When to Walk Away After Infidelity?
So… Your cheating spouse or partner has been exposed!
You could never have imagined that you were married to an unfaithful person, your wife, husband, girlfriend, or boyfriend… yet he or she has done the unthinkable. They betrayed you!
The fact is, you are married to an unfaithful partner. The betrayal was unexpected and you are in shock. Stay safe and don’t make your situation worse!
Read everything in this article. You need to become an infidelity expert before you make a decision. Every piece of information in this article is of vital importance, which is why it was written — to help you.
Know When to Walk Away After Infidelity or When to Start an Infidelity Recovery Process.
Hi, this is Abe Kass, MA, RSW, RMFT. I am a professional couple and family therapist who specializes in infidelity recovery.
I am a real practicing professional, and I know what I am talking about. I know that infidelity pain is unbearable for many reasons, and I want to help you.
Many people ask me, “Can a marriage survive infidelity? Can an unfaithful spouse ever be trusted again? Is it worth starting a healing process?”
I tell them that it is certainly possible to survive infidelity.
However, certain criteria must be met, and only then can a person decide if his or her relationship is worth saving or if they should end the relationship and walk away.
During an Infidelity Crisis, it is Easy to Make a Mistake
A mistake amid this crisis can cause lasting damage to you and your family. This is why I have written this article about when to walk away after infidelity. I want you to become knowledgeable about infidelity and how to respond practically and safely. I want you to avoid the mistakes other well-meaning individuals have made. So let’s dig into what infidelity is.
Infidelity is a Close Connection with a Person Outside of the Marriage
Infidelity is an intimate relationship with a person outside the marriage. It includes sharing intimate details with a person outside the marriage.
This sharing can be emotional like a friendship, it can be intimate sexual sharing, or it can be both.
Examples of intimate details that are often shared:
- Sexual activities or preferences
- Feelings about one’s wife or husband
- Future goals
- Special moments
- Displaying parts of one’s body that ordinarily are covered, either in-person or via pictures
Whether your partner’s cheating is physical or emotional or both, how you react to this betrayal will impact you and your family for the rest of your lives.
Learn Everything You Can About Infidelity
If your partner has cheated, before you make any decisions, you should educate yourself and learn everything you can about infidelity and infidelity recovery. You need to become an infidelity expert. This is true even if you decide to go to couples therapy.
Ways to become an infidelity expert:
- Study this article
- Read more information on infidelity
- Speak to others who have experienced infidelity
- Speak to caring, qualified and registered or licensed therapist
- Buy and read books by qualified writers about infidelity
- Focus on when to walk away after infidelity or when to save your marriage
If your husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend has cheated on you, you SHOULD read this before you DECIDE TO walk away or start a recovery process
Let’s start by learning some scientific facts about infidelity
Based on research presented in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, October 2002, Vol. 28, No. 4,423-434.
- In a national survey of couple therapists, extramarital affairs were ranked as the second most damaging impact on relationships, with only physical abuse having a more negative impact.
- In another study of more than 2,000 randomly selected married people in America, researchers examined the effect of various relationship problems that led to divorce. The impact of extramarital sex on divorce was more than twice as much as any other related problem.
- Recent national studies have found that nearly 25% of husbands and more than 10% of wives have had extramarital sex at some point in their relationship.
- Among relationship problems, such as anger problems, emotional abuse, having an affair, having irritating habits, spending money foolishly, or abusing drugs or alcohol, extramarital sex was the greatest predictor of divorce.
The Infidelity Recovery Process
Knowing when to walk away after your partner’s infidelity is very important. Only a fool would try to plant a seed on concrete. Every intelligent person would understand that the seed will never grow. A similar evaluation must be made regarding an infidelity recovery program.
When you and your partner engage in an infidelity recovery program, there is no way to predict with certainty what the outcome will be. However, the information below will help you determine if it makes sense to try to rebuild your broken marriage or move on with your life.
Should You Walk Away or Try to Fix Your Broken Marriage?
If you answer “yes” to any of the following 8 questions, staying with your partner and rebuilding trust will be very difficult, and you should consider ending the relationship.
1. Does the Cheating Continue?
Does the Cheating Continue? Yes or No
Cheating includes not only having sex, but it can also include having an emotional relationship with an outside person where intimate details are shared. An emotional affair can hurt and damage the marriage just as much as a sexual one. Typically, emotional affairs are hidden just as often as sexual ones.
If your partner’s relationship with the person outside the marriage has been conducted secretly in full or in part, this is a clear sign that it is a forbidden relationship. Your partner knows that their relationship with the outside person is wrong, which is why they have made extreme efforts to hide it.
Lies of commission or omission are clear signs of infidelity — this is why it is called “cheating.” Cheating is behavior that is always hidden. If the cheating continues, there can be no recovery process. The affair must be finished before any healing can begin.
Before any healing process can begin, the connection with the affair partner must be severed completely. The philanderer knew exactly what he or she was doing getting involved with a married man or a woman. Any compassion for him or her is misplaced.
Infidelity is a dangerous relationship sport. Whoever engages in this activity knows this fact, and if they get hurt, there should be no surprise!
Knowing how to tell if your partner has severed his relationship with his or her affair partner is difficult. There are helpful procedures and resources to help you determine if your partner is cheating or not. However, they are beyond the scope of this article.
Severing the relationship with the paramour (the illicit outside lover or ‘friend’) sometimes means changing jobs, moving to a different city, or other accommodations to reduce the possibility that the affair resumes at a later date.
Severing the relationship and all opportunities to connect with the paramour gives a measure of security to the betrayed partner and is an act of respect and consideration of his or her feelings.
If your partner refuses to end the relationship with the outside individual, there is no hope of recovery.
2. Serial Cheater?
Is the Unfaithful Partner a Serial Cheater? Yes or No
Infidelity is not an innocent error. It is a deliberate act that the perpetrator must take responsibility for.
If the betrayer has a history of cheating, and there is no clear evidence that he or she will not do it in the future, there is little hope for infidelity recovery.
It is never possible to trust a serial cheater, someone who has never learned or desired to control their actions, be honest, and respect others. With such a person, recovery is impossible.
There is a saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
If you stay with a serial cheater, you become complicit in the emotional pain and relationship destruction.
If your partner refuses to stop his or her philandering, as painful as it is, you need to end your relationship with him or her.
If you don’t end your relationship and walk away, your emotions will forever be going through a meat grinder — there will never be love or trust, and you will forever be disappointed and hurt.
Infidelity is like the hemorrhaging of blood. It is either stopped, or the person dies.
With a serial cheater, you cannot stop the emotional hemorrhaging. It’s better to leave the relationship and give yourself a chance to live.
3. Remoreseful?
Does the cheater justify and blame others for what he or she has done? Yes or No
The cheater must take full responsibility for his or her bad actions.
He or she must acknowledge his or her bad behavior and regret hurting their partner and other family members.
They must feel remorse for what they have done.
However, if the cheating partner thinks the cheating was justified, then he or she is not a candidate for infidelity recovery.
Even if in the past there have been marital problems, the cheater can not use this fact to excuse him or herself.
Cheating is a selfish and self-serving decision and not a solution to marriage problems! (Past marital problems should be addressed only after the infidelity crisis has subsided and the couple is on the road to recovery.)
Blaming others for cheating means that in the future, the cheater may find new reasons and excuses to cheat again.
4. Feelings of Eempathy?
Is the betrayer unfeeling about the pain he or she has caused? Yes or No
Can the philanderer feel the pain he or she has caused their partner and other family members?
For recovery from infidelity to be effective, the philanderer must empathize with their partner’s pain.
A cheater who can not empathize is not a candidate for reconciliation since he or she cannot recognize how much injury cheating causes others.
Knowing how much infidelity can hurt everyone in the family is the main reason most people do not cheat.
If the cheating partner cannot connect with the pain of others, it is hard to imagine how, should the opportunity present itself in the future, they will not cheat once again.
5. Good Character
Is the perpetrator of infidelity a chronic liar? Yes or No
Good character is an integral component of relationship fitness and is necessary for a healthy and stable relationship.
A person in a committed relationship must recognize the difference between ‘right and wrong.’ If they cannot do this, they cannot sustain a healthy relationship with another person.
Cheaters are often liars. This demonstrates poor character and a lack of integrity.
A person who often lies and thinks nothing of it, and when caught covers it with another lie, simply does not have the requisite positive character traits needed to establish a healthy relationship.
A person can certainly learn to be of good character. However, without the desire to change for the better, a cheater is not a candidate for infidelity recovery.
When a betraying spouse refuses to acknowledge their shortcomings, they are not a candidate for a trusting relationship.
6. Humility
Is the cheater arrogant and unwilling to examine him or herself? Yes or No
Only a humble person can learn from his or her past mistakes.
Recovery from infidelity requires that the cheater sit in the ‘hot seat’ and describe what happened, and take responsibility for their bad behavior.
Being in the hot seat is uncomfortable. Nevertheless, a willingness to face and examine one’s mistakes is necessary if they are to be transformed into valuable lessons. To do so requires humility.
A selfish and insensitive individual cannot look at oneself objectively and learn from past mistakes.
Narcissism will always ruin relationships!
7. Willing to Discuss What Happened
Does the partner who cheated refuse to discuss the affair and details? Yes or No
The partner who was betrayed, the victim, has a right to know what happened to them before they start a relationship recovery and healing process.
The betrayer, the cheater who refuses to talk or gaslights, twisting the reality of what happened, is not a candidate for infidelity recovery.
A betrayed partner can never forgive if he or she does not know what happened. Details of the past relationship crime must be brought to the light of day.
Infidelity is always conducted in secrecy. If the relationship is to recover, honesty and transparency must prevail.
8. Willingness to Go to Marriage Counseling
Regardless of the need, the betrayer refuses to participate in marriage counseling with a registered or licensed therapist. Yes or No
Infidelity recovery often requires a competent and caring professional to support and guide injured individuals through the healing process.
If someone breaks a bone, they need an orthopedic surgeon. There is no getting around this fact.
For a couple struggling to overcome infidelity, they often need to turn to an expert to help them get through the crisis. “There is no getting around this fact.”
A cheating partner who refuses to work with a skilled, caring, registered, or licensed marriage counselor is a partner who is not serious about taking responsibility for the damage they have caused.
A marriage takes two people to make a relationship work! And in the context of overcoming infidelity, this often means going for marriage therapy with a qualified specialist.
If you have answered “yes” to any of the above 8 questions, then it is very doubtful that your relationship can recover from infidelity.
Even if you have answered “no” to the above questions, you may be still thinking of walking away and ending your marriage.
When considering whether or not you should walk away after infidelity, you need to consider many things, including how a divorce will impact your children, finances, and mental health.
Knowing when to walk away after infidelity is not always easy.
