Photo: unsplash / Toa Heftiba
Is your relationship really one worth saving?
By Mitzi Bockmann — Written on Apr 09, 2020
Has your partner cheated on you over and over and over? Are you wondering whether it’s time for you to stay in or get out of the relationship?
You know you love your spouse, but your relationship problems have been ongoing. Being cheated on once was bad enough, but now you've had to save your relationship from infidelity time and time again, and all you want is a healthy relationship.
Whether your partner has cheated on you once or cheated on you multiple times, your pain is real and your feelings are overwhelming and asking yourself how you're going to get through this is really important.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself when you're considering whether to save a relationship after infidelity or call it quits.
1. "Is my partner truly remorseful?"
Surviving repeated infidelity and keeping your relationship intact is harder than if infidelity is a one-time thing, but there is one element that is essential as the first step to get past both kinds of affairs: Remorse.
If your partner is fooling around on you over and over, then it’s important that they accept responsibility for their actions.
Do they truly show you remorse and acknowledge what they did was wrong? Accept how much they hurt you? Or do they try to put some (or all) of the blame back on you — that you were ignoring them or not having sex with them, or some other sort of excuse that lets them off the hook?
If your partner can’t or won’t acknowledge their responsibility for the affair, it's possible it will happen again. Even if it doesn’t happen again, the rest of your relationship could involve them blaming you for their actions.
So, take a good hard look at your partner. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who isn’t willing to take responsibility for their actions and the pain they caused you? If not, perhaps it’s time for you to go.
2. "Is my partner willing to get help?"
Serial infidelity is not something that happens in a void. People who fool around over and over are people who are struggling with who they are in some way.
People who have a single affair don’t generally set out to have an affair. There's something missing in their marriage, maybe something they aren’t even aware of.
They meet someone, maybe at work, who's having the same experiences, and they strike up a friendship. As the friendship grows, so do their feelings. Eventually, this connection can lead to an affair.
People who cheat more than once on their partner — either one at a time or perhaps with multiple other partners — are generally people who set out to have an affair.
Perhaps they're feeling unhappy and want someone who understands them, more sex, or need to have sex with people to feel good about themselves. Perhaps they have abandonment issues or struggle with trust issues.
The list of reasons why someone would cheat repeatedly is endless, but what's important for deciding whether to stay or go is whether your person is willing to take a good hard look at why they're cheating and get some help to manage it.
I do believe that relationship counseling can help move the relationship towards a resolution but I think that it’s essential that the cheater gets some help to understand and deal with the source of their cheating.
So, if your person is willing to get help, then perhaps staying, at least for now, is a good idea.
3. "Do I still like my partner?"
An important question to ask about surviving repeated infidelity is whether or not you still like your person.
Many partners of cheaters who don't like their partner, especially after they cheat. They feel hurt, anger, and hatred. That hatred is hard to overcome no matter how much therapy a couple attends. For others, love stays in spite of the betrayal.
So, ask yourself, do you still like your partner? If not, then perhaps it’s time to walk away.
4. "Can I forgive and move on?"
An essential part of surviving repeated infidelity is not about your partner, but about you. Can you forgive and move on?
There are two people to forgive in the aftermath of infidelity — your partner, of course, but also yourself.
Many people who are cheated on are left with a tremendous amount of self-loathing. You wonder how could you have missed the signs, and get insecure about what could have caused it. And if your partner cheated on you repeatedly, the self-loathing could be magnified.
It's important that you not only forgive your partner for their infidelity but also forgive yourself for any perceived shortcomings you might be holding on to.
5. "Will I ever be able to connect with them again?"
You're feeling angry and wondering if you could possibly ever actually connect with your partner again. Perhaps you're feeling insecure that you could never give them what they got from their lover. Perhaps you don’t know if you could possibly trust them or see them in the same way again.
An important consideration as to whether you should stay or go is can you see yourself being able to form a new connection with your partner — one that might be different from the connection you had before.
One of the things that happen after affairs is that the original couple gets shattered.
The bedrock holding the couple together, the love, the little inside jokes, the patterns, and routines are all gone and the couple must reinvent their relationship.
Are you and your partner willing to do that? Do you both see a path to finding each other again? To establish a new path so that you can grow stronger together and build a new relationship full of love and trust?
It might be difficult but, if you can do it, you might just be successful in surviving repeated infidelity.
Surviving repeated infidelity can be a big struggle, bigger even than surviving a one-time affair.
Asking yourself, and your partner, the tough questions will give you the answers you need as to whether you should stay or you should go.
All of these things are important to take into account when figuring out what your next steps are. It won’t be easy, but you will survive it!
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Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based certified life coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them to be all that they want to be in this crazy world in which we live. Contact her for help or send her an email.
This article was originally published at Let Your Dreams Begin. Reprinted with permission from the author.