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How long does it take to forgive cheating and rebuild trust?

Tagged as: Cheating, Troubled relationships, Trust issues<< Previous question   Next question >>
Question - (1 October 2014) 8 Answers - (Newest, 8 October 2014)
A female United States age 30-35, anonymous writes:

My bf cheated twice and he has slowly made changes since then and im on guard but sometimes I feel like he is quick to jump on me about things I do wrong yet I had so much patiences towards him and his wrong doing. Am I wrong for feeling like im not being treated fair?

Also is there a time limit with getting over cheating? Its been a month and a half and I catch myself crying randomly a lot of freaking out about what he may be doing...is it normal that im no where near over it and ready to forgive? Or that I try to hold myself back from throwing it in his face?

Im torn and hurting...how long does it take to get over cheating and build trust?

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A male reader, anonymous, writes (8 October 2014):

My wife cheated, I forgave her and she cheated again. It seemed there was nothing I could do to get our marriage back on track. I stayed with her for 5 more years and saw it was never going to change, that she's unhappy with me, unhappy with herself and a miserable person. Leaving her was the best thing I could have done. We did have 15 years of what I thought was a great marriage. I feel like as the saying goes, once a cheat always a cheat. Now she's lonely, she's lost most of her long time friends, she come's to my house asking me for favors because she now has to lay on her back or get on her knees for a guy to help her. I help her because she's the mother of my girls, but I don't like her. If we didn't have kids together I would totally hate her but, I still have some love for the liar whore who destroyed our young family. Run away as fast as you can and don't look back. Cheaters will always be on the lookout for a romp with a willing partner in crime, they can't help it, cheaters are liars, they will also bring you STD's. Run girl run, don't look back he will never change.

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A female reader, So_Very_Confused United States +, writes (3 October 2014):

So_Very_Confused agony auntwhen I was married to a liar/cheater it took me once 9 months before I started to trust him again at all... and it was very fragile... he broke that trust again... i never got it back.

Trust is like a fine china tea cup. it's lovely but once the handle breaks you can glue it back on and it LOOKS perfect and it works but it's NEVER as strong as it was before it was broken. It's never the same. It's never as strong. It will ALWAYS have a crack in it. even if others can't see it, you know it's there.

Fool me once shame on you

fool me twice shame on me

what you have taught him by forgiving twice is that he can do to you what he wishes and you will forgive him.

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A female reader, anonymous, writes (3 October 2014):

I hope this isn't too harsh, but he betrayed your trust twice, so how could you possibly ever trust him again?

What could he do that would convince you that he won't cheat on you again.

Nothing that I can think of.

So it's time to leave him.

This may be tough for you to hear, but he has no respect for you and he will cheat again. No matter what he says. I speak from experience.

You are young.

You don't need to put up with this.

My advice is to think really hard about what jobs you might enjoy. It doesn't matter how hard you think it will be get those jobs. Then do whatever it takes to get the skills you need. Get a college education and acquire a skill (nursing, engineering, whatever you want.)

You'll be much happier in life if you have a job that you enjoy... Getting a good man, marriage, kids etc. will sort itself out. That's what I did, and I'm very happy, great husband, kids, and I work part time at a job that I love.

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A reader, anonymous, writes (2 October 2014):

It's harder to heal if your with that person. I always thought I could get over it but 2 years later I was still unhappy with him.

Best to move on

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A female reader, MSA United States +, writes (2 October 2014):

MSA agony auntI'm not going to advise you to break up with your boyfriend based on the once a cheater always a cheater rule. I do believe people will change.

I would advise however that, although it was very awesome of you to have forgiven him and showed so much patience and understanding towards him, people are different. You can't say, Oh I was patient and understanding towards you etc so you need to do the same. You can't base fairness on that.

You can talk to him and tell him that you'd like for him to be more understanding towards you and not jump on you for your wrongs.. and you can ask him to work on it.. but you can't compare the way you handled a situation to how he handled it.

Hurt takes a long time to heal.. trust takes a long time to rebuild. Give yourself some time. Best wishes!

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A female reader, YouWish United States +, writes (2 October 2014):

YouWish agony auntTruly? I think you're making a mistake by still being with him. His cheating wasn't a one-time mistake. He is a serial cheater who did it twice. You know the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

He fooled you twice. Why are you worried about rebuilding trust? All that means is that he's improving his game.

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A female reader, Honeypie United States + , writes (2 October 2014):

Honeypie agony auntYou are not over it. Once you don't feel like throwing it in his face, you have forgiven it. What people forget is, you CAN forgive (it takes time, with him having done it TWICE, no wonder!) but you will NEVER forget. It might be that you can NEVER really feel like you trust him 100% again.

What I do find rather discouraging is that he has NO problem pointing out your fault but he seemingly thins you can't point out his? Why the double standard? Because you stayed?

To be honest, you are young. You may LOVE this guy A LOT, but he has cheated TWICE, that is not a mistake, it a pattern of disrespect OF you.

You need to figure out WHAT you need from him to start trusting again, and HE NEEDS to do the work in rebuilding the trust HE TORE DOWN, NOT you. HE F'D UP - HE needs to fix it.

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A female reader, shinigami132 United Kingdom +, writes (1 October 2014):

Me and my boyfriend broke up last week because I'm still not over him cheating on me a year ago. A year. At the time i thought sure I'll get over it in a few months. I'm still not. Truth be told i feel like I wasted a year of my life with a doomed relationship. It is totally up to you but from my experience i would say end it now.

Good luck in whatever you choose xx

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