If you’re reading this article right now, it means that you have found yourself in a very challenging situation. You have been unfaithful to the man you love, and you’re trying to figure out how to repair the damage. Many people come to us for help, saying, “I cheated on my husband, is there any hope for saving my relationship?”
Fortunately, there are ways to repair the damage and set your relationship back on the right track. I know that it is a lot to deal with, and your thoughts and emotions are probably all over the place right now, but please don’t panic.
Here at Happily Committed, we have coached thousands upon thousands of people all over the world, and we have compiled all of our expertise to provide you with tips and tools that have been proven to be effective.
After working with so many people, we can confidently tell you what works and what doesn’t, so you have come to the right place. In today’s article, I am going to go over why cheating occurs (even when a person is happy in their relationship), how to help your spouse cope with your affair, and how to heal your relationship.
Right off the bat, I want to tell you something important. In many cases, when a couple is faced with infidelity, they think that it’s the end of the world. However, when they put in the effort to analyze what went wrong, why the cheating occurred, and use this to fix their relationship, they realize that it was a huge blessing in disguise.
They come to understand that the cheating served as a powerful catalyst for positive change that wound up making their relationship stronger than ever! My goal is to give you all the tools you need to make this happen for you and your husband as well, so let’s get started!
I was working with a client, Rebecca, recently. She came to me for help because she had been unfaithful to her husband and was deeply ashamed of her actions. She didn’t know if it was too late to save her relationship or if she could ever get her husband to forgive her, but one of the things that she said that stuck out to me the most was:
“I regret what I did so much, and the craziest thing is that I was happy with my husband. We weren’t on bad terms or anything, and yet I still cheated. And now here I am trying to put the pieces of my marriage back together. I wish I could undo what I did… I don’t even know why I did it.”
So, Rebecca brought up an issue that I commonly see in my coaching sessions with people who cheated. Sometimes, happy people cheat. Why is that? Are they truly happy? Is infidelity ever justified?
So we see marriage and relationships as a fortress of happiness and if cheating occurred, it means that there was a breach. The first question I have for people that tell me that they were happy in their relationships despite the fact that they cheated is, “Are you sure that you were truly happy?”
In many cases, I see that people tend to turn a blind eye to the issues and sources of stress that their relationship was facing, and they essentially allowed themselves to live in a false reality. In other words, they are often in denial about the fact that they were not 100% happy in their marriage.
Cheating is usually a symptom of a much deeper problem, so it is very important that you analyze whether or not your needs were truly being met in your marriage.
Did you feel neglected by your husband?
Did you turn a blind eye to the problems your marriage was experiencing?
Did your husband ignore the problems your marriage was experiencing?
Were you living in a false sense of reality?
It’s very important to reflect on these issues and ask yourself these questions. These aren’t easy questions, I know, but the more information you have, the easier it will be to define the appropriate solutions when you’re thinking, “I cheated on my husband.”
Remember, in crisis is an opportunity. Again, our goal is to ensure that you’re in a genuinely happy and fulfilling marriage, and part of that involves asking yourself uncomfortable questions. At this point, we need to recalibrate the marriage so that this never happens again. If you weren’t truly happy, you will need to think about what you can do to rebuild a healthy and sustainable relationship. You’ll need to work on rebuilding empathy and communication skills that enable you to relate to your partner. We’ll get into that in a little bit…
Now, what if you’re sincerely thinking, “I was truly happy, so why was I cheating on my husband?” What happened here? Many times, a happy person cheats because it’s rooted in their lower nature, or it is linked to their insecurities. We are also taught by society that sometimes it’s alright to go look around and see what else you can get. It makes us think that it’s okay to have a fling with another person if you really love your spouse or if you don’t get caught… When you see it written out like that, it looks ridiculous, but if you really think about it, it’s often a deep-rooted idea that the media instills in us without us even realizing it. We live in a consumer society where we’re always taught to want more and need more and to never be satisfied. This type of thing can become very insidious. So much so that we often don’t even realize that we operate like this.
The reality is that happiness can be found and should be found within your marriage with the one you love. You can be fulfilled and happy without having to cheat. We also need to remember that sometimes, good people make bad mistakes. We are all human beings and sometimes even the best of us wind up having a lapse in judgment and can do something extremely regrettable. I have had so many clients who are good people who just happened to make a bad decision when they wound up in a certain situation. Their mistake should not define them.
That said, infidelity IS a big deal. Cheating on your husband is not okay, and it should not happen again. Fortunately, you already understand that and have gone out of your way to find information on how to make things right again. It’s important to use this situation as an opportunity to grow and make improvements so that this doesn’t wind up happening again. You also have to be careful with being too hard on yourself right now. It’s easy to feel upset and disappointed in yourself, but again, don’t let this mistake define you. Ultimately, we are all human and we all make mistakes. The important thing now will be to take this as a valuable lesson and start focusing on solutions!
After an affair, we have to deal with the backlash. There will be a wide variety of very important emotions that your partner experiences when they learn that you have been unfaithful to them. Oftentimes, these reactions will involve arguments, harsh words, and a lot of negativity. You might find that your partner is so hurt that he will want to make you pay the price for what you did over an extended period of time, and this can be very draining for both of you. In addition to this, you will have to deal with the guilt and the remorse, and not being able to undo what happened. I am not telling you all of this to dishearten you; I just want you to understand that this is going to take some work. When you understand that this is going to be challenging, it makes it easier to persevere when the challenges arise.
In order to help your husband heal after your affair, you need to allow yourself to heal as well. The first step is to forgive yourself. You need to be able to take accountability for what has happened and then commit to making things right. Take action in order to move this guilt. I can tell you right now that if you’re thinking, “I cheated on my husband, now what,” and you’re just going to be passive about the whole thing and hope that things fix themselves on their own, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Similarly, if you let the guilt overpower you, your partner is going to have a very hard time trusting you again. If you are constantly blaming yourself and wallowing in despair, and if you are constantly bringing up what happened and how sorry you are about it, you’re going to keep reminding your partner of what happened. The result is that you’re going to freeze yourselves in a moment that you’re trying to move past.
Interestingly enough, one of the biggest mistakes that I witness in my clients that come to me for help when they cheated on husband is constantly apologizing or expecting their husband to just move past the affair as soon as they’ve said sorry. You recognizing the fact that you made a mistake does not mean that your spouse is going to be ready to trust you again. This is going to take time and patience (on both sides). The key here is to be detached from the outcome. Don’t worry about him forgiving you. Instead, focus on the process of what you need to do in order to get him to truly forgive you. There are three things that need to happen…
The first thing we need to keep in mind after cheating on your husband is the importance of empathy. You’re going to need a LOT of empathy. It’s not about you; it’s about what your husband is feeling. Like I was saying, there are going to be moments where you will have very uncomfortable and stressful conversations, but if you can remember that you’re working towards the goal of healing your marriage, it will become much easier to have productive conversations.
It’s also important to remember that cheating on a person will have a sizable impact on how they view themselves in the relationship. It will affect their sense of self-esteem; it will make them question their lovability, how attractive they are, and these are all things to keep in mind while you’re laying out a new foundation. Make sure that you are patient and work with your husband. You have to validate how he feels without bringing yourself down. If you don’t validate what he’s feeling, you won’t allow him to properly heal.
So just because you understand that you hurt him and he’s resentful, it doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible person. You just need to find empathy to understand where he’s coming from while you are working together towards fixing the situation. You both need to heal and deal with the aftermath of cheating. When you first make the decision to fight for your marriage, you can feel a burst of excitement at the prospect of the challenge. With time as challenges arise, it’s easy to feel discouraged. Just keep reminding yourself that it’s normal that it would be difficult, and just keep doing the little things you committed to doing every single day. It’s a choice you have to actively make every single day. Wake up in the morning and repeat to yourself: This is an opportunity for me to make my marriage better than ever, and I am going to do it.
The next tip I have for you has to do with consistency. As you have come to understand, the process of fixing a marriage after cheating is going to take time. This means that you are going to have to stick with the promises you made your partner. If he picks up on the fact that you’re not consistent about your efforts to repair the damage, you’re going to lose credibility, and this is something that will undermine the relationship very, very quickly.
Your husband is hurt right now and he’s on high alert. If he sees you even start to slightly stray from the promises you made him to get back on track, he will view it as a huge red flag. This is why empathy is so important – it helps you to remember why you have to be consistent.
Consistency also means cutting contact with potential distractions and giving your husband access to things that he needs to feel safe and secure. You have to pay attention to your actions, what you’re doing, and what you can do better every single day. Consistency is essential in this process because your husband’s trust has been broken. It can be repaired, but again, it’s going to take time. It’s about taking small steps and having small steps each and every single day that will help you to reach your goal.
If you are thinking, “I cheated on my husband, now what do I do,” you have to authentically be yourself. If you start putting on an act, not only will your husband feel it, but he’ll resent you for it. However, if you can be yourself, it becomes much easier for him to feel safe in the relationship and this will make it easier for him to bring his guard down. I bring this up because it can be very hard to be yourself when you’re feeling guilty about something that you did. You might want to overcompensate for it by trying really hard to be something else. In some cases, you might feel so disconnected from your true self as a result of your actions that it becomes challenging for you to act naturally. It can take time to work through the negative emotions so that you can see things clearly, and that is why it’s so important to take your time to do this right. Just make sure that you aren’t trying to be someone else or what you think your partner wants you to be.
Have empathy, be remorseful, be consistent, but be yourself. Otherwise, your husband will have trouble recognizing you and reconnecting with you, which will not make the healing process any easier. If you can be yourself and reconnect with your husband, it will make your apology that much more powerful. One of the things that we explain to our clients is that a genuine apology given in a moment of closeness can make all the difference. It’s not about apologizing to him when you’re ready; it’s about apologizing to him when he is ready, when his walls have come down, when he recognizes that you have been putting in positive actions to make things right. It’s also important for your partner to understand and believe that you truly do care about them and not just about saving yourself.
When he sees that you’re authentic and that you are consistently the woman that he fell in love with, it will help him heal after an affair and reconnect with you.
Another thing that I often work on with my clients who want to make sure that they can prevent breaking up is trust. Without trust, a relationship will not thrive. Plain and simple. It’s very important to have a sense of how much you trust your partner and how much they trust you. This is especially true because a lack of trust can bring about insecurity, instability, and resentment.
As you can imagine, it’s very hard to build a loving relationship if you don’t trust your partner! It’s important to always work hard to nurture trust because once it is broken, it is incredibly difficult to repair. If it does get broken, you have to work on taking responsibility, apologizing, and seeking new insights into what your partner needs from you. You’ve got to showcase your change and remember that actions always speak louder than words. Make promises through actions and give your partner time. If you broke their trust, don’t make it about you and give them time. If they broke your trust, commit to forgiving them every single day.
When I am working with a client on separation prevention, I always make it a point to talk about shared goals. If this relationship is going to thrive, you both need to be on the same page. And common goals don’t have to be long-term, big deal things like “two children,” especially if you’re in the beginning stages of a relationship. A simple solution would be to plan a party together. You can plan and coordinate something together that is going to be fun, and this can help you grow. You can also plan a vacation together, or even charity work where you feel like you are making a difference and bringing happiness to other people’s lives. Focus on short-term things that you can do to pave the foundation for long-term goals, like building a house and family.
Then there is also the issue of knowing when to talk about the unpleasant stuff. It’s very common for people to lose patience in a situation and choose that moment to have a serious conversation about the things that are making them unhappy in the relationship. But it is not the best moment to talk about the issues in your relationship when you are about to lose your cool.
In these moments a person is less patient, less understanding, and is more concerned with getting their point across and venting. If you want to talk about an issue, wait for a better moment when things are going well. This goes hand-in-hand with the lack of communication that I see in so many relationships, which incidentally is one of the biggest relationship killers.
By being empathetic, by being consistent and by being authentically yourself, you can really help your husband to heal after your affair, and it can truly set your marriage back on the right path. It goes without saying and in addition to these things, if your intent is to make things right, you will have to ensure that you do not have an affair again. That might mean avoiding putting yourself in certain situations where the temptation is present and it might mean cutting off certain relationships with people. You may have to stretch your comfort zone and you’re definitely going to have to be patient, but at the end of the day, a situation like this can truly deepen your bond with your husband.
It can make it clear how much you truly love each other and what you’re willing to do to heal this marriage. Your marriage can be reinvented by what you have gone through if you approach it in the right way. Love is about handling the challenges of life together as a couple and becoming stronger as a result. By being able to stick together through challenges, you can build a deeper and more meaningful bond with the person you love.
As always, we are here to help you if you need it. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for one on one coaching by clicking here. By asking you targeted questions, we can design a custom action plan to help you save your marriage ASAP. You can transform your relationship and become closer than ever before with your husband. We work with people in this situation every single day and want to provide you with all the tips and tools you need in order to navigate through this in the most productive way possible. We have created so many articles on this topic that you can find in this blog, but we’ve also created numerous YouTube videos and a product that is specifically designed to help you heal your relationship from infidelity with grace, ease and peace of mind. To access it, just click the link.
I sincerely wish you all the best in life and love,
Your coach when you’re thinking “I cheated on my husband”
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4 Responses
I need help to save my relationship with my husband.
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I cheated. He left, then he begged me back, but I was too stuck on myself. I said we should take things slow, I encouraged him to see other women. He eventually did. The first one he saw, he paid attention to, he slept with after a week. I was so devastated. I have been trying for the last two weeks to get him back, but he says I hurt him too badly, that he doesn’t trust me anymore and knows I will hurt him again. He also says that he likes her. I feel like have been fighting inevitability. 😭😭 I realized how stupid I was. How much he loved me. Even though he ignored me, prioritized others over me, etc he was in a lot of physical pain and I wasn’t there for him. I’ve lost him and I dont know how to move on. I’ve tried to get him back, but I think it’s too late.
I cheated on my husband twice once was sexual one time the second was just texting but that is still bad. I know why I did not anything to do with him. I was raped by 4 men when I was 17 and that changed me I was in a dark cloud. I’ve been in therapy for that and I feel like antotally different person I feel like me. But he is still thinking about leaving how do I fix it when I’ve been changing.