Some time ago, I helped a woman who had been cast aside because her partner had run off with the cleaning lady. This even though she had been in a relationship with him for 12 years. So he had cheated, but then what?
It obviously doesn't feel right when your partner prefers the cleaning lady over you, and how long does the processing of cheating last?
Consequences of cheating
Cheating is no fun for anyone, especially when you are the partner who was faithful. Cheating is also the most common reason for divorce or relationship breakdown[1].
Forgiveness is often only an option when the cheating was a one-off and when the partner apologizes[2]. Men break up a relationship faster when the woman cheats than vice versa.
Unfortunately, this woman's partner had been having an affair for eight months, and there was certainly no excuse forthcoming. As far as he was concerned, it was all her fault and she should have realized it sooner.
As a result, she also no longer felt great psychologically. The joy and enthusiasm was gone, the born optimism was gone. Things she previously found interesting, such as working with children and fitness, no longer gave her a warm feeling.
These are actually depressive symptoms, not that she was depressed, but a dip she clearly had. This is also something that many people suffer from when their partner has cheated on them. In addition, you may also suffer from feelings of anxiety. This can be very similar to the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depending on how severe the cheating was or how it was experienced.
When you have difficulty coping with losing your partner, it is often considered an "adjustment disorder." This can last from three to six months; does it take longer than six months? Then it may be helpful to seek help[3].
Another consequence can be becoming incredibly resentful. This is particularly true when you catch your partner in the act or when someone tells you that your partner is cheating (see source two).
You may think and say it's pussy, but the fact remains that the situation is as it is. You can also think out all your revenge scenarios. How to set him/her on fire, but in the end that doesn't help either. The hatred has to get out. Then thinking about the violent revenge can already help, but that is often not the way to get rid of that hatred.
The best revenge is to become as happy as possible.
Sometimes you don't feel hatred, but rather disappointment and surprise that your ex fell for it. The other woman is moving on considerably and, according to your ex, it is true love (rolling eyes).
You may think your relationship was big bullshit, doubting yourself also passes your mind.
The woman I helped got nauseous, especially when she thought about what had happened. From the thought that she had apparently been so naive. That she hadn't noticed anything and had missed all the signs. Nauseated with naiveté.
This also fits with the more common feelings described by scholars as thoughts of lack of trust and safety (see source three), because how can you properly assess a safe situation?
You no longer feel comfortable with yourself. Have I changed now or the world around me?
Coping with cheating
Coping with cheating should therefore take no longer than six months in the case of adjustment disorder. Of those who have been victimized by a partner who cheats, thirty to sixty percent suffer from the adjustment disorder of cheating (source three).
So you are not alone.
In the case of the woman I helped, she had gotten her partner when she was 21 and when he had made it financially she was suddenly pushed aside. You see this more often, unfortunately.
You see many performers cheating, especially when they are inside. While the woman stays right next to them. The only artists who have not done it are Henny Huisman and Joop van den Ende, and they are smart men.
I don't know what happens to men when they are looking for something different.
If you have been in the situation for months now and that you have been asking yourself what you could have done differently and how it could have been, it is time to look at that memory in a different way.
You start taking ownership of the situation and how you look at it. Realizing that it is already over and that you are now at the beginning of something else.
Ownership is taking responsibility for how it is now, not necessarily for how it went. Because the latter often makes little sense.
What has been, has been. Another thing you often see is that you got into a relationship as a young twenty-something, then when that blows up ten years later, how hard can you be on yourself? What did you know when you were in your twenties? How could you know then that it was a red flag? That doesn't help you and that only makes you feel worse about yourself.
So live in the now.
When you take responsibility of what the facts are, what your responsibility is now and what you can influence now, it helps tremendously.
This also has to do with emotions, thoughts and energy at that event.
Then you get to the point of how you think about what happened.
For yourself, it's a good thing it passed.
This is your new starting point, and I learned a lot from it, but I'm not putting my heart out there. Maybe for a while, but at some point it's good to open up again.
It's beyond
When you think back to the moment when it was clear that the relationship was over, it's still a terrible moment, of course, but then when you linger in that emotion, it's not really over for you.
You may still be left with the fact that you asked him/her all sorts of things at the time, but didn't get an answer. In the case of the woman I helped, he only got angrier with each question. This is often, because it is up to him and then he wants you gone quickly. It is a form of cutting off.
Instead of balking at that moment, you can take ownership of how you look back on it.
As a closure, you can reenact the moment when you were totally repulsed by him/her. You look at that person (in your mind) and you think:
"I'm not going to sit in a house with this person for another 10 years. I'll pack my things and I'll be gone. I'll save myself."
Then you turn the moment into when you yourself make that choice and you want to leave and that's your choice. Even though it's your memory, but then you take ownership of the memory.
With this, you take ownership and it is no longer done to you.
The woman who did this exercise was glad afterward that she was no longer stuck with such a psychopath. So who had changed? That man, not her.
She also felt relief that she did not have to continue living with someone she apparently did not know.
Nausea also began to disappear.
Listen to the session here:
Hypnotherapy for coping with cheating
The text above also shows something of how hypnotherapy can help process cheating. In this case, I just had a conversation where you share some suggestions to help people change their focus.
The exercise is also a real one to perform when you want to help someone use hypnosis to cope with cheating, depending on the experience that person has then had.
In addition, hypnosis can also help to eliminate feelings of jealousy and insecurity in the future so that you can better step into a new relationship.
Want to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis? Or enroll in one of our training courses.
Pin also this handy infographic for working recognition of cheating.
Sources:
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X16300227
[2] http://markbeaird.org/wmlib/pdf/book_resources_rbt/forgiveness_of_sexual_cheating_in_romantic_relationships.pdf
[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/smi.2968
Tracy Williams
accessed25 Aug 2024