Is it possible to forgive a woman's infidelity?
In the first hours after the shocking news about the betrayal of their significant other, the vast majority of men do not even want to hear that this needs to be forgiven. Resentment and pain make themselves felt for quite a long time, but the ability to reason still takes their place.
Long-term relationships are not so easy to break, especially if there are children in the family. And no one canceled the feelings for his wife, despite her betrayal. So is it possible to forgive your wife’s betrayal?
The answer to this question depends on what reasons prompted her to commit such a disgusting act. If everything in your relationship was smooth and you don’t feel guilty, then you don’t have to forgive your spouse or postpone your favor. Otherwise, you risk allowing your wife to sit on your neck and dangle her legs.
When you realize that you behaved in a completely inappropriate way in family life, then it is quite possible to forgive your spouse’s weakness. Didn't you provoke the betrayal with your disdainful attitude? Women are much less likely than men to decide on such actions, and generally they need a serious reason for adultery.
To understand how to forgive your wife’s betrayal and whether this can be done, also listen to your personal feelings. Not every man is capable of continuing to live with a traitor, despite all the extenuating circumstances. Think about whether your family has a future after your spouse’s wrongdoing? Don’t be rash, analyze what happened, talk to your wife frankly and only then make an informed decision.
Should you forgive your wife?
The first reaction to betrayal is anger, resentment, bewilderment. With such an emotional barrage, it is impossible to even think about forgiveness. But over time, emotions pass, sanity kicks in and the man is able to think through his further actions.
There may be a desire to forgive betrayal, but is it really worth doing? In some cases, it is better to part with the traitor once and for all. And in others, forgiveness is justified.
Look at the statistics on how often men forgive women for cheating.
When you can't forgive
Men often try to save their marriage solely out of habit. There seems to be no love, no children, and quarrels every other day. But she has become so familiar and comfortable that it’s scary to even think about looking for another wife.
Fears are understandable, but think about your future life. There is already a big discord in your relationship, you don’t value each other, your wife has started cheating. Do you really think that in such a relationship you will be happier than alone?
In addition, there are situations that cannot be forgiven:
- Long-term romance . It’s one thing to have an isolated incident or a holiday romance that doesn’t imply anything serious. But how to forgive a wife who has lived a double life for a long time. She planned betrayal, thought through lies, hid evidence of betrayal. There is a good chance that history will repeat itself, but she will hide her adventures more carefully.
- The wife loves another man . The situation is much more complicated when a woman cheats not only physically, but also mentally. There is nothing left to save or forgive, because you will always be in second place. It’s better to go in different directions so that everyone can find their love.
- Different lovers for a variety of intimate life. There are people who simply cannot limit themselves to one partner. Therefore, they are constantly experimenting, trying something or someone new. If you are comfortable sharing your wife with other men, you can forgive and not raise this issue again. Ask her to take precautions to avoid the unwanted consequences of cheating.
At the same time, it is worth focusing on the wife’s behavior after the betrayal. If she doesn't feel guilty, makes you feel guilty and constantly compares you to her lover, there is simply nothing to save. It will simply destroy you over time.
When to forgive
There are situations in which it is much easier to forgive your wife for cheating. For example, if none of your friends know about her, and the cause of infidelity was an excess of alcohol. You can go to a meeting with your wife if she repents and promises not to repeat the mistakes.
In addition, it is worth considering the family situation. Sometimes the reason for a wife's infidelity lies in the husband's behavior. And even though the main culprit is a woman, it is a man who pushed for infidelity. A little work on yourself will bring peace back to the family.
If you want to maintain family happiness with your wife
No one is immune from making mistakes, sometimes so serious that they can change their life forever. Is it possible to forgive the betrayal of the girl who was closest to you in the world? If your spouse has sinned, but you do not want to leave her, then no one has the right to condemn this decision.
How to maintain a happy family after your wife cheats and forgive her:
- Find out the reason for adultery. It is unlikely that the wife rushed into the arms of the first person she met just like that, because years of marriage were at stake. Find out what exactly caused the unseemly act by calling your wife for a frank conversation. Don't put pressure on her and try to find out the truth. This information will help you understand your spouse’s motives and continue to act in the right direction.
- Admit guilt, if any, and correct yourself. Since you have decided to save your marriage, you understand that your share of the blame for female infidelity is quite likely. Perhaps you did not show proper attention to your other half or even walked left and right on your own, completely forgetting about your beloved. Tell your spouse that you have realized your mistakes. Show her through your actions that this will not happen again in the future. Become the husband of your dreams so that your wife will regret what she did and never look to the left again.
- Look for the positive qualities of your spouse. It’s hard not to think that the other half was just recently tumbling with someone else, and now he’s sitting next to him as if nothing had happened. The memory of an unpleasant incident prevents you from forgiving your spouse from the bottom of your heart. In order to quickly get back into the usual rut of life, drive away these memories from yourself. Look for your wife’s advantages and focus your attention on them. For example, ask your spouse to cook your favorite dish and enjoy her cooking skills.
It is impossible to forgive a person with a snap of your fingers. Therefore, be patient and under no circumstances reproach your spouse for the adultery that happened every day. This will only escalate the situation and lead to another scandal. If you have already decided to save your family, then behave with dignity.
How to understand your spouse and save your marriage
If an unfaithful wife wants to save her family, you should listen to her and meet her halfway. It is not uncommon for couples to stay together after betrayal. In this case, the spouse needs to listen and understand. Learn to trust her. It won't happen right away, but it's worth trying to achieve this result.
After the conversation, there should no longer be any secrets left between spouses. If a woman is determined to save her marriage, she will have to explain the reason for her action, and a loving man must understand and accept her.
READ Wife cheats on her husband with his friends: causes and consequences of double betrayal
Relationships need to be constantly worked on. Avoid everyday conflicts and try to bring a lot of bright emotions into life. Go on a trip with your wife and change the environment. You can move and start over from scratch.
A spouse may often feel insecure after his beloved’s betrayal. His self-esteem drops. You can work with this and change the situation, the main thing is that there is a desire.
If you want to let go on all four sides
You need to get a divorce beautifully. You should not hold anger and hatred towards your spouse, who is about to become an ex. Find a bit of nobility and condescension in yourself, even if very soon the stamp in your passport will scream about your freedom.
How to forget your wife’s infidelity during a divorce:
- Understand the absurdity of your emotions. If you are determined to file for divorce, then there is simply no point in not forgiving your spouse. Why extra resentment in your soul when very soon both of you will not be bound by marriage?
- Rest. When a stressful situation has literally just happened, it is difficult to act rationally. But, if you have been nervous for a long time and accumulate evil within yourself, then you are harming yourself. Don't live in the past, try to switch to your favorite activities and relax. The nervous system will calm down, and it will become much easier to forgive your wife.
- Wish your wife happiness. By spewing curses towards your unfaithful spouse, you gain absolutely nothing, but only escalate the situation. Tell your wife that you are grateful for the pleasant moments of your life together, but now your paths have diverged, and you wish her to find personal happiness with someone else. This way you will interrupt the series of conflicts, put a logical point and get out of the situation with dignity, like a real man.
Everything has already happened, the decision has been made, and it’s stupid to hold a grudge against your ex-wife. You will still meet a woman who will be faithful, so do not waste time on negative experiences and dream of a bright future.
What not to do
Faced with such a problem as his wife’s betrayal, most men, without hesitation, decide to take the most extreme measures.
Someone, unable to restrain himself, opens his hands, someone insults, someone leaves slamming the door, or throws their unfaithful spouse out the door. Of course, it is difficult to contain emotions, but there are things that should not be allowed under any circumstances.
Being confident in his complete power and absolute authority, the husband is not ready to even imagine that his wife is capable of betrayal. The first reaction caused by such news is anger. He is sometimes indomitable, and it seems simply impossible to restrain himself. But is it? Should you give in to negative emotions? How to pull yourself together?
It’s difficult, but you need to understand that you cannot act or make any decisions in a fit of anger.
Unacceptable:
- make a noisy scandal;
- open your arms;
- insult your spouse;
- try to understand the situation in the presence of children;
- seek solace in wine or the hugs of other women.
All this will not help find a way out of the current situation, but will only worsen it. A quarrel and scandal with a stormy showdown and promises of inevitable punishment will not help solve the problem. In this form, a husband and father can only alienate both his children and his unfaithful wife, giving her a reason to think that she, although it was wrong, did not act in vain. You can't show your incontinence. There is no need to try to blame your spouse for everything, even when you don’t have the strength to remain silent.
A man by nature is a hunter, breadwinner, head of the family.
He is sure that a woman must obey him in everything, obey him unquestioningly. He cannot even imagine that his wife, life partner, soulmate, could pay attention to someone other than him.
Complaining about what happened to friends means admitting defeat.
Therefore, you should also refrain from such conversations. Alcohol won't help either. Alcohol will cause you to lose control over your emotions. Anger and resentment can take over the mind, and the consequences will be sad.
Another mistake that some men make when they find out that their wife has cheated is the desire to arouse pity and a request not to leave, but to stay. They promise to forgive and forget everything, hoping that the woman will change her attitude towards him. We cannot agree that it is he, the husband, who is to blame for this happening.
That he himself pushed her to take decisive action or provoked such a development of events.
Each man decides on his own how to behave after his wife’s betrayal, but it’s better to try to calm down if you even need to leave for a while, leaving your spouse alone. This time is needed to reflect on what happened.
Try to understand what made the wife act this way. Most often, when a wife cheats, it is the fault of the man himself. In all quarrels that occur in a family, two people are always to blame.
What preceded female infidelity? Why did she decide that there was someone better than her husband nearby, and why was he better? It is not easy to accept the fact of betrayal, but if this has already happened, all that remains is to figure it out, find the reasons, and only then make a responsible decision. A serious conversation will definitely happen. During the conversation, you will have to listen to the arguments that the wife will give, ask questions and get answers to them.
For the decision to be fair and correct, you need to understand what happened between the spouses?
Maybe the husband stopped understanding his beloved, and this offended her? Maybe she lacked basic attention or respect?
The betrayal of a wife cannot be justified, just like the infidelity of a husband, but there is a reason for such behavior. That's what needs to be found out. All this is necessary if a man has made a decision for himself and is ready to do anything to save his family.
Talking with friends about your wife's infidelity will not lead to anything good. Discussion behind your back will hurt, and pity from your comrades will be humiliating. And the very admission that someone has become closer to his wife than the spouse with whom he has lived for so many years does not honor the man. Cheating on a wife is one of the most powerful blows that can defeat and throw any man off balance.
Before you make an important decision, you need to make sure that there really was cheating.
Perhaps these are just rumors or gossip. Most men ask their wives by looking into their eyes.
In 30% of cases, women themselves admit to cheating, but more often, trying to avoid unpleasant conversations or divorce, they deny the fact of cheating. If the husband decides to verify the veracity of the words spoken by his wife, he will certainly demand evidence.
The wife who failed to present them will sooner or later stop making excuses and agree with the accusation. According to statistics, only 25% of men who experienced their wife’s betrayal left the family. Most still remain, having decided to forgive their spouse. This may be due to the presence of children or reluctance to part with a loved one.
It is important that forgiveness be sincere, otherwise in a few years the family will fall apart and the spouses will separate.
If you can’t forgive your spouse for cheating: advice from psychologists
Have you followed all the recommendations, corrected your behavior, seemed to have established a peaceful existence with your wife, but resentment still torments your soul? Advice from psychologists will help answer the question of how to forgive your wife’s infidelity:
- Talk to your spouse about the problem. Perhaps you need to hear once again that you are loved and will not be exchanged for a casual relationship. Or do you want to know that the wife repents and realizes that she made a mistake. An understanding woman will not refuse a frank conversation and will dispel your doubts. Draw up some kind of contract with your spouse. Write down on a piece of paper the obligations of both parties and what will happen if they are not fulfilled. This way, albeit formally, you will protect yourself from possible negative events. Order and discipline are very important for men. This method will help you forgive your wife faster.
- Remember the happy moments of your life. You have been together in both sorrow and joy, so why does the first always come to mind? To forgive your spouse, you should plunge into the world of pleasant memories. Think about what immerses you in an atmosphere of happiness and tranquility: a wedding, a seaside vacation, the birth of your first child. This way you will quickly realize that your wife is not only a traitor, but also an interesting, sweet, beloved woman who recently simply stumbled.
- Go for a consultation with a family psychologist. Together or with your spouse – it’s up to you to decide. A specialist will analyze all the nuances of a sensitive problem individually, find the root causes and help you get on the right path. Don’t think that psychologists are storytellers who extract money from gullible people. Try talking to a specialist once, and then label yourself.
Don't ignore the situation. Resentment poisons your soul and your relationship with your spouse. Try not to lead to scandals and new troubles. Relax together and perceive everything that happened as a kind of family crisis that gave you an impetus for development.
Cheating wife. How to forgive your wife's betrayal?
Cheating wife. How to forgive your wife's betrayal? This question is asked to me every day by one of the men who come to see me and find themselves in the position of a deceived husband. And before I answer it, I ask: “Your wife has cheated , you know about it, your actions are now logical - divorce, but you want to forgive her - Why do you need to forgive your cheating wife?”
At the same time, I am not satisfied with arguments such as: “I love her, I can’t live without her!”, “She loves me, in any case, she definitely loved me before!”, “We have a small child!”, “I live in her apartment, I have nowhere to go”, “Because of the divorce I will lose a lot of money and property, so I want to avoid division of property, we better make peace”, “My wife has a lot of money, high social status, her own business - how can you refuse such a wife, even if she cheated?!”, “They say that time heals - I will hope that over the years everything will somehow calm down by itself.”
As a psychologist, I know for sure: unfortunately, even the strongest love of a wife for her husband is not a guarantee against her betrayal, including a new, regular betrayal of the wife. And even the strongest love of a husband for his cheating wife is not a guarantee that this man will really be able to forgive his wife and will not die in a few years from a heart attack or stroke, which developed due to his moral suffering and depression. Or he won’t start drinking and beating his wife, cursing her infidelity. Which is definitely not a recommendation to save such a marriage.
Living with a cheating wife out of fear of division of property or greed for her wealth and income - in my opinion, this does not correlate well with the standard of male behavior accepted in society. Yes, this is not a solution to the problem with treason. After all, a cheating wife can cheat again and herself initiates divorce and division of property. In this case, preserving the marriage for some time is simply a stratagem so that the husband can have time to withdraw at least part of his assets.
The thesis “to live with a cheating wife for the sake of the children” sounds beautiful only on paper. In practice, such family life is an endless series of reproaches, scandals, departures and threats of divorce. When, under these conditions, the psyche of not only the husband and wife collapses, but also those for whom all this was formally conceived - their children. And children grow up seeing a model of male-female relationships distorted by hatred and melancholy, which also does not contribute to their future personal and family happiness. With a calm divorce and maintaining contact with children who will communicate with their loving mother and father, who are in an adequate and not in an excited state, the risks for the children’s psyche will be lower.
As for the attitude that “time heals,” it only works if a couple of husband and wife after adultery (in this case, the wife) moves in the right direction, that is, generally speaking, they are being treated basically.
Time does not heal unless you take the right medicine.
Wrong medicine or lack of treatment
over time it does not heal, but cripples and even kills.
Therefore, personally, my correct answer to the question “Why do you need to forgive a cheating wife” is: “Because I still love this woman; I see her love and respect for myself; I see clear signs of her repentance; I see her sincere desire to be only with me; I understand that she is good as a mother of my children, as a housewife and as a woman for me.” Let me put it more simply: “Not only can a cheating wife be forgiven, but this forgiveness itself is technically possible only if several very significant parameters are met at once. Here they are:
