In the time after an affair, you and your partner need to make some hard decisions. Either one of you needs to leave the marriage, or both of you need to commit to staying. Staying together means being able to forgive. There’s no quick fix when it comes to forgiveness. If you know in your heart that you won’t be able to forgive your partner, then it might be time to part ways. There’s little point in punishing your partner for a lifetime over a mistake such as this.

In considering whether you should stay together, think about how you would feel if your partner cheated on you again. If you can confidently say that you would have the courage to recover again, you can move forward in your relationship with a spirit of optimism and can begin to rebuild your relationship. Think about your idea of a healthy relationship. You should both sit down and figure out what you want and behave in such a way that will bring about success.

If you have children or you are considering getting pregnant, you need to understand the effect that your choices will have on them. Don’t put your children in the middle of your fighting and screwed-up relationship, and allow them to witness irresponsible behavior. Kids would rather be from a broken home than from a home that is filled with arguing, tension, and unhappiness. Never argue in front of your children. When you do, it changes who they are forever. Kids tend to think that problems in the home are their fault. If you find that your infidelity problems are affecting the children, then it might be time to rethink staying with your partner.

Plus, if a child was born of infidelity, your spouse will have to have contact with the other person to be co-parents. This can be done the right way, which means that your partner doesn’t have any contact without your involvement. If they want to talk with the other person, then you should be present. Would you be able to handle that? If not, you have your answer for what you should do.

It’s a choice to use the lessons that you have positively learned in life. Don’t rely on your heart to tell you whether you should stay together or not. You must rely on your intellect. Doing what logic tells you is the right thing to do.

First of all, do not try to make sense of the situation. Rationalizing your cheating spouse’s behavior or sympathizing with them is a waste of time. It is not your fault. You did not do something that caused them to cheat on you. It’s never okay for someone to go outside of their relationship to solve problems within a relationship. If there were problems in the relationship, your spouse should have put their energy towards finding a solution within the marriage. You do not deserve to be cheated on. And by defiling the sanctity of your marriage, your partner has broken something that can only be fixed by someone who is truly changed and willing to make major changes.

Unfortunately, time does not heal all wounds. If your choice is to forget the past and move forward with your spouse, you are not going to be “fixing” anything. You must both commit to fixing the wounds in your marriage rather than to just “forget” what happened. If your partner wants back into the relationship, they must earn it. You will have to restructure the relationship in a way that works for both of you. Plus, you were betrayed, which caused you to lose trust in your partner. They need to understand that and be patient and willing to do what it takes to make you more comfortable. You also need to understand that although you can not trust your partner now, in the future, you will need to find a way to trust them again. Moving forward with life and love is vital for you. You have to be willing to trust again, but take things one step at a time.

By staying in the relationship, you are choosing to work it out. But be careful not to pull back from hope and optimism. You might come to a place where you secretly believe, “If I get too happy, something bad is going to happen.” You are not going to be protecting anyone by withholding who you are. You can not control your partner’s behavior. Staying in the relationship means not punishing them for the rest of your life. Both of you must make an effort to make things better.

There might also come a time when you have to draw a line and say, “That’s it. I am done. I’m not mad at you. I withdraw my feelings. I am not going to live like this anymore.” It is unhealthy to stay together just for the children. Kids would rather be from a broken home than live in one. They are much better off with one well-adjusted, happy, thriving parent than they are with two who are cheating, lying, fighting, and living with stress and pressure. It is better to be healthy alone than sick with someone else.

First, is this the first time that your spouse cheated on you, or is it a pattern? When a relationship is shattered by infidelity, the only way it can be fixed is by someone who understands not only what they did wrong, but also that their entire thought pattern before and at the time of the incident was wrong. They must be willing to completely change to create a well-balanced relationship. People do not change easily. If this was not an isolated incident, the chances that they will never cheat again are very slim. If you knew that things would never change, would your marriage deserve a second chance? If your partner does not own their bad behavior, but instead, makes excuses for it, it’s clear that they are not willing to put forth the effort it takes to change or to make the relationship better. No one can change what they do not acknowledge.

Is your partner sorry for the choice that they made, or are they sorry that they got caught? Being married means being mature enough to recognize that life is not always all about you and what feels good for you at the moment. When you get married and have children, you have an obligation that far transcends what feels good. You give up the right to be selfish. Cheating is a selfish act. Your partner needs to recognize that. Feeling sorry they cheated means that they regret what they did and understand how wrong it was. Feeling bad that they got caught is an entirely different thing.

One major thing that you need to ask of yourself in deciding whether your marriage deserves a second chance after infidelity is: if you reinvested yourself in this relationship and allowed yourself to trust again, and your partner cheated on you again, do you have the strength to recover from it? Would another incident leave you completely emotionally broken? You have to think about yourself. Do not allow yourself to get to a point where you won’t be able to trust another relationship. If your partner is a habitual cheater, it doesn’t matter how many chances you give them to change. Odds are, the relationship will eventually crumble. When it does, you do not want to be faced with life alone because you can no longer allow anyone to get close enough to hurt you again.

Are you willing to admit your mistake and try to fix this relationship? If you’re not truly in love with your spouse, maybe a bigger change awaits. But straying doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to end the relationship. The first thing to think about is: if you knew then what you know now, would you do it again? Forget about the reasons why you strayed. They’re in the past, and there’s no changing what you’ve done now.

At this point, most people feel very guilty about their actions. For your spouse to forgive you, you have to forgive yourself. This concept runs parallel to how you think of yourself; how can anyone else think that you’re beautiful if you don’t think you are? Once you can forgive yourself, you open the gates to allow forgiveness from your spouse. Plus, how does hanging onto guilt help your situation? Letting go of guilt does not mean that you love your partner any less because you’re “getting over it.” It simply means that you’re moving into an area where you can actively help your relationship, rather than continuing to beat yourself up over past mistakes.

Do not expect your spouse to trust you again. You have to accept that. If you wanted to trust in the relationship, you should have made different choices in the past. But you didn’t, and now you have to be understanding when your spouse is anxious about where you’ve been and who you’ve been talking to. It may take years for your spouse to get over this anxiety, and they may never get over it. The only thing you can do is commit to being patient, understanding, and comforting when your spouse has those anxious feelings. What are you doing to help your partner get over the affair? If you get defensive, your spouse will automatically put their guard up, and you’ll be right back in the place you were when they found out that you had cheated. You need to help your spouse to find emotional closure. You’ll have to do whatever it takes until your partner finds it. If it requires you to check in with your spouse multiple times a day, then do it. It will require you to be where you’re supposed to be 24 hours a day, seven days a week until your spouse can trust you again.

If you’re truly committed to making things right, look at your relationship with your spouse as a new beginning. If you want a good partner, be a good partner. Control your impulses and realize that you don’t have the right to hurt other people’s lives because you’re not getting what you want when you want it.

Any time a spouse fulfills their needs by turning away from their partner instead of turning toward them, it’s a betrayal. It’s not just what they do; sometimes, betrayal is what they don’t do. You can violate your partner by withholding affection, not communicating your feelings, or by not allowing them to get close to you as a spouse should. But you need to work out problems in your relationship within your relationship. You cannot fix a problem inside a relationship by turning to someone outside of it. Before a disaster happens, you need to acknowledge that there is something wrong with your relationship. You can not change what you do not acknowledge. If what’s happening in your marriage is not normal, admit it.

Finding out that a spouse has cheated on you is a lot to handle. It shatters your world, and you may not know which way is up for a while. When you have regained your mind, you will have some big decisions ahead of you. What do you do next? Your partner needs to realize that they have damaged the relationship. They need to listen and understand the full gravity of their actions and how they have affected you. They must acknowledge the damage that their behavior has caused to their self-esteem, mental state, and emotions. It is not your fault that they have cheated on you. But remember, you do teach people how to treat you. If you do not tell your partner how their behavior has hurt you, they will not know. 

If you are willing to work things out with your partner after they have had an affair, you need to set some new standards of acceptable behavior. Your partner needs to know what those standards are. Maybe your partner has gotten away with certain things because they know they can. If you are allowing certain behavior to continue by making excuses for your partner and blaming yourself, you need to stop. If you want to be treated with dignity and respect, you need to stand up and demand it.

Marriage is about being committed to one person. No one deserves to be cheated on. People can change, but is the partner who cheated on you able to do so? If they are not able or willing to change, you need to look at your situation and ask yourself if you are willing to settle for this. If you know that things will never change and you stay, can you emotionally handle the repercussions? You should never invest more in a relationship than you can afford to lose. Yes, it might be harder to leave than to stay, but you need to think of your emotions and ultimately do what’s best for you.