I was a piece of shit, I know.
You can’t, really.
If you, for the rest of your relationship, never cheat again or even give her the impression in any way that you are interested in another woman thats not her, anytime a situation arises where this might be in doubt she will question if you cheated again, even if it’s just to herself.
You broke the glass. You can glue it, but it won’t be as before.
“You broke the glass.” That’s very poetic and true.
Ask her, not us.
Ask your wife. She’s the only person who can tell you that.
She likely has not forgiven you, she is saying those words so she does not have to deal with the consequences of your actions now, but can choose her own time. The only real way to go on permanently with someone who has cheated is to stop thinking anything of them. If they cheat again it doesn’t matter, they mean nothing to you.
I dont agree with the people saying its impossible. It does take time and efford but its not impossible. I know a couple, together for about 10years at the time where he not only cheated but then even broke up to be with the other woman. It didnt last long. After about 2 years the original couple came back together - it was a slow transition of meeting because of the Child, meeting AS friends etc. It was very hard in the beginning. They did a therapy for couples which helped a lot, but still sometimes she would make a comment on the matter even a few years later. But It got less with time. By now its gone. They are one of the happiest couples i know with more trust in each other than i have Seen in other couples. Because it was an active decision to stay AS a couple. Because they had to speak a lot about their relationship after that event and went on doing so, what many couples stop with time. And the therapy surely hepled with that process. I dont know how Bad your case is. If a therapy is needed and how openly you discuss your feelings. But try to signal your wife how much this event showed you that you want her - of course only if the case. And decide together how you can fix things that lead to this event. Maybe do one date per week Where you take time AS a couple. Or one hour per week to discuss how your relationship is going what you liked what you didnt like in the Past week. Sometimes it will only take 10min and sometimes you’ll need the hour… I think something in that direction could help a lot and just proposing it shows your wife you want to change.
Ok, let me try to approach this seriously.
You need to figure out some things:- Why did you cheat
- Because you were angry with your wife?
- Because you like the other woman?
- If a similar situation arises in the future how are you going to react
- “I won’t do it again” is not a good answer. “I’m going to do X instead” is better.
You don’t have to respond to us here, think about these things and talk about it with your wife.
Why did you cheat Because you were angry with your wife? Because you like the other woman?
These are far from the only two reasons. Some people cheat because they are unhappy with their lives generally, outside of a partner, and don’t know why. Some people have impulse control issues. Substance abuse. These are not excuses, but explanations.
Couple’s therapy is often recommended after infidelity. I think it’s far more important for the person who cheated to start with individual therapy. If you don’t change your behavior you can’t rebuild trust.
Why did she forgive you? Do you think you’re worth the forgiveness? What made you think cheating on the person that put their trust in you would be something you could come back from?
Best thing you can do it walk away, and learn from it, have principles, don’t fucking betray the trust someone puts in you.
Regaining trust takes time. Often a long time. Generally, you can:
- communicate often and be specific about things; create expectations and then deliver
- accept that she has a right to be angry and mistrustful, don’t be resentful
- avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing
- ask and be considerate of their feelings; if they are uncomfortable with you doing something don’t do it even if it seems unfair or silly
They are sort of mourning the loss of the person they thought you were, and don’t be surprised by grief or rage, but it should become less over time.
Good luck.
Presumably, you cheated because you had issues going on that you at the time felt that the other person could satisfy. You should probably make an effort to go to therapy to show that you are really working on yourself.
go to therapy to show that you are really working on yourself.
More specifically, you should go to therapy to really work on yourself. Not to show anyone anything; you’re not trying to make this a performance. The change well be visible by itself, given time and work.
Past decisions aside, good on you for trying to make things better. All the best for you two!
Earning back trust takes time and openness. Be patient and attentive to her lingering fears/doubts/pain and just do your best… what that involves is for you to figure out, you know your wife better than anyone… but there’s certainly hope you can fix things if you are truly done with being “a piece of shit”
I’ve been in your position. If you really want to regain your wife’s trust, the only thing you can do is be someone who is trustworthy. The rest is up to your wife.
In my experience, the worst part of cheating isn’t the act itself. It’s starts off simple enough. You just tell some “small” lies about where you’ve been or where you’re going and your spouse most likely shrugs it off. But lies compound and suddenly you find yourself stacking lies on top of lies, trying to hold back the sea of lies. You begin to feel like the story of the dutch boy trying to plug holes in the dam with his fingers, except you built the dam and filled the sea behind it with shit. And you know if you don’t keep plugging holes all of your shit is going to come spilling out. It becomes fucking exhausting.
I looked at the person I had become at the end of my affairs (as in multiple) and I hated him. He wasn’t me. At least he certainly didn’t feel like me. At some point I decided I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
There’s a lot of merit in the phrase “the truth will set you free.” You can tear down the dam and drain the sea of lies. But when I say the truth, I mean all of it. Your wife has a right to know the whole truth, down to the last detail. To her, your life has to be an open book. She needs to be able to ask you anything and know that you will be honest with her, even if it’s something she’ll be hurt by. In fact, it’s ok to preface answers with something like, "I’m afraid my answer is going to be hurtful but if you really want to know I will tell you.
Living your life with integrity is hard sometimes but it’s still much easier than living without it.
There’s a lot of merit in the phrase “the truth will set you free.” You can tear down the dam and drain the sea of lies. But when I say the truth, I mean all of it. Your wife has a right to know the whole truth, down to the last detail. To her, your life has to be an open book. She needs to be able to ask you anything and know that you will be honest with her, even if it’s something she’ll be hurt by. In fact, it’s ok to preface answers with something like, "I’m afraid my answer is going to be hurtful but if you really want to know I will tell you.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but this should start with asking your wife if she wants to know all the details, if there’s any hard lines, if she wants specificities or an outline, or if she’d rather not know it reassess later.
As others have said, open communication is critical. It is necessary but not sufficient.
You’ve probably been thinking through why you cheated and continued to cheat. However it can be really difficult to go deep get the true answer by yourself - brains tend to generate reasons/excuses in a way that minimizes your responsibility and preserves your ego as best it can. If you try to explain what happened to your wife and give a facile or self-serving excuse, you could make things far far worse.
Many people find that the process of talking with a professional (a counsellor or therapist) can get deeper than doing this by yourself. You will get to a more profound and authentic understanding of yourself and of steps you can take to be the better person you want to become. By knowing yourself better you are able to properly apologise and explain to your wife why you betrayed her trust. You will also be able provide some evidence that you are not going to do this again. Broken trust takes a long time to repair - self discovery and improvement is a process, not a single event.
Another thing to consider is whether you and your wife can have constructive conversations about what happened and what your hopes and wants are for the future. If conversations rapidly devolve into arguments and anger, it may make things worse (but every relationship is different). If you worry that those conversations may spiral out of control, or will not be productive, I’d suggest doing this with a neutral, professional third party like a relationship councillor who can facilitate the conversation.
Those are a few ideas - they are certainly not comprehensive and YMMV.
You will get to a more profound and authentic understanding of yourself and of steps you can take to be the better person you want to become.
Simply understanding does not mean that you automatically change. Perhaps you have an anger problem because your father was a shitty person that lashed out every time something went wrong, and you unintentionally modeled his behavior. Great, now you know why you have explosive anger, but now you’ve also got 30-odd years of shitty habits to unlearn.
Understanding is only the first step, not the end.
3 day old account asking Reddit tier questions
Can’t believe you’d say it out loud, with a hard ‘R’ and all!
If you want out of the marriage, then this is the time. No point in working on a marriage you don’t want.
If you want to stay then:
Couples counselling. Seriously. It is not cheap, but it’s a lot cheaper than a divorce. It also resolves unhealthy tension and issues in the relationship. You might even get out of it with a lot better marriage than before you cheated.
Do that for a long time. Show that you care by taking initiative, and resolve this with a counsellor and your spouse.
I also believe it is possible to regain trust, and to forgive.
You did a bad thing, but don’t let it define you. Now you got to set it right, show her that you actually care about her. Do the hard work and make the relationship stronger than ever.
You should not tell anyone you cheated, if your wife does, then you have to accept that. She might feel that this affects her honor and standing amongst other people. So let her decide if people should know or not.
Anyways, good luck! Be patient and be kind. You can do it! 👍
Nobody is perfect and trust can be earned (back).
Show her you learned both what trust means and how valuable forgiving is. And not just when it’s something you need to be forgiven for.
Like others have mentioned: making it a habit to talk about everything is key. ‘Talk’ meaning to openly discuss or dialog about any issue, aka say what you think needs to be said and listen to what your spouse thinks needs to be said too, not blaming the other or venting (venting is good too, at other times). You both need to do that in order to solve any issue before it can grow into anything more serious.
Not at all coming form someone that cheated on his spouse, that is in a 25+years and counting relationship that is still growing stronger.
