Cheating doesn’t have to mean the end of a relationship. The decision to save a relationship after cheating can be a huge challenge.
Still, it is possible if both partners know how to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for the healing and recovery process.
After a destructive breach of trust, there must be maturity, awareness, and a strong intention to heal and save the relationship for the resolution process to begin.
I Cheated But I Want To Save My Relationship-19 Effective Ways
There are so many ways to save a relationship after cheating. But for the purpose of this article, we are going to talk about 19 ways to save a relationship after cheating.
1. Stop Cheating
The first step is to stop cheating. This might sound simple or difficult, and whatever it means for you, a strong, healthy, secure relationship is impossible when there is ongoing infidelity.
Consult a trained therapist if you need help figuring out how to do this or which relationship you want to keep.
2. Be Remorseful
In saving your relationship after cheating, you must be remorseful. “There needs to be an adequate level of remorse.
Therefore, if you are the one who cheated on your partner, you should apologize, and it cannot be something that may in any way appear careless.
According to Elmquist, there must be strong regret and remorse for what occurred.
And if your partner cheated on you but you don’t feel any regret on their behalf, that’s something you should look for as a beginning point to get back on track.
3. Accept Responsibility
No matter your “reasons” for cheating, you must accept responsibility for your actions and rebuild trust. Avoid blaming your partner or your relationship problems, and apologize to your partner.
4. Let Go Of Self-blame
Don’t get stuck in self-blame mode. It doesn’t help you to go through the process of saving the relationship.
5) Communicate
Research has shown that being unable to talk to one another is one of the most commonly cited reasons marriages fail. Be willing to listen and talk to your partner. This is a crucial step if you want to save your relationship after cheating.
Prepare for this conversation and ensure you’re in a quiet setting where you feel free to express yourself.
Relationship specialist April Masini said, “cheating doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and it’s vital, to be honest about your part in the relationship.”
If you cheated because your relationship wasn’t meeting your needs, tell your partner what those needs are. You must understand each other fully and understand what the other person needs.
Even though it may sound harsh, there is typically a reason why someone cheats, and if you want to repair your relationship after cheating, you must find a solution to that cause.
No matter what outcome you’re looking for, talking to your partner is necessary to fix the relationship. It will be tough to confront your partner, but you need to talk about it if you are to move on with your relationship.
6. Why It Happened; Be Honest
This is the most difficult phase and will significantly impact your ability to save your marriage following infidelity. Mahoney says, “People can make bad decisions occasionally. Do those poor decisions and/or symptoms now have to determine how a relationship will develop?
The response is heavily influenced by the motives driving the affair. Poor communication, issues with attachment, outdated gender roles, and underlying unfulfilled needs in the partnership can all serve as catalysts for infidelity in a relationship.
Why did that take place? The breakdown occurred where? What about our connection finally led to us leaving a door open so that someone else could enter?
Having that understanding of your connection will be crucial.
You have to be brutally honest about the affair’s details to save the relationship after cheating.
This level of transparency needs to continue for as long as it takes to regain that trust, which Elle says was key to her healing process.
7. Commit to Rebuilding Trust
To save your relationship after cheating, you need to work to rebuild or regain the trust in your partner.
Trust can be rebuilt, but it takes a lot of work and commitment on both partners’ parts. You cannot rebuild trust in your relationship or partner alone.
8. Work With A Licensed Therapist
Knowing what to do or even where to begin after cheating might be challenging. Consider engaging with a qualified therapist who can help direct the process if you feel that your chats with your partner aren’t moving the topic forward.
According to Mahoney, the therapist’s ability to maintain objectivity during the discussion can help determine whether underlying unfulfilled needs can be identified and dealt with inside the couple’s relationship.
Couples frequently have the opportunity to seek understanding, develop compassion, have a better capacity to overcome problems, and move forward at this investigative period of therapy.
9. Invest Time In Your Relationship
If you want to save a relationship after an affair, both partners have to be willing to invest time and emotional work in the relationship.
10. Give Your Partner Some Space
It’s healthy to acknowledge and appreciate that everyone, including your spouse and yourself, requires space from time to time.
11. Sexual Intimacy
It is a hard pill for your partner to swallow finding out you cheated; the lack of trust, the insecurities, and then regaining sexual intimacy. Sometimes it’s far too emotionally draining for your partner to even contemplate being intimate with you again, knowing you have been with somebody else.
The desire may be there but emotionally your partner may not be ready and until you resolve the emotional aspects of the infidelity, you should hold off from regaining a sexual intimacy with your partner.
You must deal with all the emotional aspects before you proceed to getting back into the routine of sexual intimacy.
12. Be Patient With Your Partner
There will be growing pains in your partner that you could cheat on them — means there’s a part of your minds that you’re keeping from one another, and that’s not something that you had when you first fell in love.
So be patient. Relearning how to love each other without any kind of infidelity means relearning each other.
Patience is a key virtue in fixing this relationship for good.
13. Be Selective Who You Tell
It’s healthy to talk to someone that you have cheated and but want to save your relationship. But telling everyone in your inner circle can end up backfiring.
14. Affirm Positive Qualities
Thinking beyond your grief and anger to what was positive will gradually help you to see the light at the end of the tunnel when trying to save your relationship after cheating.
Couples need to list each other’s positive qualities, and both partners need to discuss the good that brought them together.
15. Heal Together As A Couple
Many people view cheating as a malicious act done by one partner to the other, and so the betrayed partner must heal while the cheating partner must atone for their sins.
But cheating is a much deeper problem, one that stems from problems way below the surface of the relationship. This means the healing process must be a combined effort, a journey involving both partners, not just one.
16. Be Honest And Open
Take a stance of fearless openness. Giving your partner full, open access to your digital life can go a long way toward easing concerns.
Give them the passcode to your cell phone and social media accounts. Have clear and effective communication about when what and where you are without them having to ask.
Once openness and sharing become a habit within your relationship, trust builds.
17. Stay “Present Oriented”
However painful, your cheating is now in the past. Focus upon the possibilities of your future together while recognizing you’re now called to higher standards of accountability and emotional communication
If you truly want to save your relationship after cheating and move forward, it is possible.
18. Commit To Building A Future Together
Sex is sex, but a relationship is a life. You can commit to building a life with another person, sharing your finances, raising your kids, and building a home.
This shouldn’t just be a fling, a relationship, or something you’re doing for fun to pass the time.
This should have value beyond the fact that you like each other’s company; it should be a home, a family, something tangible and more important than just you two.
19. Spend Quality Time Together Doing Things Unrelated To Your Experiences of Cheating
While continued communication and trust-building will be important, your fragile relationship will benefit from spending time and effort on new experiences.
- Consider activities you’ve enjoyed that you could reestablish as productive habits.
- Discuss your goals and interests. Perhaps your partner has always wanted to travel. Consider researching trips or pursuing language or cultural instruction to make that dream a reality.
Perhaps they have been thinking about running a half marathon. If you can share this vision, commit to achieving this goal together — or, if you aren’t a runner yourself, commit to becoming your partner’s top cheerleader.
Conclusion
It takes a lot of nerve, confidence to want to realize your mistake in a relationship and own up to those mistakes. It also takes a lot of confidence to want to fix the relationship. The steps above explains a lot of things to do if you want to fix the relationship.
How ever, if you are not satisfied, and you are interested in knowing more interesting facts you can watch this video.
