The truth is we may not fully "get over" infidelity. BUT we can "move past" it. In this post, we will continue looking at how to get over being cheated on. If you didn't read part one, please click here.
Did I Get Over Being Cheated On?
The truth is that I would never go back to who I was before my husband's affair because I am so much stronger now as a person, and my life is much more fulfilling. But it took time and healing through self-care to get here.
As I look back on the broken woman I was, I know that I have grown since discovering I was cheated on.
So even if you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, try to hold faith. Those further along the journey using self-care see good things in their lives despite the pain of being cheated on. We will experience both positive and negative emotions as we heal. We can learn from them and create a life we love despite being cheated on. Self-care teaches us that life goes on, and we can become stronger and better able to handle all the ups and downs that come our way. A powerful truth I have discovered is that as we use self-care techniques to heal, infidelity becomes a personal growth experience.
How could I be willing to accept something I didn't cause and then say that I grew stronger from it?
We can regain control and power over our lives again by just being open to the idea that life is full of good and bad experiences. Bad things do happen in life even when we do everything right. It is an unfortunate but hard fact to accept. Somehow we learn to become comfortable with the uncertainty and vulnerability of life because being attached to a specific outcome or experience sets us up to feel disappointed again or even traumatized.
Perhaps you don't know how you can ever feel good again, which is a normal reaction to being cheated on. It may feel overwhelming now while you are suffering, especially since you did nothing wrong. But one day, as your self-care grows, you can discover that you have moved on and grown from the experience.
How to Find Meaning in Being Cheated On?
Filling ourselves with self-care gives us the capacity to endure the ups and downs life brings our way.
When I offer you the idea that maybe you could grow from this and that you may find meaning in what you are suffering, then I understand your resistance. I might have hit someone if they said that to me before I found the self-care techniques! It seemed impossible to learn from something so painful. Especially from something that I had never caused to happen and wasn't my fault!
Many of us who have already been through this painful experience of betrayal trauma will attest that it took deliberate self-care and support to get to the other side. Some of us think about our losses a lot, and some of us do not so much now. We all have different circumstances, thoughts, and ways of handling pain. The noise inside each of our heads is different for all of us.
We will also experience a mix of positive and negative experiences and emotions for the rest of our lives. While some moments will be amazing and some will not be amazing, it's normal only to want the amazing ones. No one invites the awful times, and that's called being human. But having our vessels filled up through self-care gives us the capacity to survive the more challenging moments.
We Get to Decide How We Respond After Being Cheated On
So if you fear the future or even resist your present state, remind yourself that you are human. You are just trying to get to a less awful place where it doesn't hurt so much. We all secretly want only to feel marvelous ALL of the time...
In truth, we can 'say' that we understand negative emotions are a part of life. But how often do we try to ignore or suppress those negative feelings? Maybe we sometimes even attempt to convince ourselves that we can work on ourselves, so we don't have to feel them in the future. Either way, when we resist our negative emotions, we suffer.
We add noise into our lives when we suffer because, in our humanness, we don't want to feel pain.
The same is true when we worry about how we 'may' feel in the future and agonize over how we will cope with the negative emotions 'if' something terrible happens. I used to be afraid that my husband would cheat on me again. Just as equally, this caused me to suffer and added noise to my head. The truth is that our thoughts can cause us to suffer. And we are the ones in control of our thoughts, not our circumstances.
As humans, we naturally gravitate towards wanting things to be friendly and lovely all of the time. But that isn't living or accepting what is. It allows constant noisy thoughts into our heads to control our emotions and reality, so we feel good. Sadly, it doesn't work. It makes us more unhappy and prolongs our suffering after being cheated on.
Our Thoughts Cause the Emotional Experience of Suffering.
Learn a willingness to bit by bit stay in the present and be conscious in your life
Are you inadvertently inviting suffering into your life? Suffering can be caused by resisting 'what is', or even what 'could be' in the future. When we spend time attempting to control or change what is, we suffer. Plus, it clutters our brain, leaving no capacity for any good stuff in life. We don't have any brain space available for thinking thoughts that cause joy, happiness, meaning, and fulfillment in our lives. And worse, we have no room to heal from what is (being cheated on).
Take a moment and think about all the other character-shaping experiences of your life. The times you were proud of yourself, the times you learned something valuable, the times you rose to the occasion, the times you saw what you were capable of doing and being. Were they all easy, wonderful, happy times? Mine weren't; massive emotional ups and downs filled my past. In truth, some were downright painful at the time. But looking back, they grew me into a better person.
“Once we know something, it is very difficult to remember what it was like not knowing that thing.”
Shane from Thrive Themes
Facing the hard emotions after being cheated on takes courage.
Even though it's tough now, we grow stronger when we face the pain of being cheated on. We use all our self-care techniques like mindfulness and breathing exercise to reduce our suffering at the moment. Some negative emotions or events will always be a part of life because life has both good and bad. However, we get to decide how we think about and respond to those painful times. When things get tough, do we continue to sow self-care into ourselves, filling our vessels with good things, or do we sulk and feel victimized?
Acceptance is How We Get Over Being Cheated On
There's no right or perfect way to heal. It's a process of being willing to keep working on our self-care, bit by bit, to stay present and conscious in life. Self-care is letting go of suppressing or resisting the noise and accepting what is. By accepting what happened, what is, we learn to heal from being cheated on. None of us do it perfectly. It is a skill we learn because we love ourselves enough to make the effort to heal.
Whoever you're called to be, whoever you're capable of being, that person comes to light when you accept that you were cheated on.
If you want to learn more ways to embrace self-care and accept what is, please click here. You are worth the effort it takes to heal, and your healing is important. You are important!
I have a course for betrayed women on Self Care After Infidelity to support them through the healing journey. Partner with someone who has already taken this painful and difficult journey because you don't have to take it alone. Get the support and care you need to heal. You deserve it!
Here is what course participants have to say about the self-care course:-
"I highly recommend The Betrayed Wife's courses to any woman who finds herself in this unasked-for 'Sisterhood of Betrayed Wives'."
"My husband and I have been on this healing journey for over 2 years from first discovery and just over a year since his last contact with one of two affair partners. Before I began The Betrayed Wife’s courses I was so concentrated on helping my husband and healing my marriage that I was left out of the healing process."
"Working with The Betrayed Wife brought the focus back to healing ME!"
If this article helped you, please leave a comment below. I love hearing what you have to say about my posts and I would love you to join me in a Coaching Course.
Much love
P.S. Here is another article similar to this one called How to Feel Safe After Being Cheated On: A Betrayed Wife's Guide, which may help you on your journey.
Oh my this is what I do… I find myself resisting what is or wanting to control or change it so I don’t have to feel it. This has been one of my coping skills for the big stuff for a long time. Ugh. Taking time to sit feel journal and listen to all the voices is my new coping skill that I am trying to practice.
It gives me so much more peace and clarity each time I sit with myself, get honest, and really listen.