it one day at a time, it’s possible.
Read another popular post: Don’t Ever Apologize For Loving Someone – Not Ever!
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