Advice - Advice for Cheaters and Their Partners

Dr. Phil.com - Advice - Advice for Cheaters and Their Partners


If you have repeatedly cheated, or are the partner of a cheater and can't seem to forgive or break off the unhealthy relationship, Dr. Phil has advice.Cheaters:Look at the statistics.The chance of a successful relationship born of infidelity is not even one in 100. A marriage that starts in infidelity has no foundation. You go into it with guilt, shame, angst, worry, and all the baggage that comes with that. Add to that managing your ex and going through possible custody battles for children. Is it worth it?Think of the children.If you have children and you are cheating on your spouse, your children will suffer. You are turning their lives upside down, fracturing their family unit and destroying their peace and harmony.Think ahead to what the courts might think of you as a parent. You may think your partner wouldn't fight you on custody, but people change when they get into a divorce court. Your spouse might just decide that the person who stole his/her partner will not steal the children as well. If you enter the divorce arena in the midst of infidelity, you have put your children in play. Again, ask yourself, is it worth it? If the person you are having an affair with is married with children, ask yourself, "What right do I have to fracture his/her family unit in which innocent children are growing every day, just to feed my need?"Be honest with yourself.Is the unfaithfulness over with? Moving forward, do you absolutely and unequivocally have nothing to hide? You'll never get past this until you start being drop-dead honest. Remember, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you don't think you can stop on your own, get professional help. Be honest with your partner.By not being honest with yourself and your partner, you're doing nothing but perpetuating the deception. If you know that you will continue to be unfaithful, and if you really care about your partner, you will let him/her go and get yourself some help. Accept responsibility.Have the decency to tell your spouse in all honesty and candor that you own your choices. You're the one who ran this relationship off in the ditch. This had nothing to do with your partner. If you want to fix your marriage, you have to accept responsibility and do whatever it takes to earn your partner's trust back one step at a time. Assess your commitment level.Are you committed enough to your partner in order to do the work necessary in order to repair the relationship? However long it takes to get this relationship back on the road, is however long you need to work at it. Behave your way to success.Keep in mind, you can no longer be in contact with the person you were having an affair with. Avoid the places you know he/she frequents, change your phone numbers, and if you're unsure of your strength in staying away from him/her, then move. If you're so out of control that you're like a moth to a flame, then get away from the candle!Turn toward your partner.When your life or relationship becomes rocky and affects your sexual relationship, that is the time you should turn toward your partner, not away from him/her because of your sexual needs. Re-engineer your life.If you are a sex addict, and you really want to change this, it's not a quick fix. It's an entire reengineering of your life, values, beliefs, thoughts, conduct and emotions. It's about deconstructing your life, and reconstructing your future. Unless you get professional help, you're going to continue to victimize everybody who you touch because you're controlled by your impulses rather than your values.
If You Are Being Cheated On:Get real.The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior. What do you predict? If your partner has cheated on you repeatedly and now swears he/she will stop, what are the chances that this is true? You can't change what you don't acknowledge. Isn't there a point at which you say, "I deserve better. My children deserve better. He/She may not have any boundaries, but I do. And my boundaries say, 'You either treat me with integrity, dignity and respect or you don't treat me at all'?" Stand up for yourself and for your children. You've given your power away and you've got to get it back.This is not your fault.Stop beating yourself up about this. You have got to know that this has nothing to do with you. You are not the one who made the decision to break your commitment to your partner and cheat. You have nothing to do with your partner making the immature, inappropriate, self-destructive choice to turn away from you to someone else.What is your payoff?Do you want to get past this? Or is there a payoff you receive from the situation? Do you enjoy playing the victim or subjecting your partner to a life sentence? Do you fear that if you forgive a partner who truly is remorseful and has changed his/her behavior that you are "letting them get away with it?" Assess your commitment level.You can either handle being vulnerable with your partner again or you can't. And if you can't, you need to get out of this relationship and move on. And if you can, then you need to let him/her earn the trust back and start putting this relationship together again.Consider the consequences.If you have children, your decision will affect them as well. You do have responsibility here for what you do next. You have to make a decision about whether or not justice is best served by allowing your partner to re-earn your trust, or if it's better not to subject your family any longer to the current situation. Decide if you can choose to forgive.Forgiveness is a choice. It doesn't mean what your partner did is OK. How much you trust your partner is in part about what your partner does, and in part a function of whether you have confidence to handle it if he/she disappoints you. If you find out that he/she strays again, can you handle that? If you can't forgive, let go.When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. If you continue to throw this in your partner's face, you will eventually run him/her off. Ask yourself if this is going to be a life sentence for your partner. Can you heal from this and forgive? If not, don't continue to live in anger and/or be with someone who causes you pain.

Moving Forward after Infidelity

Whether you're the one who has strayed from your relationship or you're the partner who feels betrayed, Dr. Phil can help you move forward. Were you cheated on?
It is absolutely vital for you to move forward with life and love. Being willing to trust again is key. Take things one step at a time.
Don't try to make sense out of nonsense. Rationalizing your cheating spouse's behavior or sympathizing with him/her is pointless. It is never OK to go outside of your relationship to solve problems within a relationship. It's not your fault.
Time heals nothing. It is what you do with the time that matters.
Remember that it is better to be healthy alone than sick with someone else.
If your partner wants back in, he/she will have to earn his/her way back into the relationship. Renegotiate the relationship in a way that works for both of you.
There comes a point in time where you may have to draw a line and say, "That's it, I'm done. I'm not mad at you. I withdraw my feelings, I withdraw my emotions. You just go do whatever you're going to do because I'm not going to live like this anymore." Don't stay together for the children. Remember, kids would rather be from a broken home than live in one. They're much better off with one well-adjusted, happy, thriving parent, than they are with two who are cheating, lying, fighting, and living with stress and pressure.
If there was a child born of the infidelity, understand that your spouse will forever have a relationship with that child's other parent. You have to make the decision about whether you can resolve to be part of that or not.

Did you have an affair?
Own the problems that you created by having an affair. You cannot change what you don't acknowledge.
It is unfair to compare a new, exciting, taboo fantasy relationship to one you've been in for years where there are kids, bills to pay, a house to run and noses to wipe. That is a ridiculous comparison.
In order to resolve your relationship, contact with "the other person" must be cut off 100 percent. You can't work on dealing with the consequences of the affair while you're still having it.
Don't rely on your heart to tell you what to do; rely on your intellect. Do what logic tells you is the right thing to do.
Make the hard decisions. Either leave the marriage to free your partner, or commit to stay. Remember, checking out of one relationship before you finish it appropriately doesn't work.
Ask yourself: What are you doing to help your partner get past the affair?
Be mature enough to recognize that life is not always all about you and what feels good for you in the moment. If you are married and have children, you have an obligation and a commitment that far transcends what feels good.
Help the partner who did not have the affair find emotional closure. You must do whatever it takes until your partner finds it. If it requires you to check in with your spouse multiple times a day, then do it. It'll require you being where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be, 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, so your spouse can trust you again. And you do it until.
If a child was born of the infidelity, you will have to have contact with the other person in order to be co-parents. And you do this the right way by not having any contact without your spouse's involvement. If you want to talk with the other person, then you do it with your spouse present.
Want to know if something is cheating? If you wouldn't do it with your spouse standing there, it's cheating.
If your marriage is over and you have children, understand that your relationship with your ex will never end. You will always at least be co-parents of your children. Build a new relationship as their allies.
Do you know what a healthy relationship is? Figure out what you want and behave your way to success.