People who claim “once a cheater, always a cheater” oversimplify life’s complexities. It’s not that black and white.
Has your marriage survived cheating? Let’s learn from those who’ve lived it. We asked people on Quora about taking back unfaithful spouses. Here’s what they shared about saving the relationship after infidelity:
1. I’m in my second year with my wife who cheated. We had couples therapy, and she promised never to do it again. Although she is trying and things are good, there are several buts…
I have minimal to zero trust in her now and don’t think I ever will. The sex just isn’t the same anymore; that spark has gone, and I’m not as interested in having regular sex as before. I love and care for her, but I’m not in love with her as I was before the betrayal.
Lies, betrayal, and cheating tend to have this effect on people.
2. I once had a husband who cheated on me. Even though he tried to make up for it in every way, I always had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. A couple of years later, he came home from a business trip, and I sensed something was off. Then, out of the blue, my doctor called to remind me about my yearly checkup. Odd, because I had just been there four months ago!
Long story short, my husband had contracted gonorrhea, passed it on to me, and had my doctor call me under false pretenses to cover it up. Needless to say, I divorced him. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
3. I’ve dealt with infidelity in my marriage, and instead of divorcing, I chose to forgive, learn, and rebuild. I didn’t do it for the kids or for her. I did it because I wanted to. I wanted to work things out. I hated every part of what she did, but I love my wife. I’ve always loved her; I just hated her actions.
I say “hated” because it’s not something I think about anymore. I share my experiences here, but these aren’t my daily thoughts. I’m more focused on our next vacation, not something that happened 15 years ago. We were different people back then, and we’ve grown since.
I’m sharing this because, yes, your relationship can end if you want it to. Or, you can try to save it if you’re truly with the person you love. Whatever you decide will change you forever.
4. My boyfriend has changed a lot since he cheated. He keeps his phone unlocked, is thoughtful and considerate, and looks out for me. I can’t deny that he loves and treats me well. But the trust is gone, and although it’s being rebuilt, I still have so many triggers. My sense of security has been replaced with creeping suspicions that it will happen again. I get intense anxiety and pain whenever he’s talking to a woman he works with. I’m fearful of every woman.
I’m an attractive and high-status woman (just being honest, not arrogant), and he cheated on me with someone who was really unattractive and had nothing going for her. This has made it hard to know who a “threat” is, and now I see every woman as a threat. I’m constantly worried he might be secretly involved with another woman or planning his next affair.
Our sex life has never recovered. We used to be very active in the kink community, doing a lot of BDSM and having sex for three to four hours a day. But now, with the trust gone, it’s different and not as fun. Sometimes I wonder if he said and did the same things with “her.”
Most painfully, my confidence hasn’t returned. I know I’m objectively a “10”—educated, compassionate, and successful. But I still feel inadequate, like a second choice. My self-esteem has taken a huge hit. I often judge myself for getting back with someone who disrespected me and abandoned the home I created for us to pursue something with a woman who had nothing to offer. Even though he treats me well now, the damage and intense suffering I endured for six months make me question both my sanity and my taste.
5. I cheated on my husband. He stayed with me, but even after 10 years, I know he still hasn’t forgiven me. When it happened, I was in a very dark place, and it wasn’t an affair—it was just sexual. Still, it lowered my value in my husband’s eyes. It’s easier for a man to come back from cheating than for a woman. I’m not the same person I was back then, but it still causes bitterness between us.
So, yes, you can forgive. But forgetting is the problem. Some couples manage to come back from it, but very few.
6. My wife cheated on me. When I found out, my entire life felt lopsided and upside down. I was sick, angry, hostile, and deeply hurt. I felt dizzy and everything seemed unreal. Despite this, I decided to try to make it work. It was incredibly rough. I tried to forgive her, but her lies and deceit over the years kept intruding into my mind. I needed to know everything. I would yell at her on trips, ruin the trips, and tell her how awful she was. I left her and got back together with her about 20 times. Every time I thought I could forgive, something would trigger me, and I would rage. I’d find the smallest things to be mean about: “I’m hungry for pizza. Did you have pizza after sex? I bet you did, you slut! I bet you were real hungry after a marathon!”
She would cry, and I’d tell her she deserved worse. Then, I’d leave angry and come back feeling sorry, sad, and confused. I would ask for explicit details and then get super pissed off and call her a whore.
It all came to a head when I told her the only way I could ever forgive her was if she experienced my pain. I told her I was going to cheat on her to show her how it felt. She begged me not to, but I reveled in her pain and did it anyway.
Then I went home and told her everything we did. I watched her cry in horror. At first, it felt good, but then I asked myself, what the hell am I doing? I’m becoming just like her. I’m awful. What a crappy thing to do to someone.
We caused each other so much pain over eight months and then separated for two. After that break and talk of divorce, we began to talk like we never had before. We talked about how we ever got to where we were, why we cheated, and why we hurt each other. We finally started understanding the problems in our marriage — the lack of intimacy, the cruelty, the resentment over problems we never dealt with, the neglect, the disrespectful comments, and the way we verbally abused each other.
We finally understood how it all blew up. Somehow, over a few months, our anger, lies, and resentment turned into forgiveness. Somehow, we learned from it all and became better people. We stopped lying and deceiving each other. We created a safe environment to say anything, even things that sting and hurt.
We no longer had a Disneyland idea of what a marriage was supposed to be. We stopped taking each other for granted and started taking care of one another. We unlocked our phones and shared them. We gave each other our passwords and secret emails. We talked about private things we had kept from each other for over a decade. We admitted our wrongs.
It has been over 10 years since then, and now she is my best friend, and we are so happy.
People who say, “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” don’t understand that life is more complicated than that. They prefer bitterness over forgiveness. I’m here to say that forgiveness is possible, but you have to be willing to put in a lot of work, have patience, and be willing to forgive.
7. I had a wife who cheated. She wanted to go to counseling, and while our relationship was okay afterward, it was never the same. She cheated again, married the guy she cheated with, and threw herself into the church. Her sister told me she wasn’t happy but would never get divorced again. They’ve been together for about 40 years now.
One day, she showed up at my door wanting to talk. I told her we could make an appointment to meet at Denny’s and not to show up at my house again. She started crying, and I closed the door. Later, she took responsibility for her actions, and we both moved on.
8. When I was young, I caught my husband with our downstairs neighbor. I was 22, madly in love, and believed marriage was a sacrament. My pastor told me it was my duty to forgive him and change myself so that “he won’t need to cheat.” My counselor said marriage is a commitment and that I needed to figure out what I wasn’t providing so he wouldn’t “need to cheat.” My mother told me I had made my bed and needed to lie in it. “Men cheat,” she said. My father told me cheating “isn’t a big deal” and that “a man has needs.” (Yes, I asked for advice from a man from a long line of cheaters and the woman who put up with it.)
I worked on myself and tried valiantly to rebuild the trust that he broke. He continued to cheat. We moved a thousand miles away from his affair partners so he could take his dream job. I found a new pastor and a new counselor. The counselor asked me what I was getting out of my marriage, and I didn’t understand the question. I was supposed to get something out of marriage?
When I finally answered the question, I realized I wanted loyalty, trust, and commitment, and my husband had no interest in any of those things. It’s impossible to build a marriage single-handedly, but it’s very possible to destroy one all by yourself. I was divorced at 25. I will never again tolerate cheating.
9. After my wife cheated, one of the marriage counselors we saw told us to forget about our old marriage—it was over. She asked us, “Do you both want to create a new marriage?” There was incredible wisdom in that statement. In the end, I asked for a divorce because I could no longer look at her.
I absolutely encourage you to seek counseling now. Don’t put it off. It takes time to recover, and it’s easier if you have someone to talk to. Also, resist the temptation of poor life choices. I felt like trash after we separated due to the things that were done and said. I got into rebound relationships, sex, and alcohol, and probably hurt some people who didn’t deserve it. Don’t do this!
I lost friends, family, religion, and many other important things in the divorce. It left a void in my life, which I tried to fill with women, sex, alcohol, clothes, and cars. None of these things worked. I eventually became disgusted with myself for what I was doing.
Get counseling, make friends, attend support groups, and find worthwhile things to bring into your life.
10. I believe that once you break the spiritual bond of sex, you are no longer spiritually married to that person because two flesh become one. That’s how I was raised, and it’s in the Bible. My ex chose to break our bond. He didn’t tell me until after we reconciled five years ago. I thought I could forgive, but I suspect more was happening. Oh well, I’m glad that’s over.
It was so abusive, with women texting me crazy stuff and sending messages on Facebook. So yeah, cheating has consequences years down the line. I even lost baby pictures of my kids because I got tired of being harassed on Facebook and had to delete my profile and create multiple profiles to avoid these people.
11. I stayed after cheating, but only long enough to save money and start a new life elsewhere. Once I got myself together, I left him. An undisciplined man doesn’t deserve my time or a place in my life.
12. I stayed for a while, a bit less than a year, working on our relationship through dual counseling. My goal was to ensure that when my kids grow up, I could look them in the eyes and say I did everything I could to fix what was wrong. But in the end, it wasn’t worth it. If I could do it over, I wouldn’t subject my heart and mind to the nonsense that follows cheating. It was too much.
The extra time I stayed left me with more scars than necessary. Even five years later, some of those scars haven’t fully healed. The cheating was hard enough, but his attempts to offload blame, justify himself, and drag me down were brutal.
We had been married for two decades when he had a midlife crisis. He suddenly bought a motorcycle while we still had kids in car seats. He wanted me to try hallucinogenics with him, which was baffling given our clean history, especially with babies around. His music choices changed, and he became arrogant and angry, leaving me walking on eggshells. He even suggested an open marriage after I found evidence of the affair. This was from a man who had always been a straight arrow and a staunch nondrinker.
I should have walked away immediately instead of starting the ‘save the marriage’ counseling. I believe in counseling, but I would never put myself through that ordeal again.
I learned that he had repressed parts of himself so deeply that he didn’t even know who he was. He was who he thought he ‘should’ be. It was sad and insulting because I’m open-minded, and his lack of trust was wasted. I always had his back and thought he had mine. It didn’t have to end the way it did. But it was like he imploded, and I was caught in the debris. Sometimes I can’t believe I came through it intact. His begging me not to leave, the long, drawn-out tug and pull, messed me up good.
What a waste of about five prime years, trying to navigate it all ‘for the kids.’ Never again. Ever.
Cheating reveals the damage in the person cheating, not the spouse. It shines a light on their deficiencies, poor coping skills, and poor communication skills.
Did you take back a cheating spouse? If so, how did it go afterward? Let us know in the comments.
More resources:
- Accidental Virgin: I (Finally) Had Sex
- 7 Little Reasons You’re Getting Rejected By Your Crush
- Ask A Guy: How To Get Your BF To Tell You He Loves You
- How Can I See What My Husband Is Looking at on the Internet?
