In the situation of how to forgive yourself for cheating, you need to work on yourself and the things that happened. Forgiveness isn’t going to happen overnight, you will need time to start all over again. Take accountability, go beyond just being sorry, stop punishing yourself, and seek professional help. Those are just some of the advice that can help you to recover and heal yourself. Keep in mind that confessing will hurt your partner too. So it’s best to keep your mistake to yourself. Or, if you really want to be honest, then keep in mind that you’re hurting the other person too. Also, try to be proactive in changing yourself. Understand what was missing in your relationship and try to rebuild it. Don’t let your relationship turns into a love-hate game. That way it would be difficult to fix it.
How to start it?
In the process of how to forgive yourself for cheating, the first step is to take all of your regrets and use them to make yourself a better person. Don’t go down that road again. Once you have completely gotten yourself out of cheating, you will have a lot easier time forgiving yourself. If you cheated on your partner you don’t need to feel guilty or think you are a bad person. It just happens, accept that. Feeling guilty after cheating and feeling the guilt of cheating is normal. If it was just a one-night stand you don’t need to feel bad, but if it’s another soul searching, then you have a bigger problem. However, if you’ve cheated and you have trust issues, it can be all fixed, one step at a time.
Now you must examine what it was that made you want to cheat. You can’t move past something without examining the cause. Maybe your needs weren’t being met with your partner. Maybe you wanted comfort or affirmation.
Next, you should see what you can do to stop it from happening again. It can mean you used to love your partner, but something changed. Or you never loved your partner. Or you love your partner, but aren’t “in love” with them, and fall for someone else. Cheating generally means there was a flaw in the relationship, as you don’t notice other people when you’re happy.
Ending a relationship or not
You should have ended the relationship when you felt like cheating was the most suitable course of action. You seem to have a conscience, which is a good thing. In the future use this lesson. If you feel like cheating you know it’s time to question your relationship and spend time alone thinking about whether it’s still meeting your needs before you involve a third party. There is hope for you, not in the past, but in the future.
How are you defining “cheating”? Was this an emotional desire, sex, or sexting? Yes, it’s possible to love your partner and still cheat. Cheating doesn’t mean that you don’t love them, it means something or some need in you isn’t being met. We’re dynamic and all of us are individuals. Cheating could mean you have poor coping skills or maybe even possible psychiatric issues leading to questionable judgment.
Type and state of cheating
If it was an actual physical affair, start asking yourself why you needed that. Was it companionship, sexual/physical need, protection, or something else? This is a very important step in the “how to forgive yourself for cheating” process. There’s 2 types of cheating. First off, you can make the argument that there’s nothing to forgive (only to understand) yourself. On the other hand, you cheated to be mean and to humiliate your partner. If the latter is true, then you would need your partner’s forgiveness. It sounds as if you need to understand yourself better. I’d recommend talking with a relationship counselor to better understand your motives and desires. A greater degree of self-awareness and self-understanding will help prevent you from falling into behaviors and relationships that aren’t healthy for you – or your partner. It will also help you learn to forgive yourself and to approach future relationships with more honesty and authentic love.
Self-love and self-forgiveness
Sometimes, it’s more challenging for us to forgive ourselves than others because we think we should know better and not make the same mistakes that others make. This is prideful thinking. You should first remember that you’re just as capable of making mistakes as anyone else. Many factors influence our decisions and actions and sometimes we can’t control what’s happening around us that involves us. To forgive yourself you need to first identify specifically what you did wrong. Next, you need to make things right with whoever you wronged. It sounds like you already did that. Again, remember that everyone makes mistakes and needs forgiveness, so humble yourself, forgive yourself. If you imagine someone wrote about your relationship, what would you want them to say? Imagine the headline on the front page of the newspaper.
Forgiveness is actually the greatest gift you can ever give yourself or others. One thing you could do is to think about someone you’ve hurt and apologize. They might not respond, but message them and tell them you’re sorry. It’s not about them responding, but you might be shocked at how you’ve eased someone’s hurt you didn’t know was still there. That might help you forgive yourself. It’s a brave action.
Feeling of blame will only make you feel worse
How to forgive yourself for cheating? Well, you don’t need to be perfect. Own that and be vulnerable. There’s a huge amount of strength in that. There’s a huge amount of courage in saying “I messed up”. With that said, love is a choice. It’s active and you have to wake up every morning and recharge your battery. It’s a choice of how we love ourselves and others, even when that love is changing or feels off. So from here on out, forgive yourself because what’s done is done. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to be done to yourself, and in that same regard, you would still forgive yourself for not being perfect. Don’t worry, everyone does something they wish they could take back.
Love yourself
To forgive yourself, you need to act to yourself like someone you love the most. Ask yourself if you accept the fact that you cheated in the past, did you learn something from it? Everything in life that happens, happens for a reason. Stop being angry at yourself because that guilt will get you nowhere. So, instead of focusing on the wrong choice that you made, why don’t you focus on the right choice that you made. Like meeting your partner, falling for them, and asking them to love you again. Then maybe one day, there will come a time when you look back and you’ll smile because that mistake makes both of you stronger than ever. How to forgive yourself for cheating won’t happen overnight, remember that. Don’t give up on forgiving yourself, because if you really feel sorry, you deserve forgiveness.