Let me just put it out there. Being cheated on is one of the most painful experiences that anyone can go through. When someone hits or batters you, those wounds heal. But when someone cheats on you, that leaves battle scars the size of craters. Being cheated on is like someone telling you that you aren’t even good enough to be faithful to.
All too often when someone cheats on us, we do the wrong thing. Either we go after the girl he cheated with and try to make her miserable, or we internalize the cheating like it was something lacking in us.
The truth is that no matter how much of a bitch you can be, how much weight you may have gained, how much you had to work, or how old and tired things got in the bedroom, as a human being, he had the responsibility to end one relationship before starting another.
# Walk away with graceI know it feels ooooh-so-good to get revenge. Revenge can come in many forms. You can tear his apartment up, rip apart his things, or sleep with his best friend. Geez, as women we can come up with a thousand various ways of punishing a guy.
The problem is that revenge is always sweeter when you are plotting and planning than when you are actually carrying it through. All you will do is give him ammunition to justify something that is unjustifiable. When you find out that he has cheated, you need nothing else but to walk away with grace and class.
# Don’t get specificsOften we punish ourselves by sticking around to find out how far-reaching and how many times we were hurt without even knowing. Knowing the logistics of when it started, when they were first together, where they were together, and how long it has been going on, isn’t going to make you feel any better
Like fingers on a chalkboard, finding out all the things that you don’t need to know, is just TMI. Don’t ask and don’t let him tell. Just assume that he cheated once in the heat of the moment and move on without knowing any differently.
# Mum’s the wordWhen you start telling the intimate details of your relationship to others, the only thing you are doing is continually reliving the story and stinging it further into your soul. No one needs to know the lurid details any more than you do.
A simple “it didn’t work out” will suffice. Some people live off the misery of others and enjoy nothing more than hearing all the ugliness of a relationship. Conduct yourself by not letting anyone latch on to your pain. Keep it to yourself, or talk it over with a close friend. Announcing it all over town isn’t going to make you feel better… it will just make everyone pity you.
# Know it is on him
After time, many people will begin to overanalyze the situation to find out what went wrong. Don’t think about the reasons why he cheated on you, or what you did in the relationship that may have enabled or led to his indiscretions.
There is no excuse for a guy or girl to cheat on their significant other. If you are done with a relationship, you have an obligation to say so before moving on to the next victim. Don’t second-guess whether it was your fault, or what you did to cause it. No one, and I mean no one, deserves to be cheated on.
# Don’t allow it to change youSometimes when someone cheats on us, we carry the baggage felt into our next relationships. Don’t make a blanket assumption that men cheat and that is just the way that it is.
When you end a relationship, you have to understand that all of them are different. Just because you were cheated on in the past does not mean that the next guy that comes along will do the same. It is natural to carry on fear into the next person you want to form a bond with. If you hold onto the past, it will only cloud your future.
# Learn from your mistakesAlthough there was NO good reason that he cheated on you, there are signs that you may have seen along the way. Or, perhaps a nagging voice that was whispering in your ear that something wasn’t right.
Learning from your past may help you to avoid problems for your future. If he was a bad boy, and that attracted you to him, then think twice about your attractions.
If he cheated on other girls in the past, and you thought that you were different, then think about that and investigate another boy’s past before taking a blind leap of faith into building a relationship.
# Date again
Being cheated on is one of the most painful
experiences you can go through. The best thing you can do is to get
right back up on that emotional horse.
There is certainly a
period of mourning that everyone has to go through, but refusing to move
on or leaving your heart open to finding love again, is only going to
prolong the agony. When your previous boyfriend hands you lemons, find
another guy to sweeten the lemonade.
# Build your self-esteemWhen
he cheated on you, it can be a huge hit to the ego. Whether the other
girl was beautiful or a 2, if your boyfriend went outside of your
relationship, that is a hard pill to swallow – and may leave you
examining how you feel about yourself.
Take the time after a
breakup to build up your self-esteem. Make yourself better by going to
the salon, hitting the gym, or change your hairstyle to give yourself a
fresh new and confident attitude.