Infidelity: Everything you need to know to conquer it!

As human beings, one of our most basic emotional needs is not actually to fall in love, but to be genuinely loved by another person and to know a love that grows not out of instinct, but out of reason and choice. We need to be loved by someone who chooses to love us, someone who sees something in us worth loving.

This kind of love will require maintenance, discipline, dedication, and motivation, and like all things of great importance, it will require effort.

One of the definitions of love is the choice to extend your energy beyond yourself in order to enrich the life of your partner, and in doing so, finding a deep sense of satisfaction. One of the most difficult things about infidelity is that it undermines all of this. 

It’s actually less about your perception of your significant other, though this is very important, and more about your perception of yourself. As a result, the aftermath of infidelity can be one of the most difficult challenges a person can face.

In today’s article, I want to give you some of our most powerful pieces of advice to help you navigate through the aftermath of infidelity and once again find happiness in your relationship. This is for those of you who are willing to fight for this relationship by laying out a new foundation.

I will be going over some of the biggest telltale signs of infidelity, and the solutions that are available to you.

Infidelity in relationships and marriages

When you learn that there has been infidelity in your relationship with the one you love, it can have a powerful effect on your ability to love yourself and feel lovable, and this is one of the main things that lead to resentment later on down the line.

If your partner has cheated on you and you want this relationship to work, we are going to have to make sure that we pay close attention to the solutions that I will be sharing in this article. Every element will be equally important to ensure that you are able to bounce back from this and truly turn the page.

I don’t want this ordeal to haunt you for the rest of your life. Fortunately, you are already being proactive and have sought out information and tools. This means you’re already on the right track!

If the one you love cheated on you, it will be imperative to find appropriate and healthy ways to nourish and rebuild your self-confidence and not take their actions as a reflection of your self-worth. Things won’t be fixed overnight and it’s important to understand that this is a journey back towards self-acceptance and acceptance of your partner after their mistake.

It should also be noted that now is the time to no longer allow other people to have power over your smile, your sense of self-worth, or your attitude. Yes, something happened that is painful and difficult to get through, but don’t continue to let something that happened yesterday rob you of your happiness today.

It might seem easier said than done, but this is a huge part of the healing process. Mindset is important, so make a choice now that you will not mope around and feel sorry for yourself; you’re going to use this situation as fuel to find longterm solutions that will transform your relationship.

If you want to save this relationship or this marriage with your partner, you will have to be willing to reconnect with him or her on a clean slate. If resentment is allowed to brew, it’s only going to set this relationship up for failure.

One thing that I tell my clients who come to me for help with infidelity in relationships and marriages may come as a surprise to you. Very often, an event like this can actually transform a relationship and make it better than ever. I know you’re probably thinking, “Wait, can infidelity help marriage like this?”

The thing is, I often see that when a couple is faced with something like infidelity and the prospect of losing each other as a result of it, it makes them realize how much they love each other and how valiantly they are willing to fight to save their relationship.

As a result, the cheating served as a powerful catalyst for positive changes that wind up making their relationship stronger than ever before.

So it’s important to accept that saving your relationship after infidelity is not going to be easy because this will help you to stay motivated when it feels tough.

Good change is not immediate and as I said, it’s not going to change overnight. I encourage you to view this as a marathon and not a sprint, because it will help you to remain patient, which will, in turn, help you to see the results.

How to get the spark back in your marriage

Causes of infidelity: Examining the Why?

One of the most difficult questions you have to ask yourself is also one of the most important ones. In the majority of cases, infidelity is usually a symptom of a deeper problem and not the main problem itself.

In other words, infidelity is usually caused by something else like lack of affection or attention, or communication problems, for example. As uncomfortable as it may be, if you can analyze the situation and zero on in on what the root causes are, you will be able to develop the appropriate strategies to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Here’s a crucial tip. Avoid playing the blame game. On a personal note, the day I understood that I was in charge of how I approach the problems I encountered in my life and that things turn out better or worse because of my approach, was the day I started being a happier and healthier person. That was when I realized that I was in control of building a life that truly matters for me.

So, taking an honest look at your relationship and what exactly wasn’t working is the first step towards overcoming infidelity. You both share the responsibility now to zero in on issues that need to be resolved and work as a team to resolve them.

I know that it can be extremely challenging to not feel overwhelmed by what happened, but every time you think negatively about what your partner did, follow it up with something positive that they offer you in the relationship. 

Remind yourself of what you’re fighting for here, and why you have chosen to stay with this person. Believe that people can change and learn from their mistakes. If the roles were switched, you’d want your partner to believe that you could change and make different decisions in the future, right?

Forgiveness is a habit and in order for it to stick, you have to choose it every single day.

At the end of the day, every single challenge, every single adversity, failure, and heartbreak offers an opportunity for a greater benefit. If you approach infidelity in the right way, you can breathe new life into this relationship and propel it forward into a loving and safe place.

Cheating in marriages or relationship: How to survive it?

A lot of people ask me, “How common is infidelity?” The truth is, it’s a lot more common than you might think. To give you an idea, here are some adultery statistics:

• Percentage of marriages where one or both spouses admit to infidelity, either physical or emotional: 41%

• Percentage of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had: 57%

• Percentage of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had: 54%

• Average length of an affair: 2 years

• Percentage of men who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught: 74%

• Percentage of women who say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught: 68%

If you are reading this article today because you’re suspicious that your spouse or partner might be cheating on you, we have an entire article that was written on how to detect the signs of infidelity that you can read here, but I want to give you a brief overview in this article as well.

Early warning signs of relationship or marital infidelity

If you’re feeling uneasy and have a hunch that your partner might be up to no good behind your back, here are some of the indicators that you should keep an eye out for. A person who is cheating generally will stop confiding in you, and you’ll feel them start to drift away. They will lie often, and about trivial things.

When someone is being unfaithful in a relationship, they’ll suddenly want no sex or a lot of it. You will notice them become secretive about their phone or their messages, and they might even start to change their passwords.

Another interesting thing that sometimes happens is that the person who is cheating will start to accuse their significant other of cheating because it’s a defense mechanism that they’re developing! They’re self-conscious and are fixating on what they’re doing wrong, so they subconsciously try to turn it around on you. You might also notice a change in their spending habits and they might start to acquire sexy new lingerie or new outfits that you don’t really see much of.

A person who is being unfaithful will also be shady about who they’re spending their time with and might even disappear with their phone turned off for an extended period of time. Your intuition will tell you that something is wrong, and you might notice that their friends or coworkers are starting to act differently around you.

I know this is extremely uncomfortable to read, but once again, you CAN bounce back from this. Your relationship can survive cheating, and we are here to help you.

A success story after cheating

One of my clients, Amelia, found out that her boyfriend of seven years, Dawson, had been unfaithful to her. She learned of this when she went through his computer after she started to feel suspicious of his behavior. She found an iMessage thread between him and one of his colleagues at work that made it abundantly clear that they had been having an affair for a few months. Amelia confronted him about it pretty much immediately, and much to her surprise, he came clean. When he confessed, he also told her that he had been unhappy in their relationship (with Amelia) and wanted to find a way to make things right between them again. At first, she told him that it was over between them and that she wanted nothing to do with him. With time, however, she reflected on their relationship and understood that there were issues that weren’t being addressed and that to his credit, he did try to bring them up to her. She would shrug it off or postpone the conversations, and when she realized this, she felt more motivated to give this relationship another try. She was ready to make the necessary changes and that’s when she reached out to us.

Together, we worked on outlining what was causing their romance and their bond to crumble and successfully found a solution to every problem their relationship was facing, broken trust included. I am happy to say that they are now engaged!

So, surviving infidelity is a choice. You’ve got to choose to survive it, choose to forgive your partner and choose to have faith in a healthier future with your partner. The more you do things on a regular basis, the more natural they will begin to feel. So the trick is to choose to actively do these things every day until you no longer have to actively choose. Over time it will become a natural habit of thinking.

A helpful way to do this is to remind yourself of the journey, start to finish, and what you’ve built together. Think about what goals you have accomplished together and the common life projects, because these are powerful anchors to help you survive infidelity.

Communication in relationships: Everything you need to know for success!

Preparing to talk to your partner after infidelity

You might be in the stage where you are wondering how to approach the issue with your partner. You know that he or she has created, but you haven’t talked about it yet. Or perhaps you have and you aren’t sure of how to handle this topic with them right now.

If you haven’t confronted him or her yet, the first thing to keep in mind is the importance of not doing this when you’re in the heat of the moment. Give yourself some time to calm down before you talk about it because if you do it while you’re emotional, it can turn into a huge argument that winds up being more destructive than productive. Choose a calm and quiet place to do it – not in a restaurant or in front of a bunch of people that you know.

If it’s possible, make sure that you have undeniable proof. When you do approach your partner about it, be calm and collected and try not to say things that you’ll regret. Use this conversation as a way to gather more information about why the cheating happened instead of asking for explicit details. If you sense that they’re gaslighting you or are trying to deny it, bring in a trust third party like a family member or a friend.

You CAN survive emotional infidelity and never look back!

You and your partner can recover from this, you just have to commit to taking the right steps. It’s all about your mindset and reshaping your thinking. It’s all about using this as an opportunity to help your relationship grow and evolve. It’s about choosing to forgive and move forward together. Dwelling on the past will not help either of you. It just needs to be used as a tool to help you both become better – better partners, better people, better communicators, and all of this will transform your relationship.

We are here to help you every step of the way and have created a product to help you overcome infidelity with grace, confidence, and peace of mind. To access it, just click here. You can also reach out to us for one on one coaching and a custom action plan by clicking here.

Remember to train yourself to think about forgiveness and what you’re fighting for, what you’ve built together, and what you can still build together! As I said, sometimes infidelity can be the most wonderfully transformative thing a couple can go through. I can’t tell you how many clients have reached out to me long after we worked together to tell me that without this ordeal, they wouldn’t be as close to their partners as they are now. I want the same thing for you.

All of this suffering can turn into something incredibly resilient, and this is an opportunity to make the necessary changes to ensure you never have to be faced with infidelity again. The worst is behind you, and you’re in control of more than you may realize.

I sincerely wish you all the best in life and love,

Your coach when you want to know how to handle infidelity