How to OVERCOME an INFIDELITY and Stay with your Partner

One of the hardest situations a couple can go through is infidelity. The moment in which one person decides to fail the trust of the other can be a turning point in the life of a couple. Many people choose to break the relationship and start a new life. However, there is another option: overcome an infidelity, stay with your partner and overcome the bump through patience, work and a lot of reflection. Forgiving an infidelity is a complicated decision and it is not always the best idea, it depends on the personality of each one and the nature of the situation.

"I want and I can't get over an infidelity." Does it sound familiar to you? If you want to know how to overcome an infidelity and stay with your partner We recommend that you continue reading this Psychology-Online article. In it you will find the best tips to develop patience and trust again in that person who has failed you on one occasion. In addition, we show you some keys to know how to treat your partner after an infidelity.

Index

1. How to overcome an infidelity of my husband or wife: tips
2. How to get over an emotional infidelity
3. How to treat your partner after an infidelity: factors that favor overcoming
4. How long does it take to get over an infidelity?
5. How to overcome an infidelity and separation
6. When to go to the psychologist after an infidelity

Can you overcome an infidelity? How to overcome a long-term infidelity? First of all, and although it sounds obvious, we must be clear about our decision. If your intention is to continue with the relationship, you should know that overcoming and forgiving an infidelity implies being willing to do hard mental work. How to overcome an infidelity and stay with your partner? How to forgive an infidelity of my husband or wife? Thanks to the studies of psychology in this field, we can follow these tips to overcome an infidelity:

1. Keep a temporary distance

Be it days, weeks or months. It is important to take some time for reflection to be able to properly decide how to deal with this situation. Each person keeps pace with her and needs to chart their own path to individual growth and emotional improvement. If when we find out about the infidelity we pretend nothing had happened, we may never completely close the wound.

2. Open the communication channel

Once the decision is made to move on and forgive an infidelity, it is likely that we will go through a stage of pain where we still need to get everything that goes through our mind. If we want to continue with that person, it will be necessary to express our feelings and insecurities in order to restart the relationship with a basis of sincerity and communication. As much as it may hurt, you need to talk about what happened to that person.

3. Start a new stage

If we want to learn to overcome an infidelity and continue with our partnerIt is essential to return with renewed energy and under a new perspective of the relationship. After analyzing the deception and how we have felt throughout the process, it is time to turn the page. Overcoming an infidelity does not mean forgetting what happened but forgiving the other person and establishing new guidelines for a healthier relationship. He or she will also tell you what he or she wants in this new stage. With everything on the table, it will be possible to build something solid (as long as there is a pact of absolute sincerity and trust).

4. Don't use infidelity as a throwing weapon

How to deal with an infidelity? If we have decided to forgive It means that we have left that stage behind, therefore it is unnecessary, and inappropriate, to reproach infidelity when the stage of pain and disappointment has already been overcome. It is normal for there to be psychological sequelae such as insecurity and fear for it to happen again. However, using deception as a throwing weapon in an argument does not help you move forward in a relationship. How to overcome an infidelity as a couple? If we want to go ahead and build something strong and beautiful, we must learn to overcome resentment towards your partner.

5. Go to therapy to overcome an infidelity

If the trust and communication of the couple are damaged, it will be useful to go to a specialist who will help you better understand the other and act in favor of the relationship. In the following article you will find more information about how to overcome an infidelity in marriage.

There are many types of infidelity in the couple. In our culture, the most obvious deception involves sexual contact, kisses and other physical expressions of affection with another person. However, we can get to talk about emotional infidelity when our partner begins to feel emotions and flirt with another person without ever reaching physical contact.

Where is the line drawn between the freedom to relate to whomever we want and emotional infidelity? That is a matter for each couple and how the dynamics are lived within it. The important is do not disrespect him to that person you love.

exist different ways of loving or loving a person: open relationships, polyamorous (more than two people), traditional relationships... Each of them requires different care and attention and only the people who live in those relationships can clearly establish what is infidelity and what is not.

Is it possible to overcome an emotional infidelity?

To know how to overcome an emotional infidelity, it is important to work from self-love and self-esteem. Working on social skills in the couple will be essential if we want to fight and move on with it.

In the event that we ourselves feel that we are being emotionally unfaithful, it is necessary that, even though there is no nothing happened on a physical level, let's cut the flirtation with the other individual and talk openly with our partner about our feelings. We must reflect on why we have committed an emotional infidelity and where we wanted to go with our actions.

Profile of unfaithful woman and man

While it is true that there are several signs and behaviors that may be related to infidelity, there is no personality trait that confirms 100% if a person will be unfaithful or not. If you have doubts about it, it is important that you talk to your partner and find out if there are signs of infidelity in his speech.

It is possible that we have decided to overcome an infidelity but we do not see ourselves capable, either because of the pain caused or because of the insecurity that it will happen again. It is important to assess the benefits and problems that the fact of staying with our partner can cause us and put everything on a balance to make a rational decision.

Also, it is not easy to know how to act after an infidelity. Here are some tips to know how to treat your partner after an infidelity:

• Communication: As we have discussed previously, talking openly with our partner can re-form the foundations of a sincere and healthy relationship.
• Cut off the relationship with the lover: either due to emotional or physical infidelity, the person with whom a parallel relationship has been maintained has no place in this process.
• Couple therapy: It has been scientifically proven that couples who have suffered a crisis, have overcome it better if they have gone to couples therapy.^[1]
• Create positive memories^[2]: stop seeing our partner as an evil and unfaithful person and observe them as a human being who has made a big mistake, it can help us a lot to trust again and to generate new and positive experiences.

How to regain trust in your partner

How to regain confidence after an infidelity? We must also assess how the other person is behaving, if she really regrets what has happened and is making changes positive in favor of your relationship or if, on the contrary, he becomes defensive and maintains behaviors similar to what has produced the infidelity.

If despite everything, we do not feel psychologically prepared to continue with the relationship, we must make the decision to break up with that person and prevent him from continuing to harm us mentally. Strengthen the bases of self-esteem It is essential to achieve a correct emotional well-being and it is possible that, on our way to personal growth, the person we considered so important will not be with us.

To move forward in a relationship after an infidelity, it is necessary to know how long it can take to forgive what happened. While it is true that each person goes through an individual process, many experts agree that a hoax is not forgiven from day to morning. It is important that there is a space of time where we can reflect and emotionally process everything that happened. The following article that explains How to learn to forgive.

During that time we can decide to be completely alone, surrounded by friends and even (if the situation is propitious) accompanied from time to time by our partner. A temporary separation can also lead to dating again to talk about your feelings and observe how the bond between you develops. Once we realize that we are really ready, we can resume the relationship again by following all the tips mentioned in this article.

It may happen that after considering all the factors, you notice that it is not possible to continue with your partner. You need to think about how to get over a breakup and move on after this painful experience. How to overcome an infidelity and breakup? If you need more advice, you can visit this other article about how to overcome a love breakup due to infidelity.

After an infidelity, self-esteem can be seriously affected. Especially if the self-esteem was no longer healthy, strong and stable before the infidelity. Impaired self-esteem also tends to influence self-confidence and security.

On the other hand, infidelity implies a loss: the idea we had of our partner may not be real, as well as the idea we had of the relationship. Every loss requires a grieving process, which includes anger and denial.

For all these reasons, infidelity may trigger discomfort and a psychological and emotional imbalance that requires professional help. It should be noted that it is possible and advisable to go to the psychologist in a preventive way, before the situation overwhelms you. Anyway, if you detect these signs, it's time to ask for help:

• You have neglected some area of ​​your life: friends, family, work, etc.
• You do not feel able to carry out your daily activities.
• You continually compare yourself to your partner's lovers or ex-partners.
• You put your partner's needs before your own.
• You have a hard time expressing your ideas and feelings to your partner.
• You want to forgive him because you don't want to be alone or alone.
• You want to change things about yourself to make your partner like you more.
• You think the infidelity was your fault.
• You think about how to get revenge.
• You want to leave the person but you don't dare.
• The people around you are quite concerned about you.

How can going to the psychologist help you?

How will going to the psychologist help you after an infidelity? It depends on your particular needs but, in general, it can help you:

• Observe the situation more objectively and accept it.
• Understand and learn to express your emotions.
• Restructure your thoughts, eliminating false beliefs and adopting more appropriate thoughts.
• Take responsibility for your actions and not those of others.
• Know yourself or yourself and treat yourself from kindness.
• Learn to communicate assertively, which can help you communicate with your partner but also with other people.
• Position yourself before reality in a proactive way, abandoning the role of victim.
• Increase your resilience and grow as a person in unpleasant situations.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to overcome an infidelity and stay with your partner, we recommend that you enter our category of Couple therapy.

1. Gottman, J., Gottman, J. & DeClaire, J. (2006). Ten keys to transform your marriage: how to strengthen relationships. New York, United States: Crown Publishers.
2. Spring, J. A., & Spring, M. (1996). After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebulging Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful. New York, United States: Harper Collins Pusblishers.