3 Things You Need To Do If You Decide To Stay With A Cheater

If you make the choice to stay with someone who cheated on you, that's your choice. I don't necessarily agree with staying with a cheater, but you can take my personal feelings out of it.

So, I'd like to go over the three things you must do if you choose to stay with your partner after he or she has cheated:

1. Let it go and forgive.

You can't change the past. What's in the past is over, and now you must live for today and tomorrow. By choosing to stay with your partner despite what he or she has done, you've made a decision. So, be happy with it.

If you're not happy with your choice, then by all means, break up. But if you truly meant it when you said you would stay with your partner despite what he or she has done, then you have to do so wholeheartedly. You must let it go and view what's in the past as gone and done.

You must also have a forgiving heart, and truly forgive your partner from deep within. Since you made the choice to stay, you also made the choice to forgive. You can't stay with someone you don't forgive and expect to have a happy life together.

I don't believe in staying with someone just because you've had children together and what not. I believe that people should stay together because they love each other and truly want to work things out from the bottom of their hearts. Children don't need to see an unhappy mom and dad pretend to love each other. Eventually, they'll pick up on the bitterness and resentment.

I realize many people view this topic very differently. I respect all opinions on this matter, and I'm well aware of the fact it's a tough one. The bottom line is, if you choose to stay with someone who cheated on you, you must do so with an open, forgiving heart. You have to give the person a second chance and a new beginning. In order to have a loving and forgiving heart, you must let things go and realize that what's done is done.

2. Accept what happened.

When you choose to stay, it's essential to accept the past and try to move on from it. By choosing to stay, you're basically saying you love your partner enough to give him or her another chance at not messing up this time.

Clearly, you value and love your partner enough, or you can't imagine being without him or her. In my opinion, your partner is clearly lucky to have someone who loves him or her enough to give him or her another shot at being faithful.

I personally don't feel I could do it, but I know many people who have. There's a lot of truth when it comes to the saying, "once a cheater, always a cheater." It's likely that despite how remorseful and thankful your partner is, he or she still might get weak and succumb to cheating once again in the future. He or she might even view your forgiveness and kindness as weakness.

Also, your partner might think he or she is eternally off the hook. Your partner may believe that if cheating occurs again, you will simply forgive him or her once more. If your partner takes advantage of you more than once, be strong enough to recognize a pattern.

In cases like such, you need to make a change within yourself. You need to stop being OK with your partner taking advantage of you and taking you for granted.

3. Rebuild your trust.

Rebuilding trust takes time. Someone has hurt you, taken advantage of you and taken you and your relationship for granted. This person also did so in the worst possible way.

When the glass is broken, it's broken. There's no way to fix the past. The most someone can do when he or she has been hurt by a cheater is simply try to rebuild trust, and it takes time. The person who cheated on you really messed you up on an emotional and psychological level.

It can be truly psychologically disturbing when someone who claims to love and adore you cheats on you. It makes you feel unloved, unworthy and as if you're just not good enough.

Many times, the person who's been cheated on will blame him- or herself for the partner cheating. The person will try to come up with reasons that make it excusable on some level. Cheating is inexcusable, and there's never a good excuse to cheat.

If you're going to stay with your partner, you need to work on trusting him or her again. If you're choosing to stay with your partner, you're choosing to let go of the past, give him or her a second chance and rebuild your trust.

You can't expect to rebuild your trust with the person or within the relationship if you become suspicious or paranoid that it will happen again. You have to completely forgive with a genuine heart and except the fact the past cannot be changed.