How to forgive someone who cheated on you multiple times, and I'm going to
address this to women. If you are a man then please write in to our counselors
it's free service and this will not be relevant to you and I know that there's
this big thing in the world about men and women are the same.
They're not the same, the statistics are not the same. Our
experiences are not the same and so my answer is not the same for men as it is
for women so this is for women. In other words, how do I forgive someone my
husband who has been unfaithful multiple times. My name is Paul Friedman, I founded
The Marriage Foundation and we have a lot of experience in this area because a
lot of women don't deal with this the first time. The first time -- it happens
typically, the husband is caught cheating in whatever form and the wife confronts
him and he says, Oh my God, you know blah blah blah blah blah" or, "How dare you look
at my phone?" It's the fight or flight it's the defensive reaction when
you're caught and it ends with but, "I made a mistake and I'm never going to do
that again and you can trust me." So it does happen again.
Sometimes he's not caught for years or he's toned it down for quite a while but
he does it again so the question before we go how do you forgive him is why does
it keep happening. And the answer is too simple, it's because neither of you have
changed so you're the same people and the dynamics of your marriage have not
changed. I mean you could stop doing something that's habitual for a while
but eventually, the habit is caused by inner stuff that's going to manifest
again. And so, you got to understand that the reason for cheating is that the
marriage is not functioning well. He's not happy. You're not happy either. It's
not like everything's been going the long hunky-dory and all of a sudden he's
cheating you know there's something wrong and you think it's okay because
the world explains marriage in a really bizarre way. I mean think about it.
There are books on how to argue properly in a marriage. Why should you ever argue
in a marriage? Why did you get married? To argue? No, you got married to be happy.
Well, happy, arguing is pulling you in two different directions. You cannot be happy
while you're arguing, "Oh, but that's just life maybe."
But not in a marriage, not in a well-functioning marriage. You got
married in order to be happy and the primary vehicle for happiness which is
infallible works 100% of the time is love. So, there is not enough love in your
marriage. Why not? There might be a lot of attachment, there might be a lot of "I'm
used to her", "I'm used to him this" but real love it's there. Don't get me wrong.
But what are you doing to make it manifest? What are you doing and make it
what your marriage should be, the reality of your marriage? And that's why there's
cheating because that's not happening so the two of you haven't changed just
because someone said, "I'm not going to do it again." That doesn't mean there's any
change just means that action isn't going to maybe not happen again for a while.
So now, we get to the how do I forgive them, because you want your marriage back
and you don't want it to be as screwed up as it currently is. You didn't get
married so your husband is cheating on you. What does that mean if he's cheating
on you? He's not your husband while he's cheating on you so it's a
dismantling of this marriage that was meant to be an amazing thing and you
can't blame him even though what he did was wrong. He's
reacting to something that's not right.
Now
everyone will tell you even the psychologists that cheating is not a
reason for divorce. Sometimes it is stated as the reason for divorce but it
doesn't happen just off the cuff just out of the blue.
It happened because you're not building your marriage, you're not building the
love. You're not building the happiness because you don't know how. It isn't your
faults. I have this discussion with
people all the time. I go, "So, did you learn how to balance a checkbook in
school?" "No." "What did you learn?" "A lot of stuff I forgot." "Did you learn anything
that's really practical?" Now, if I'm talking to someone who ends up using
math or using chemistry, yeah, it was a basis but most people don't but
practical day-to-day stuff you don't learn in school including relationships,
including gender differences, including biology as it pertains to how we operate
in the world. In fact, there's this whole movement of "don't talk about them men
and women are the same" which is so ridiculous but I don't want to get off
on a tangent. The point is when you got married you did not know how to be
married. There's your basis for forgiveness. He
didn't know, you didn't know. Now, the question is what do we do.
Put aside the forgiveness, put it aside. Put aside the offense just put it aside
and commit yourself to learning how to be married and hold that over here for
now. Maybe I'll forgive him, maybe I won't
but let me at least learn how to be married. Let me see what I could do about
building my marriage and then I'll come back to this question of whether I
forgive him or not. Why not? What do you have to lose? You have a lot to gain
because I promise you as you start learning about marriages you start
learning about your own mind which is part of the marital experience how to
control your emotions, your thoughts. How to mold yourself into the person you
want using your free will, all of that. Learn that stuff and then decide whether
you're going to forgive them or not. You'll forgive them, I promise you you
will but more importantly, you'll barely remember because you're going to be able to
build the marriage that you originally envisioned even though you had no idea
how you were going to get there. I can show you how to get there that's the point.
I used to be a divorce mediator, helped so many people get a divorce. I don't regret
it because I didn't know any better but I look back there's not one marriage
that I helped define as unmarried that I couldn't have saved with what I now know
and I want you to know what I now know so you can save your marriage, your
family and be so happy that it's ridiculous.
Look at our stuff, go through our website. See what's available. It'll amaze you at
how approaching marriage in a positive way can change, will change your lives
forever.
That's what I wish for you and I hope you'll subscribe to our channel.
I hope you like it, share it, other than that blessings to you, blessings to your
husband, blessings to your family. Don't give up.
Take a new approach. It will work. Okay, God bless.