Staying with someone who is cheating on you?

When you stay with someone who is cheating on you, here is what you might need to reflect on. Ask yourself , " What am I doing here?" "How did we get here?" "Would I be OK with someone I love in this situation?" "What do I do about this situation?"

Consider the following points next.

1. It is important to know that that you are choosing to accept the situation and to stay in this situation. Unless you make different choices, this situation will prevail.

2. Someone can only continue to cheat on you if you continue to stay around them. The person cheating believes you might be desperate. This person noticing your desperation will not see incentive to change their behaviour.

3. Lack of self-respect. If you respect yourself, you do not stay in situations where you are disrespected. For this reason you can only accept situations which are consistent with how you feel about yourself.

If you do not feel that you are worthy of respect you do not respect yourself and you do not enforce situations to allow respect from others.

4. People change when they have incentive. If you are getting mad then sleeping with someone who is cheating, they get used to the drama and know you will stick around anywhere. They do not need to change because they have an awareness of your little process and how it will end. You are likely to stay on this rollercoaster unless you change your attitude, behaviour and actions.

5. You are trauma bonded and you do not feel worthy of love and a healthy consistent relationship. Find out where, in your childhood, you learnt that it is OK to stay with someone who is cheating on you.

6. You are attached to outcomes and therefore trying to make things happen. You are expecting this person to change without you doing anything to change the situation or to change your perspective and behaviour and attitude.

7. You lack boundaries. This might be consistent with all of the above because when you do not have boundaries you are wishy-washy and you accept less than treatment. Create boundaries in your relationship, for people to be aware of where you start and end.

8. You struggle with self-love. You do not have the standard for anyone around you to love you. So, this person have no line that is drawn anyway for them to think, " I am now stepping over the line."

9. You have made this relationship the whole of your life. You do not believe that you can do better. You might feel that if you let go of this relationship, you are not going to find anything better this relationship. You therefore hang on and hold on because you have made out your worthiness depends on being with this person.

10. You lack self-awareness. If you are emotionally self-aware, you can identify how toxic your relationship is. You can therefore detach, curiously explore why your partner is cheating and employ boundaries to safeguard your inner child.

No excuses for cheating, but it is a sympton of deeper relationship issues. If you do not find out why someone has cheated first time, you might not take steps to work on yourself even if it is in a next relationship. People who cheat have a reason, but they all lack conflict resolution skills and honesty in that period of their lives.

Additionally, you might have learnt that you have to put up with your partner through thick and thin and therefore make sacrifices to be a good partner.

Solutions

What is helpful when someone cheats on you is to pause or stop the relationship. No more sex and couple duties. You can even live apart while you both work on yourselves individually.

Have dialogue to consider whether you wish to reconnect. Find out why you need to reconnect. Explore how sustainable that decision is likely to be. If you agree to reconnect at some point, start dating from scratch and monitor for improvement. Therapy or counselling can also be helpful. However continuous self-development is required lifelong, to avoid slipping into back to previous patterns.