Your husband or wife has cheated on you. Your heart is broken and yet you're in doubt about how to move forward. Do you want to stay with your partner or do you want to leave? What is the wisest decision for yourself (and your children?). Which decision can you live with? What example do you want to set for your children? Do your children know about it at all? Making important decisions is very difficult when you are also emotionally all tangled up in what has happened.
That's why in this blog I'll go into the pros and cons of the decisions and how you can keep yourself strong no matter what decision you make.
The reason for cheating may influence your decision. Therefore, it can be helpful to know why people commit adultery in love.
Why do people commit adultery in love?
Research on people who cheat more often shows that there are several factors you can use to predict whether someone will cheat. Gender does not matter in this regard. Two to four percent of men and women cheat.
If someone has already cheated during their first relationship, they are 3 times more likely to cheat again. Is your partner someone who has cheated in the past? Even with you? Then that can be a predictor that he/she will cheat on you too.
The parents of the person who cheated also cheated. This is also a predictive factor. After all, children copy the parents' behavior, even later in life.
If the partner shows little commitment in the relationship, this can be an omen that they will cheat. The bonding with the partner is then not going well, so he/she also suffers less from guilt and finds cheating "not so bad."
This depends in part on beliefs a person has. For example, more and more people are revealing that they believe that people are not originally monogamous at all, but rather polygamous. In that case, they can justify their cheating.
If someone is less satisfied with his/her sex life, it can also result in cheating, as they then seek pleasure elsewhere.
Unfortunately, people who suspect their partner of cheating are always a bit suspicious even in subsequent relationships. Even though sometimes this is not necessary at all. However, this does not have to be a reason for your partner to cheat, but rather to break off the relationship if he/she is pushed to the defense every time.
Another disadvantage of being the partner who gets cheated on is that you have to ask yourself if you fall for this type of person more often and if you have been cheated on more often. You can then ask yourself what causes you to dive back into that "trap" anyway.
Why do men cheat?
There are also a number of unique reasons for each gender that can lead them to cheat. With men, for example, this may be the lack of relationship experience. Because your man has not been in a long-term relationship before, he may not know as much about what is expected of him.
Reason #1: Uncertainty about attraction can also sometimes cause men to cheat, just to check how well they are still in the market. Yes, this is incredibly stupid, but it is true.
But at the same time, this cheating test is a precursor to the real reason.
Reason 2: He cheats because he actually wants to break up or find the next girlfriend already. By cheating, he allows his girlfriend to "break up."
Reason #3: He has no social support besides his current partner. Since this is a role that several people have to fill, she can never do enough, which is why he seeks support from yet another person.
Reason 4: It's just a narcissist who thinks himself special or thinks he's allowed to be.
Why do women cheat?
Women can also have their reasons for cheating in this way. For example, if the intimacy in the relationship is gone and if a woman feels that she has become a natural for her husband.
In about half of cheating men are in a happy relationship, and thus have no apparent reason to cheat. In women, the percentage is around 30 percent. For example, a lonely woman is more likely to cheat than a woman who is happy in her relationship.
A woman can also cheat to get out of a bad relationship. A bit like men can cheat so the partner has to break up with them. A woman can use this, too.
How do you make the decision about the rest of your life?
Now that you know the reasons why your partner may have cheated, you can find out if you recognize any of these reasons. With this reason in mind, is it worth it to still work on the relationship? Or is it better to say goodbye to each other and say that this love experiment has failed?
Is it wise to go right for couples therapy or is the reason for the cheating really just totally not-done and unforgivable?
Research shows that taking advice from friends and family is more likely to lead to forgiveness from the adulterer than making the decision independently. Ultimately, though, you are the person who has to live with the cheater, so it is still your decision.
The belief in your own power
When your partner cheats, it often creates multiple problems. Your confidence in your own understanding of people drops to an all-time low. If you don't even realize that your partner cannot be trusted, who can you trust?
This lack of belief in your own understanding can cause you to doubt what to do with your future. At least now you know where you stand and if you break off the relationship you may have more uncertainty.
Whether you stay or leave him/her. It is important to rebuild faith in your own power and insight. Hypnosis can help you restore your individual problems, such as the belief in your own insight. This can be done, for example, by recalling memories of people you did correctly judge.
In addition, a hypnotherapist can use numerous other techniques to help you believe in yourself again.
Increase self-esteem
If your partner has cheated, it can also dent your self-confidence in other ways. For example, you may begin to think that you are apparently not valuable enough and therefore you have been conned. In that case, it is important to boost your self-esteem.
Hypnosis can also be a solution to this problem. For example, hypnotic suggestions that say something about how valuable you are can be said aloud to yourself during self-hypnosis, or your partner can read them to you when you do stay together.
The advantage is then that your partner will also increasingly believe in these hypnotic suggestions, if they are not already.
These may include:
I am beautiful/beautiful.
I am desirable.
I'm social.
I support my partner.
I'm smart.
If your partner reads them out loud, this should be changed to the you form.
A hypnotherapist can also increase your self-esteem through a guided visualization in which you are in a situation bursting with value and in which you are incredibly valuable. Being able to properly place moments like these in front of your mind's eye also increases your confidence in your self-worth.
Restore confidence
It is very difficult to rebuild trust that has been violated, which is why couples therapy may be necessary.
Moving on from each other often means that the cause of the cheating was in the relationship and connection you and your partner had at the time.
Mindfulness in a relationship can be very helpful in strengthening the bond between the two of you. This strengthened bond can also prevent your partner from reoffending by increasing the commitment in the relationship and by creating more guilt. There is a deterrent effect from this.
How can you prevent adultery in love?
Unfortunately, adultery in love is not always preventable, as evidenced by the various reasons that exist that sometimes you just really have no control over. If your partner just needs a backup partner there is not much you can do about it.
As for the reasons for loneliness and a bad relationship, preventing adultery in love is all about maintaining your relationship. Even if your partner is not cheating, it is important to keep talking to each other and to keep the security in the relationship good.
For example, did you know that most people only have 10 minutes a day to talk to their partner? In the long run, that is not a good basis for a solid relationship where you know what the other person is doing and what thoughts the other person is having, even though you may think you do.
Therefore, it is important to spend time with each other and make time for each other.
A healthy sexual relationship can't hurt either. Note. A quicky every week is not intimate sex. Make sure the emotional connection is also there during these special moments so that both partners experience intimacy.
Want to learn more about techniques that can help you and others overcome problems? Then come to a playshop or check out the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/experimentations/201710/my-partner-cheated-me-what-should-i-do
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/28785917/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/experimentations/201708/5-signs-partner-might-become-unfaithful
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-and-sex-in-the-digital-age/201704/13-reasons-why-men-cheat
https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/guide/why-do-women-cheat#3
