If a woman is not completely heartless, then it is absolutely normal that she repents that she cheated on her husband and feels guilty for causing undeserved pain to her partner. Sometimes people who are angry because they have been unfaithful begin to hate not only individual actions, but themselves as a whole. Such a woman does not feel that she deserves a husband, so she always cries and apologizes, which upsets her husband even more.
The man himself may be ready not to constantly raise this issue and begin to move on, but the wife simply cannot let go. Looking in the mirror, she feels so disgusted with herself that she wants to turn away. Let's figure out what to do next for a wife who cheated on her husband and now doesn't know how to continue living.
Understand the reasons for cheating
There is always a choice, even in difficult circumstances. Of course, the marriage may have had its problems, but there were several options available to combat it. Often people cheat due to low self-esteem or other personal subjective shortcomings. They cheat because they feel that they are somehow behind others and hope that adding some spice to life will make them feel more confident.
Often this root cause is not realized by traitors and is denied. But cheating almost always has more to do with internal personality traits than with the spouse or the state of the relationship.
To get rid of the guilt of cheating, understand that you did not set out to harm him.
Think about whether to confess
If your partner doesn't already know about the cheating, don't think that confessing will make you feel better. Confessions of infidelity bring enormous pain, mistrust and uncertainty into a relationship. Weigh the pros and cons before telling your partner about what happened.
You must confess if:
- Cheating involves unprotected sex that puts the health of the original partner at risk.
- Is there a chance that the partner will find out from another source.
All other things being equal, if you cheated on your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife and your conscience is tormenting you, then telling the truth is the best option if you want to save the relationship. Keep in mind that not confessing further undermines your partner's ability to trust you.
Work on yourself
The spouse who cheated needs to work on himself, in parallel with attempts to restore the relationship in marriage. Most likely, the person will have issues with trust and self-esteem that need to be addressed. The problems that contributed to the infidelity are likely to get worse after the infidelity.
The inability to forgive yourself is just one of the problems that you need to work on.
The good news is that if you succeed in addressing these issues, it will greatly help both personally and in terms of improving your marriage. It may seem "selfish" or self-centered to deal with personal issues at a time like this, but it will benefit your spouse as well as you.
NEW DEFINITION OF LOVE
Like all primates, we are naturally polygamous, but morally and socially we function as monogamous creatures. It turns out that we live in a state of constant conflict: our biological nature comes into conflict with our value system. And we need explanations to ease our conscience.
“When desire comes into conflict with our social and moral self, we find ourselves forced, under the threat of a mental breakdown, to rationalize everything, to look for an explanation for everything,” notes Maryse Vaillant. - We blame our partners for imperfection, based on the false premise that if they satisfied us, it would never have occurred to us to seek sexual pleasures on the side.
There is a process of consuming love and turning it into an instrument for serving our needs. We are supposed to get complete satisfaction from love. And if this is not the case, then we try to make up for this deficiency, sometimes with the help of betrayal. However, the path to a real relationship opens only through contact between the unconscious of two people. This is what we should strive for, this is what, if it does not protect us from betrayal, it will help us feel our relationship with another person in all its depth and complexity.”
And maybe this will lead us to a more “human” form of love: faithful, but at the same time aware of our inner structure, not deceiving us about the person we should care about first of all... ourselves.
Will confession help?
In some situations this is possible. But you have to be careful not to dump the entire burden of cheating on your spouse just to get some relief. The feeling of guilt after the confession will not disappear completely, and an offended and devastated spouse will be added to it. As a result, you will have to solve two problems at once.
This doesn't mean that to get rid of guilt after cheating you shouldn't be honest, but make sure that if you decide to do so, it's not for selfish reasons. If you decide to confess, you should be as calm and loving as possible. .
You shouldn't just blurt everything out and then hope that your husband will somehow figure out the rest.
How does a spouse feel when her husband cheats on her?
What is the reaction to betrayal among women? Naturally, everyone will be in a stressful state, and mental pain and resentment will overwhelm them. In addition, no matter what your relationship was before, now uncertainty and mistrust will definitely be added to it.
In female nature there is a subconscious desire for security, a feeling that she is “like behind a stone wall.” If you violate this feeling, sad consequences are guaranteed. Sometimes it is almost impossible to return it.
Stability and confidence in the future are important for each of us. Especially for a girl who has children. Having shaken her trust, forgiveness for betrayal may not happen. It is important for her to support the family hearth, protect her family from adversity and give warmth to her children.
Sometimes a wife loves so much that her boyfriend becomes the center of the universe for her. She lives for him, breathes him. And when he gives it, it cannot be called a simple blow to pride. She feels how the whole world around her is collapsing, deep depression sets in, denial of what is happening. The consequences are possible in two ways. Either she withdraws even deeper into herself and suffers, or she acquires sharp cynicism, any possible love relationships are devalued, and the need for complete independence comes. As a rule, this is where feminism originates.
The most terrible feeling that is certainly acquired is self-doubt.
This complex digs into the soul of the victim like a thorn. Even if the sexual relationship was fleeting, accidental, happened only once, the girl still believes that this happened because she is somehow different, unworthy of love, and the betrayal occurred because she is no longer loved, and now no one will love you anymore. This is a terrible feeling that men don’t even think about. But if it were worth it, perhaps it would stop many from rash actions.
Let me know how sorry you are
It is important to adequately express your regret so that you can move forward without leaving anything unsaid. Often people who have cheated feel so much shame and guilt that they turn inward and become silent when what they should do is take their loved one's hand, look them in the eyes and make a very sincere apology.
You need to make it clear that you understand how wrong and destructive your actions were and that you are going to spend the coming days, weeks, months and years to become a better wife.
Many people don't realize that their guilt and shame negatively impact their spouse as much as they negatively impact them. This misplaced feeling makes you hesitate and prevents you from giving all your love and support to your husband.
This is exactly what the spouse really wants right now.
Give yourself time
I ask you to understand that it is impossible to instantly forgive betrayal. You won’t be able to just decide to do it, do some internal work, do some practice, for example, write a letter to your husband, and everything will immediately go away. And you will move on with a light heart. It won't happen that way. Forgiveness is a long process.
Conditions for forgiveness:
- Open discussion
- Believe not in words, but in actions
So give yourself as much time as you need. Overcome the situation together with your husband and, most importantly, take your time. Then everything will gradually improve and you will find happiness again.
If there are those among you who have made one of these mistakes: cheap forgiveness and getting stuck in your anger. If you understand that you made one of these mistakes, please write about your experience, and how events developed further, what happened next. It will be very useful for all of us to know.
Hate won't help
Women who cheat on their husbands without a twinge of conscience are very rare. One of the main reasons you hate yourself right now is because you feel so much guilt about what you did. You love a man and regret that your actions hurt him.
You hate yourself for hurting your loved one. But here's the thing, anger and self-hatred don't help your spouse or make you feel better. This is a waste of time and does more harm than good. Therefore, it is better to start spending your energy on something truly useful.
Do something that matters
Instead of hating yourself, what can you do to help your spouse? For example:
- give you the opportunity to control your movements and contacts.
- become the kind of wife your spouse wants you to see.
- work tirelessly to restore trust in the relationship.
- Implement many things that will comfort your husband and demonstrate love.
If you cheated on your husband and don’t know how to get rid of the guilt, use all your energy to improve the relationship, and not to harm it.
The next time you feel hate and anger driving you, instead of doing something self-destructive, do something nice for your husband:
- Instead of getting lost in your thoughts, call your spouse and tell them how much you love them.
- When overwhelmed with difficult thoughts, make sure you do everything you can to eliminate doubts about your fidelity.
- When you are angry about your actions, make sure that your future actions are ones you can be proud of.
The best way to ensure that hatred subsides is to meet it with love.
SECRET AND EXPLICIT
As long as we do not want to change our relationship as a couple and avoid hurting our partner, we are able to hide our affairs on the side. “If “evidence” appears: traces of lipstick on the collar, unerased SMS messages in the phone, this is not at all an accidental mistake,” Marina Baskakova is sure. - This is a kind of message for the partner: “Something has gone wrong! Pay attention to me!
Often, betrayal becomes a reason to discuss relationships and reevaluate their importance to each other. “Guilt is a complex experience,” says the Gestalt therapist. - If we analyze him, we will find that there is a lot of excitement, animation, even joy in him. To better understand this, you can imagine a child who ate candy without asking or went for a walk without his elders. And the reaction of the one who is deceived is also a strong feeling. The strength of these emotions gives the couple a new surge of energy that can move a frozen relationship forward.”
Open discussion can lead to different results. Perhaps the partners recognize that their union no longer brings satisfaction and will come to the idea of separating. But it also happens the other way around: feelings for each other come to life. “If a couple manages to resolve a conflict, the connection between partners becomes stronger,” says Marina Baskakova.
Strive to be better every day
In many ways, healing from the guilt of cheating on your husband takes time. No matter how impeccably the cheating spouse behaves and how much remorse he shows, a certain period must pass for everything to return to normal.
There are things that can speed up this process. One of them is to try every day to do right by your spouse and yourself. This means:
- don't look back
- regularly ask yourself what to do to make things better.
- Ask yourself: “How can I help my husband recover today? In this moment?".
When you ask these questions daily, you move forward and things start to get better.
Focus on the future
Yes, you can't go back in time and fix anything, but you do have control over the future. You can control your actions and do everything to strengthen your marriage and help your husband heal. You can become the kind of wife who will make a man very happy.
Constantly thinking about what happened in the past is a sure way to stay stuck. In order for the husband to move on, the wife also needs to let go of the past. If you cannot forgive yourself for your own sake, then you must do it for the sake of the man you love.
ARGUMENTS OF INFAITH
Kirill, 58 years old, TV presenter
“I remained faithful to my wife for twenty years, although after our daughter was born, Marina began to devote less time to me. It’s hard for a man to come to terms with this. One day I met a younger woman and we began a whirlwind romance. I told Marina about this. I hoped to awaken something in her this way. But this led to a terrible crisis.
We broke up and then got back together. The relationship with my mistress was the same. Attacks of jealousy, breakups, returns... For a year I rushed between two women, then I turned to a psychotherapist. Little by little I understood what was really happening to me.
When I was four years old, my mother, who was too busy with her work, entrusted my aunt with raising me. The obvious lack of love on the part of my wife revived in me the memory of the same lack of love on the part of my mother. In addition, I felt time was running out, I was afraid of growing old. The new novel is a rebirth, albeit an illusory one. You feel young and beautiful.
I broke up with my girlfriend. I realized that Marina loves me. She could have left me, but she didn't. Besides, I couldn't leave her and my daughter. This story, among other things, taught me how to grow old. This, however, does not stop me from constantly looking at girls. But just watch!”
Vera, 40 years old, restaurant owner
“I come from Belarus. I met my future husband when I was 23 years old. We got married, our eldest daughter was born, then we moved to Moscow. That was not easy. I didn’t work, my husband was often away. He was very attentive, always brought gifts and called me. I got pregnant again.
One evening they called me and told me that my husband had been deceiving me for three years. It was a shock. All the trust I had in him instantly evaporated. The second daughter was born, our life returned to its previous track, but everything went wrong, we no longer had sexual relations. Every evening I went out to have fun. A year later I started my first affair. It wasn't revenge because I no longer cared how my husband felt.
Then I had a real romance that lasted three years. I wanted to love and be loved, but not commit myself. When my lover left his wife and invited me to live together, I stopped everything. Since then I have no one. I still live with my husband. I'm not interested in his life, he's not interested in mine. We are not getting divorced: we have a calm relationship, the children have both parents...
But I can't even think about creating something new. I don't want to take any more risks. I can't call myself either happy or unhappy. I protect what I have."
