How Can You Forgive Yourself for Cheating and Not Telling? The Guide You Need!

How Can You Forgive Yourself for Cheating and Not Admitting? The Way You Need to Follow. How can you define a perfect relationship? Well, for many, there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. No matter how beautiful a couple might look in their Instagram holiday photos, they will have to admit that their relationship is not devoid of flaws and fractures. As we all know, cheating, infidelity, and their ilk can become both the cause and effect of many of these problems. Many say that cheating in a marriage can sometimes be deliberate, or it can happen as a one-off encounter. But what can you do afterward? Would you have the power to confess to your partner and come clean? And if you don’t have the power to confess, then how can you forgive yourself for cheating and not telling?

How Can You Forgive Yourself for Cheating and Not Telling?

According to many recent studies, almost 20% of married men, and 10% of married women, have some way or the other admitted to cheating on their spouses. Now, what do these numbers suggest? It only suggests the possibility that there may be much more who wouldn’t admit it, mainly because confessing to adultery comes with a number of baggage – stigma, pain, anger, and even sometimes the possibility of a broken marriage. 

how can you forgive yourself for cheating not telling
How can you forgive yourself for cheating not telling

And when you try to hold it all in, this can leave you riddled with guilt and also consumed with thoughts like “I will never forgive myself for cheating”.

So, what’s the way out of all this? This is exactly what this post is all about. Here, we will tell you how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling.

Let’s get started.

You Need to Accept the Fact That You Wish to Feel Better

You must know that guilt and shame are quite powerful forces, and they have the power to just gut and waste your self-esteem. If you languish in a constant state of self-hate, then it could make you less able to be a good person. 

This is where you might again feel the temptation to cheat, and since you just think of yourself as nothing but unworthy of your spouse, it can be all the more difficult. If you wish to avoid this trap, then you must decide to work through your feelings and reach a better place.

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You Have to Break the Daily Guilt Habit as Well

Maybe you have had some bad feelings and stress, and it has bothered you since your sexual discourtesy. Waking up every day in the morning thinking about what you’ve done becomes a mental habit. So, you need to change this script and turn it from “I have cheated and can’t live with myself” to “I have made a bad mistake, and I need to forgive myself.” This can boost your self-esteem, which is very much needed in this case.

Always Put Yourself in The Positive Light

When you feel guilty for cheating, it is also proof that you know the difference between right and wrong. And you also realize that sharing this information would really hurt your spouse. 

But always try to tell yourself that caring about the person’s feelings whom you love the most is actually a good trait. So, you need to use your desire to protect your partner from pain and, at the same time, motivate yourself to be loyal and trustworthy.

Never Let This One Mistake Define Your Entire Life

As you might have heard countless times that everyone makes mistakes, and yes, there is no doubt that you made a big one, but you need to ask yourself, do you really deserve perpetual punishment? 

You need to understand that cheating is a mistake, and it can also educate you about the importance of being faithful to a partner. This is something that you already knew abstractly, but it is the time when you understand the concrete value of faithfulness. The best to discover how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling and accepting this mistake yourself and learn this lesson and work hard never to cheat again.

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You Should Consult a Therapist

Yes, consulting a therapist can really help you come to terms with yourself. You would always feel the urge to tell your partner that you cheated, and this tendency is probably rooted in your deep need to talk to someone about the mistake you have made. So, taking one or two sessions with a therapist could help you gain a new perspective and also get the advice for improving your ability to commit to your spouse. 

Between a friend and a therapist, the latter would be a better choice for confiding. This is because a therapist is professionally bound to confidentiality, whereas your friend or relative must grapple and might have some dilemma with the question of whether to tell your spouse about what you did.

This is sabotage of the entire thing. 

Don’t Just Allow Yourself to Contact the Person with Whom You Cheated

Maybe you were close friends or just some passing acquaintances, but none of that matters now at all. The fact is that you will not have contact with that person anymore. Because when you stay in contact, it will remind you of what you did and interfere with the process of self-forgiveness.

This is something which will not be very healthy for you for the time being. 

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You Should Decide to Improve Yourself as Well

You should give yourself some time and use that time to think about what caused you to cheat. This can be a part of your self-realization. If you can be honest with yourself, then it will be easier for you to identify some areas where you can work, and this will be the process of making yourself a better person. 

It can also happen that you were just looking for a way to sabotage your relationship, and the reason behind this was nothing but your fear of commitment. Maybe you just wanted to feel free, but you didn’t realize how bad you’d feel about the affair. This is a very common feeling that a lot of us go through. But whatever the reason was, you need to commit to holding yourself to a higher standard.

You Should Never Make Excuse for Yourself

Sometimes, you might find yourself in a position where you tend to blame your partner for your cheating. It can happen due to the fact that you were mad about something or feeling neglected. But you need to calm yourself down and understand that this is not the right line of thought. 

It is true that no one really deserves to be cheated on, but you made a choice to do it because it was pleasurable and exciting at the moment. You just have to accept the fact that you were weak and now need to learn how to be strong in the face of temptation.

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You Should Constantly Tell Yourself That You CAN live with yourself

Having this realization that you have betrayed your partner can sometimes make moving forward in life seem absolutely impossible, and you need to currently see yourself as a fraud. But you need to overcome this feeling. 

This can happen due to a result, and you sometimes don’t think that you too deserve future happiness because of that one incident of cheating. Guilt is actually an emotional mechanism for punishing you and all for that shabby conduct. But the real person should be able to take the next step. 

You need to figure out how to forgive yourself for cheating and not to tell by constantly thinking that your life is not over. You also need to consider this your second chance to get things right with your spouse.

Just Think About How Difficult It Is to Go Through That Emotional Turmoil

The fact is that you would never have felt so bad if you did not cheat in the first place. So, the misery and uncertainty that you feel now actually outweigh the excitement that you had received from biting the forbidden fruit of a one-night stand or affair. Or maybe something that presented itself before you on that fateful night. 

But you need to use this knowledge to keep yourself strong in the future if ever such temptation strike again. If you compare it to your current unhappiness, and also if you can consider how much more pleasurable it would be to create a loving, caring, and a positive and honest relationship with your partner in your life. It can help you fight off the temptation.

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Take All Accountability

You just have to recognize and understand that you have screwed up, that the incident of your cheating you made was very conscious, even if it was a one-off. You need to stop thinking that I cheated and can’t live with myself and rather understand the fact that you will have to. The whole thing is on you, and you will have to cope with it and live with yourself every day. This is why you need to forgive yourself for ruining your marriage or relationship, but you cannot just shrug off the responsibility for what you did.

If you wish to lead a healthy life, then you need to take personal responsibility and never look out for excuses or reasons. The important thing in all of this is that you chose to cheat on your spouse irrespective of the reasons, and you had the choice to not proceed with an emotional affair or a physical one and concentrate on drawing the boundaries, but you didn’t. Hence, you should take responsibility for your own actions and then take the necessary steps to clear up the mess. As human beings, we are bound to and often make mistakes, but we need to learn from them, and when we learn to introspect, the mistakes do not repeatedly occur.

In this journey of yours, to figure out how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling begins with this introspection, acknowledgment, and acceptance of accountability. You should never beat yourself up or sink into a black hole of guilt over your affair or one-night stand. These things will never be going to help you or your partner. Acknowledge what you’ve done and what it might say about you and your relationship. Work on it, work on yourself, and hopefully, look ahead.

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You Can Try Writing Down Your Feelings

It might sound a bit theatrical, but it’s one way to get your complicated feelings out there without burdening anyone for that matters, let alone your partner. All you need to do is write down your feelings and just keep a journal and spill your guilt, your anger, your sadness; you just need to let all of it out. There is no meaning in suppressing your feelings and pretending there’s nothing wrong; you need an outlet.

At first, you might not be able to forgive yourself for ruining your marriage. If that is the case, then just write it down. Every time you feel that you are in despair and can’t forgive yourself for drunk cheating and also not being able to muster the courage to tell your spouse, you can write it down. When you see your feelings down on paper, it could make things a little clearer and also offer you a fresh perspective. Everything can always seem worse when they’re in your head. But when they are out, you can actually just start tackling them rather than hiding from the truth.

When you are sure that everything you have got is out there, you can either destroy or delete your writings. If that is not enough for you and you are feeling a bit more, then you can go ahead and burn them as a symbol that your healing and moving on has begun. So, every time you ask how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling? Well, just get it out of your head and into the real world as much as possible.

If you wish to know, how can you forgive yourself for cheating? Then you need to understand that this rather unsettling process begins with facing your feelings. You should never push away thoughts and emotions just because they’re uncomfortable. Rather you need to learn how to sit with and process them so that you can leave them behind. When you learn to put your thoughts in words, it can prove to be one of the most reliable ways of doing that.

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You Need to Go Beyond That Just Being Sorry

There is this song that says, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word,” but in reality, it is just the starting point. When you have cheated but aren’t telling your spouse, you’re probably not apologizing to their face, but you are very much likely to feel terrible and think about how sorry you are. But this is where we wish to recommend you to go beyond that.

It can be very easy to think that I cheated and can’t live with myself but is there anything you are doing about it? This is why you must introspect and see what it is you need to do to ensure this situation doesn’t occur again. You should do something so that you never become a serial cheater and hurt your partner again. For that, you need to start with being sorry, true, but then you should be able to look beyond that and take action which can redeem yourself and be better.

On the other hand, even when your partner is aware of the cheating and still has chosen to forgive you, this will not automatically absolve you of all the guilt and shame. This is a serious mistake that many people make right when their partner decides to get them off the hook and try to make things normal. You should not stop the process that was started, as you have to do the inner work to come to terms with everything that you have done and reach a point where you can forgive yourself. This is the point where you can emerge from the dark shadows of infidelity looming over you and your relationship.

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Stop punishing yourself

Realizing that you have made a mistake is in itself something great, and this is why you need to just stop punishing yourself. The idea here is to do something that will help you in the face of such temptations in the future, but you don’t have to punish yourself and attack your soul to redeem yourself or rid yourself of the guilt.

Now, why change the way you are or the way you lead your life? Why hurt yourself by committing to bad habits? It will never help you to redeem yourself or make you strong. During such a time, you should just concentrate on the things that will make you and keep you happy.

This is the only way by which you can help yourself and make everything all right. Stop dragging the guilt or wear it like a pendant. Rather fight with it inside and become strong.

You Should Be Grateful for Your Partner

When you are working yourself towards forgiving yourself, you should always be good to your spouse. The choice of yours to never reveal your cheating means that you care about that person’s feelings. 

You need to always hold on to that empathy to build a better relationship that will insulate you from temptation. You need to reconnect to your own loving partner by doing fun things together and also direct your sexual desire toward your partner instead of someone else or some other temptation.

Go For Professional Help

So, how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling? Well, maybe you will not be able to find the answer to that question so easily. That is why you need to seek a safe space where you can share all of that turmoil that is building up in your mind without having any kind of fear of judgment or blame. We understand how you would desperately wish to talk to your partner about it, but this may not be the best idea. It could well put your relationship in complete jeopardy. This is where going for a mental health expert can be immensely cathartic.

Now, it can be tricky without letting your partner find out, as it sounds like some covert operation. If it reaches a point where you don’t wish to hide it from your partner, then you could take a relationship break while you sort yourself out. Your partner doesn’t need to know you cheated; they will just know that you’re having some issues and need time to seek help.

If you have enough space and independence in your relationship, then it should not be a problem to begin individual therapy without explaining the details as to the exact reason for doing it. If you think you need to talk to a professional, just go ahead and seek out a therapist. You can also book online consultations or talk to someone over the phone. Therapy usually means having an impartial listener to hear you out, and you will not feel the fear of judgment or moral policing.

Prepare Yourself for The Change

When you successfully introspect, there will be some changes that will happen inside you, and you need to be absolutely ready for them. If you are not ready for them, then it will not help you become a good person. 

So, try and prepare yourself for the change that is about to happen inside of you. No one needs to know about them so well apart from you, and that’s best the part.

What Remains?

So, this is how to forgive yourself for cheating and not telling. I hope these points will help you to look forward in life and love your partner. If you have any such personal experience, then do feel free to share that with us in the comments section.

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