Unfortunately, in the modern world, the word “treason” no longer rings true. This does not mean that everyone cheats, but according to statistics, cheating occurs in every third couple.
You should not seek advice from those people who know about betrayal from articles and stories from girlfriends and friends. These people have not experienced such moments, which means that their advice will not be entirely correct and can only aggravate the situation, but help is needed.
It is often worth trying to forgive by giving the person and the relationship another chance. In some cases, relationships can even be strengthened by difficult experiences if both parties talk about it, compromise, and keep commitments. But how to forgive and improve relationships after your husband or wife cheats?
What dangers does betrayal from a loved one entail?
Betrayal by a loved one is a long-term, severe stress, it can develop into depression, this condition negatively affects the psyche.
There is uncertainty in actions
After the betrayal of a loved one, you take on the role of the Victim. You do not take responsibility for actions.
Loss of trust in people in general
This is because you had high hopes for your loved one, and in return you were stabbed in the back. This hit me hard mentally.
The following logic emerges: “If I was betrayed by a loved one, then betrayal from strangers will follow sooner or later.”
Such thoughts make you withdraw into yourself and stop contacting people.
Depression
This condition becomes the final point for people who could not get rid of the feeling of resentment that oppresses them.
Depression can drag on for many years; most people try to wash it down with alcohol or other poison.
The process of dealing with grief due to betrayal includes 5 stages
- Stage of denial and shock. A person simply cannot believe what happened, especially if the betrayal is unexpected. Reaction: emotional excitement, or vice versa, emotional coldness, inhibition.
- The stage of aggression, the experience of resentment, anger. Often aggression and anger are directed at the person who cheated, who left, who “abandoned”, or left their loved ones.
- Stage of guilt. The person blames himself for what happened, his “bad behavior.” A person may also experience remorse for treating the person who cheated poorly and paying little attention to him.
- Stage of depression. Depression, apathy, irritability, decreased social activity - all these are manifestations of depression. Life can lose all meaning; a person tends to “drown out” his pain with alcohol and other “antidepressants.”
- Acceptance stage. No matter how hard a person experiences betrayal, acceptance of the loss gradually sets in. This stage is characterized by the restoration of the usual course of life, once again falling into its groove. Life acquires purpose and meaning.
Find out who can be offended: after all, this is given only to a select few
The feeling of being betrayed is born of resentment. Resentment is not a category of consciousness. Resentment is much deeper and more powerful: it is a manifestation of the psyche. Resentment is a strong suffering of the soul. The only thing stronger than this suffering can be a state of depression.
A person is not aware of this feeling, it passes by his awareness. A person can live his whole life and not even realize that he is experiencing a feeling of resentment. It's just hard for him to live. It's hard to breathe, it's hard to carry your body.
Not every person can experience this feeling - resentment. Such feelings can only be experienced by people who have an anal vector, according to the definition of System-Vector Psychology by Yuri Burlan.
Resentment manifests itself in these people in certain states. When, due to various life situations, they do not receive the proper development of their innate properties or do not have the opportunity to realize their abilities in life.
At birth, they are given properties, with the development of which they become the most faithful husbands/wives, the best dads/mothers. For them, nothing in life is more important than loyalty and devotion, truth and justice, respect and honor. There is nothing more important than friendship, more important than home, family, wife/husband and children. They are homebodies - it is difficult for them to go out on a visit, to the theater, go to a resort or travel.
Cheating on a loved one
Betrayal by a partner gives rise to very painful experiences, and asking a psychologist how to survive the betrayal of a loved one worries many people. The fear of betrayal worries every person. Feelings of betrayal, heartache, resentment and emotional shock are very common.
Cheating can be experienced as a catastrophic event that radically changes the attitude towards a partner.
Feelings of suspicion, mistrust, jealousy, anger, helplessness and emptiness arise.
Before there is an opportunity to understand what happened and understand the reasons, it is necessary to transfer all these feelings, and it is very difficult to do this alone. Here the help of a psychologist is needed.
In the first phase of experiencing the betrayal of a loved one comes anger at the partner, a feeling of irritation and disgust towards him, and fear of contracting some kind of sexually transmitted disease. It often happens the other way around, when a person is haunted by doubts about himself/herself, uncertainty about one’s own worth, feelings of guilt and thoughts about “what provoked my partner to cheat on me,” as well as “clinging” to a partner.
But, as a rule, anger and disgust are constantly replaced by guilt and fear of losing the relationship and what is valuable in it. This is the psychology of betrayal and jealousy.
Then, a person who is faced with the betrayal of a loved one is often haunted by an obsessive desire to find out all the facts of the betrayal:
- How long does the relationship last?
- When did they start?
- When did they meet?
- Who else knows about this?
Images and pictures pop up in your head that create suffering. If there are children in the family, then they are often haunted by worries about them, about the consequences of separation for the children. A partner will always be haunted by jealousy after adultery.
During this period, it is extremely important to share your experiences with a specialist.
Empathy and a holistic understanding of conflicting feelings, on the one hand – affection, love for a partner, and on the other – severe pain, resentment and anger, helps to reduce internal painful experiences and “throwing”, and begin to think rationally about what happened, as well as those consequences for relationships that involve cheating.
It is important to understand that, despite all the pain, cheating is not something that will inevitably destroy a relationship. The period of acute experience of betrayal is not the best moment for making a decision about separation and divorce. Often the cheating partner experiences fear of losing the relationship with his wife/husband, wants to maintain it and is tormented by a strong sense of guilt.
In this case, if a decision is made to maintain the relationship, then, as a rule, certain steps are necessary on the part of the partner:
- ending a relationship with a lover;
- making sincere apologies (sometimes multiple);
- taking steps to restore and strengthen trust.
It is important to understand what caused this to happen in your relationship:
Conflicts in relationships
Often the cause of cheating is hidden conflicts, dissatisfaction, and anger at a partner. Sometimes such a reason can be the difficulties that accompany the birth and upbringing of a child, and a change in relationships as a consequence of this. Cheating in this case may be a way to avoid resolving these conflicts, or a way to “get back” at your partner, to express your anger and resentment towards him.
Difficulty integrating love and sexual feelings
Many people have difficulty experiencing both love and sexual attraction to the same partner. Then sexual desires are satisfied “on the side.” Behind such splitting (love separately - sex separately) there are often deep personal problems.
Fear of intimacy
Many people, especially people with the so-called schizoid and narcissistic personality types, may be afraid of emotional intimacy with a partner. They may feel fearful if their partner is particularly seeking intimacy, and may defensively distance themselves from their partner. For such a person, other relationships become something of a buffer between him and his partner.
- Such affairs are usually short-term and serve as a defense against the fear of being consumed.
- However, in extreme cases, multi-year parallel relationships can occur.
Low self-esteem
Doubts about one's own masculinity or femininity can push a person to confirm his attractiveness.
Personal crises
For example, when facing a midlife crisis, a person may experience depression, depression, a sense of emptiness and finitude in life, and then a romantic relationship may be a way to protect against such feelings.
Sexual addiction
People prone to such addiction, like all addicts, have very little control over their own impulses. When faced with emptiness and heartache, they protect themselves from it through sex with different partners.
Orgasmic satisfaction brings temporary relief from anxiety, but then feelings of shame and remorse set in, and these cycles of compulsive sexual desire - shame are constantly repeated.
Random cheating
These are, as a rule, one-time events that happened as a result of momentary attraction or alcohol intoxication, and they would not have happened if the person had not been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Other possible reasons for betrayal:
- A man can betray under the influence of alcohol.
- Lack of responsibility. A person who does not want to help his loved ones in trouble, does not want to try on other people’s problems, simply runs away from them, even abandons his parents and his pregnant wife.
- A person who was nearby only because of benefits, in particular financial ones, can betray.
- Callous and cynical people easily betray themselves. This is especially true of egoists.
- A man can easily cheat on his wife when he believes that he must make all the women around him happy. Often this manifestation is typical for people with high self-esteem who consider themselves better than everyone else.
In any case, it is important to understand the reasons for what happened - be it family conflicts or the personality traits of the partner himself. In most cases, the two are intertwined, and the help of a good psychologist is required to sort it out.
Usually during this period a decision is made about whether it makes sense to maintain the relationship and cope with the crisis, or to break up with each other.
How to forgive the betrayal of a loved one?
Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers said this: “The sword does not cut off a guilty head.” A man came with repentance, forgive him.
Is it worth forgiving - of course. Whether you want to maintain any relationship with this person in the future is another matter. It all depends on the situation. There are millions of scenarios for such a conflict.
You have been together for many years. Your soulmate is going left, and you will know about it. Whether the person told you on his own or you found out from girlfriends, friends, or from the homewrecker himself is not important. The fact itself, the deception was revealed.
The loved one apologizes, asks for another chance, or asks for forgiveness, but says that it was an absolutely informed decision and the affair can be ended.
The main thing is honesty. If you experience deep feelings even after this news, it makes sense to try to build a new relationship, forgetting about this situation and never remembering it, because it will not bring good to anyone, and it can easily destroy you, first of all.
Forgiveness is for strong people. Without figuring out how, with whom, just forgive and forget, continue to live and love.
If your significant other announces the end of the relationship, but there is a fire in your soul and you are not ready to part, then you will have to remember the folk wisdom: “You can’t be nice by force.” Forgive and let go. This is a way out of the situation. There is no need to fall at your feet, beg, or put pressure on your conscience. The person has already decided everything, accept his decision and let him go. The main thing is not to harbor anger and resentment.
It won't be easy, but you can do it. This way you can prepare your heart for a new relationship.
Unfortunately, man is very weak by nature, and anyone can take a wrong turn. The most difficult question that may arise is: how to regain trust? If you managed to forgive, save your family, your feelings, then the thought of a relapse will still live somewhere subconsciously.
Books and the Internet are replete with sayings: “Betrayed once, betrayed again!”, “People don’t change!” and so on. Don't think about it, don't read bad advice. Let go of the situation. If you managed not to destroy the world after the news of betrayal, and preserve love, then live it today, tomorrow... No need to guess ahead.
There is an interesting technique. Remember yourself as a child and your parents. A broken cup caused anger or sadness, but this did not make you anyone in the life of your family. And perhaps your mother hid the cups higher up, fearing a repetition of the situation, but you also tried not to upset your beloved parent anymore.
Valuable tips on how to continue living after betrayal:
- If you want to cry, cry. Don't even try to touch the alcoholic drink. This will not take away the pain, it will only make you feel unhappy, sunk to the bottom of the bottle.
- Throw yourself into your work and try not to think about the traitor.
- Find yourself a hobby that will take your mind off bad thoughts and take up all your free time.
- Treat yourself, change something in your appearance, visit a beauty salon, buy a beautiful dress that you have long dreamed of.
- Don’t even think about living in the past and remembering the traitors. Think about the present and the future, do not push away possible acquaintances.
- Help people who need help, feel your need.
- It is important to maintain faith in people, to understand that time heals.
What to do with relationships?
Can there be any kind of relationship after betrayal? Of course, not everyone breaks up right away; some try to do something, patch things together, improve relationships. But think about it, is it necessary to do this? After all, if a person betrayed once, he will most likely betray again. Therefore, you need to “put all your memories and feelings in a box” and throw them away. It’s hard, of course, but it will be the best choice. However, the choice is yours.
Contact a psychologist, because this is a person who will listen to you and objectively give you advice on how to survive this situation. A specialist will help you find a way out and point out things you haven’t seen. After all, keeping everything to yourself will be much worse than sharing it. Your job is just to tell the truth and follow the recommendations. You should become joyful, free, independent, and not think “I’m abandoned, I’m offended, I’m unhappy.” If you feel sorry for yourself, you will become pathetic and unhappy. And this will not help in any way to survive the situation that has developed.
To experience mental pain, the pain of betrayal by a loved one, it takes time, sometimes a lot of time. You need to not dwell on this, but move on, because there is only one life. Look into the future, where that pain no longer exists, make plans. Remember some grievances from the past that at that time seemed unbearable. Has it passed? This too shall pass. After all, time heals.
Help from a psychologist
It has long been known that women and men perceive the world from different points of view. The former are more emotional, their thoughts pass through the prism of feelings and experiences. The latter think in logical categories. And betrayal, although equally painful for both, is perceived on their part a little differently.
If the husband cheated, the wife most often experiences it very violently - through screams, through tears. And the culprit doesn’t even always observe them - a woman may seem cold and quite calmly put her suitcase on the staircase, but a hurricane will rage inside her, which will certainly spill out.
Psychological assistance when your husband cheats, which can be provided by a specialist, can save you from committing rash acts. A psychotherapist will help you find the reasons that forced the man to take this step. But the reason that a woman manages to instantly come up with for herself often turns out to be even more painful than the fact of betrayal itself.
The psychologist will tell you in which direction you should move forward: should you try to save the relationship, forgive your unfaithful loved one, or is it better to forget about him and start a new life.
But it’s not just men who cheat. And for the husband this is no less a strong blow than for the wife in the event of her husband’s betrayal. The bad news is that men, unlike most women, often seek solace in external factors such as alcohol and available women. Psychological assistance when your wife is cheating will help you avoid such ways of solving the problem, maintain composure and health.
The psychotherapist will tell you how best to perceive this situation, how to forgive the unfaithful half. After all, resentment, regardless of the final result, will prevent both parties from living peacefully.
Why do people betray?
You cannot justify treason or betrayal. Even when a person throws empty accusations at you, you don’t need to listen, much less perceive it. Maybe you were wrong in some ways, because we are all imperfect, but you didn’t force the person to do that. After all, it would be possible to do without betrayal, for example, discuss the problems that have arisen between you, take a break in the relationship, in the end, but not change in any way.
Why did the person betray? Yes, simply because it was only in his interests, but not in yours. “I” dominated in his head at that moment. Everyone will be guilty except him, so don't believe that he is innocent. Guilty! Still so guilty! After all, he committed this act towards you. And before you forgive, you need to think carefully.
Books about how to survive betrayal and become stronger
Esther Perel
Right to left. Why do people cheat and is it possible to avoid cheating?
Why do people decide to cheat, why do they start other families and lead a double life for years - Esther Perel gives answers to these difficult questions.
An experienced psychotherapist has worked with couples facing infidelity for ten years.
The author analyzed and described hundreds of stories from the lives of patients. Each of them explains how to build relationships correctly, and what to do if cheating does occur.
The book was translated into 24 languages and became a bestseller in Europe.
Irina Mlodik
Life on loan. How to get rid of psychological addiction
The work of the famous psychologist and author of numerous bestsellers Irina Mlodik.
In her book, the girl talks about relationships in which caring for a loved one turns into violating his boundaries, and the constant desire to be together leads to a loss of individuality.
The psychologist explains the difference between obsession and love, how to get rid of destructive relationships and improve communication with others.
Tamriko Sholi
There are men inside. Candid stories about love, relationships, marriage, infidelity and women
To understand the reason for her unsuccessful romances, the author asked 201 men to answer her tricky questions.
The book contains men's reflections on women and love for them, family, honesty and betrayal.
How to survive the betrayal of friends?
The betrayal of a friend can sometimes hurt no less than the betrayal of a relative or husband. If your friend is real, then you probably trusted him with your personal secrets, supported him more than once in difficult life situations and consulted on many issues.
Now it will be difficult for you to imagine your life without this person, but it is important to realize that if this happens, then the friendship is no longer there, and it’s time for you to go your separate ways.
An exception can only be in the case when a friend or girlfriend was forced to take this step, not of their own free will, or made a ridiculous mistake. In general, you need to give the person a chance to explain themselves, and if you understand that the betrayal could have been avoided, then pause your communication so that everyone can rethink what happened. After months, you yourself will be able to understand whether you want to return your friend to your life.
How to survive the betrayal of a friend, advice from a psychologist:
- If the betrayal does not concern too serious things (for example, relationships with your spouse), try to understand why your friend did this. First, you need to admit to yourself that the person is dear to you. If this is a truly close friend, he will remain dear even after his action. We need to listen to him. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, perhaps he sincerely repents.
- If you want to take revenge, you shouldn't do it. You won't make yourself feel better and you're unlikely to get satisfaction. Psychologists recommend doing something good for a friend, even if it is some small deed. This will work much better than revenge. He will suffer from remorse, and you will be calm.
- If your friend doesn't repent, just let it go. In your heart, thank him for all the good he has done. This position will heal wounds faster than others and will best help you survive betrayal.
Should I maintain a relationship with him? Only you can answer this question. Having understood the situation, you can try to establish communication. You have the right to remain in a relationship with a friend or to leave it.
First steps to forgiveness
Negative emotions have a very strong impact on the person experiencing them. He literally loses his ability to reason sensibly and make adequate decisions. All his thoughts at this moment are directed towards revenge, so that the traitor feels all the same pain and suffering that he caused. But this manifests itself in hundreds of phone calls, threats, tears, hysteria, and so on...
