What to Do If You Find Out That You Have Been Deceived
By the most conservative estimate, cheating occurs in about half of all relationships . Cheating can be a very painful experience and it can be difficult to know what to do after the initial discovery. Here’s a detailed guide to deciding whether to stay or leave.
First: get the facts straight
If your relationship is at stake, make sure you have the correct information about what happened. If you suspect fraud has occurred, or if you ‘ve heard second-hand information , don’t jump to conclusions. You need to talk. It will be terribly painful, but you must find out:
- What exactly happened. Are we talking about online flirting or a personal date? Was it emotion or was it just physical?
- Circumstances around this are happening. Was it a planned affair or something “just happened”? There’s a big difference between following Ashley Madison’s account and kissing someone in a drunken fog at a party.
- When the betrayal happened.
- How many times has it happened.
- The status of your partner’s relationship with another person. Did your partner tell the other person it’s over?
- Whether your partner wants to stay in your relationship or not. The question of what to do next may already be answered.
- If your partner used protection. It won’t help you decide what to do in terms of relationships, but it’s important for you to know if you need to get tested for STIs.
Warning: don’t ask all the bloody details of the case. As much as the masochistic devil on your shoulder wants to know if the other person in bed was better than you, such information will not help you in any way.
Give yourself time to take care of yourself
Once you know that your partner is cheating, your emotions will take over the world. It will take you a while to figure out what you need, let alone figure out what to do next. After you’ve listened to your partner, tell him that you need to be alone for a while to think about what you are going to do. Ask them to respect your boundaries and not mess with you until you get to them. You can give your partner an approximate time frame (for example, two to four weeks), or simply let them know that you will contact you when you are ready.
Keep in mind that your immediate reaction may be to take drastic action in any direction. Some people want to build relationships right away. After facing such a serious threat to your relationship, it’s natural to feel drawn to your partner. Others may want to leave and never look back. Try to resist these urges and allow yourself to make the clearest decision possible.
During this break, try to pamper yourself well. Call the sick person to work for a week. Reach out to your most trusted friends and discuss this with them. Try eating and sleeping. Go outside for some fresh air and some body movement. Write down all of your anguished thoughts in a journal. Meditate. Cook. Nap. Sing. Anything that makes you feel even a little better. Keep doing all of this for as long as possible. Most of us struggle with taking care of ourselves even when everything is okay, so this step is likely to be incredibly difficult for you. This does not mean that it is not worth the effort.
I am clearly biased, but I think seeing a therapist is a great idea. Even your best, most compassionate friends will reach their limit when they get a little tired of hearing you retell the same details. It’s nice to talk about everything without worrying about annoying anyone. And you know that therapy will really help you process your feelings, not just rephrase them.
Decide what to do
You will never get to the point where this decision is easy, but taking some time and taking good care of yourself should make the process a little clearer. Here are a few more variables to keep in mind:
- How serious was this betrayal? As I said, there is a big difference between a moment and a multi-month romance. Motivation is important.
- Has your partner cheated in the past? If your partner has cheated on you before, it’s time to move on. You may also consider whether your partner has cheated in a past relationship.
- What’s your relationship history? If you got into a relationship relatively early, it may be better to cut your losses. On the other hand, if you’ve been with your partner for ten years, you may be asking yourself if it is worth throwing away this whole story for one moment of gruesome judgment.
- Is it worth saving this relationship? Sometimes cheating is a sign that the relationship is over long ago. If you have had an argument or have been tempted to deceive yourself, it may be time to give it up. If you’re with someone you never imagined a future with, this may be an opportunity to put an end to things before they get even more difficult.
- Does your partner understand the consequences of their behavior? If they’re not very apologetic, they don’t deserve your attention. It also matters how you learned about the cheating. Did they confess themselves or were they caught?
- Is your partner willing to work with you on this? Does your partner suggest that you take concrete steps to rebuild your relationship, such as going to a couples consultation?
- Can you imagine yourself ultimately forgiving? For a relationship to survive cheating, you must be willing to forgive. You cannot manipulate it over their heads to get what you want, or use it as a bargaining chip during an argument.
It is incredibly difficult to decide whether or not to end a relationship, but it is important for you to make a concrete decision, instead of allowing yourself to succumb to surging emotions.
If you decide to go
It’s clear that you don’t think you can overcome infidelity. The best thing you can do is try to maintain your dignity when you exit. Don’t try to hurt your ex, try to get revenge, or try to get in touch with the “other person.” These things may be pleasant at the moment, but they will only prolong your pain. Take a complete break and focus on rebuilding your life without them.
If you choose to stay
Being deceived is a terribly painful experience. You will stagger for a while, but here’s what you can do to help the healing process.
Consult for couples
It’s really not something the two of you should try to get through together. I’m biased, of course, but I sincerely believe that intensive therapy is needed to help you process those experiences, rebuild relationships, and learn to create an even stronger connection.
Expect to be provoked by worldly events
This psychological pain has the ability to penetrate every cell of your existence and continue to occur when you least expect it. Seemingly mundane things, such as seeing another couple hand in hand, can trigger a flood of unexpected emotions. Get ready to cry over your cereal, while clipping and in the car. In the coming weeks and months, you will have a lot of serious experiences.
As we therapists love to say, the only way out is to get through. As painful as it may be, try to allow yourself to feel all of your feelings. Journaling and free-writing (without editing yourself) is a great way to do this. If you try to bury your feelings, the healing process will take longer.
Try not to get hung up on this
After an injury, our brains work overtime trying to figure out what happened. This is usually a feeble attempt to prevent recurrence of such pain. Unfortunately, you cannot simply explain why someone you love so much betrayed you, so these reflections do not bring any relief. Excessive analysis is inevitable at any time, but it is worth trying to prevent your thoughts from escaping from you. If you are feeling possessed, take a deep breath and see if you can slow down your thoughts. If it helps, remind yourself of how obsession actually hurts you, for example, “All I do with this train of thought is punish myself.”
When every thought is going on in your mind, you may be tempted to ask your partner about the details of this romance. I talked about this last time, but don’t pressure your partner into attacking you for his infidelity. Seriously, it won’t help.
Expect Big Changes in Your Sex Life
Your sex life will undoubtedly change over time. The cheated partner is bound to compare himself to the “other person” and may feel pressured to perform well. It may be helpful to temporarily quit your usual forms of sex and try to focus on reunion with a simple touch.
Don’t punish them by violating their privacy
Something terribly painful has happened to you that is out of your control, so the desire to regain control is natural. Understandably, you want to make sure your partner is no longer cheating, but some people go too far by demanding access to their partner’s email, phone, credit cards and other personal information. Some don’t even ask permission and just spy on their own.
Unfortunately, this is a terrible tactic. Tracking your partner’s accounts (with or without permission) does not guarantee that he will no longer cheat. It will not help restore trust and will cause a lot of animosity between the two of you at a time when you are desperate for a good relationship. No one wants to be in a relationship in which one person constantly observes another, and in some cases it can even lead to abuse. It will also not help you heal as you will find yourself becoming more and more paranoid. Every time you pick up his phone or open his email, you are stuck in a terrible endless spiral of anxiety.
Reconstruct a relationship with what you’ve learned
Sometimes cheating is just a momentary dire decision, but sometimes it is a sign that there are deeper problems in the relationship. After you’ve gone through the initial crisis phase of discovery, you may want to talk about what was going on in your relationship before the cheating occurred (this is another step that is best taken with a competent therapist!). For example, some partners cheat because their partner is holding back sex, affection, or attention, or is not interested in him.
Infidelity can also be an opportunity for the two of you to talk (no doubt not easy) about the relationship model that works best for the two of you. Most people are consistently monogamous by default, but that doesn’t work for everyone. It doesn’t make sense to go back to a closed monogamous relationship if it doesn’t work for the two of you.
Let it go
Cheating may seem unforgivable at first, but eventually you will have to forgive your partner. Your partner has a lot of work to do to regain your trust and rebuild the relationship, but he cannot come to terms with you for the rest of his life. Not in every dispute to pull it out as a trump card. If you can’t forgive and are trying to move on, it may be a sign that staying in a relationship is unrealistic for you.
It probably won’t feel like something is improving steadily or linearly, but trust that time will do it. With patience, hard work, and dedication, you can bring your relationship back from the brink.