Cheating is no laughing matter. It’s one of the worst if not the worst thing you can do to a romantic partner. Once you cheat, you hurt the person who loves you the most and instantly destroy love and trust in the relationship. Trust (which takes months or years to build) takes a single cheating moment to destroy. It goes up in flames as soon as your partner discovers you put your feelings before the relationship.
It can be extremely challenging to rebuild trust once you follow your instincts and emotionally and/or physically cheat on a person you claim to love.
Both types of cheating are just as bad as they attempt to form a connection with another person behind your partner’s back. They indicate that you lack gratitude, respect, self-control, morals, and care for your partner’s feelings and relationship goals.
You probably already know that when a cheatee finds out what happened, she feels backstabbed and may choose not to trust you with her happiness. She may consider you impulsive, disrespectful, and uncommitted—and decide to separate from you permanently. There’s no telling what she’ll do when she finds out about your cheating.
Depending on her personality, she may even revenge cheat (the kind of cheating where she cheats with someone (close to you) just to get back at you for causing her pain).
Some people do unpredictable things to regain control and alleviate their suffering.
You may also get dumped and blocked. If she’s strongly against cheating and thinks cheaters don’t deserve any forgiveness, she could drop you like a bad habit and be done with you for good.
I don’t know her and can’t say what will happen when she finds out you cheated, but I do know she deserves to know about your cheating. She has to know what happened so she can either try to fix the broken trust together with you or stop the relationship altogether.
Don’t delay the inevitable. The girl or woman will absolutely despise the bad news, but that’s not a good reason not to tell her.
Even though it’s the worst news she could hear from her partner, she needs to learn the truth. She has the right to know what you did and the right to choose what to do about it (even if she wants to end things).
It’s hard to admit cheating, but if your girlfriend cheated on you, you’d want her to be brave and tell you what she did and why she did it. She may not fully regain your trust, but at least you’d hear it directly from her.
I suppose this is one of those situations where the outcome of the relationship can’t be changed. If you cared about it so much, you should have thought about the consequences of cheating before you acted on your desire for validation and hurt the person you love. You should have weighed the pros and cons and asked yourself if a moment of happiness was worth months or years of suffering.
If it happened only once, you probably knew it was wrong even before you did the deed. You regretted it immediately. The fact that you didn’t stop yourself shows you have to improve your morals, self-awareness, and commitment to the person you’re with. This experience could help you become a better person.
But before it does that, you’ll have to face the consequences of your actions (your karma). There’s no escaping it. Here’s how you’ll pay for betrayal.
If you decide to keep the infidelity to yourself, you’ll live a lie and have a hard time forgiving yourself. Guilt will frequently torture you and keep reminding you that you kept important information from your partner. You did what was best for yourself rather than your partner (who is someone you’re supposed to be transparent with).
However, if you tell the truth, you’ll hurt her more than ever and risk getting dumped (perhaps even for someone else). She could tell others what you did and take revenge for wasting her time and hurting her feelings. Moreover, if she forgives you, she could become mean or anxious and constantly remind you about your immoral deeds.
She could do this by seeking forgiveness and reassurance.
The next few months may be challenging as she could express herself in a highly emotional manner. She could cry uncontrollably, express pain frequently, and attack your character. No matter what she says and does, you’re toast for a while and must be understanding of her suffering and support her unconditionally.
Do this by reassuring her you’ve learned your lesson the hard way and that you’ll do what she wants, answer her questions, and stand by her side for as long as it takes.
You must be prepared for anything, including the possibility that the relationship is over. Whether you get another chance depends largely on her self-esteem, love for you, beliefs about cheating, and ability to forgive. How you apologize is important too (it’s better that your partner finds out from you rather than your friends or chat logs). Hiding infidelity will make it even more complicated (harder for her to trust you) as she will doubt your honesty on top of your loyalty.
She’ll think you’re a cheater and a liar—and think you were okay with carrying on as if nothing had happened.
It may seem easier not to tell her, but you don’t want to be in a dishonest relationship. Guilt will eat away at you for months or years, depending on your conscience and ability to accept what you’ve done. Not only will you feel bad for betraying her, but you’ll also endanger her safety. By continuing to be intimate with her, you’ll risk transmitting STDs and complicating her life more.
You won’t even give her a chance to protect herself if she chooses to do so.
So first things first, get yourself tested. You want you to be safe as well as your partner. Once you’re certain you didn’t catch any STIs or STDs, you’ll be a bit better prepared for the conversation that needs to happen.
Today, we’ll talk about what to do if you cheated on your girlfriend. We’ll discuss what to say and do to fix the situation—or at least try to fix it.
I cheated on my girlfriend but I love her
If you cheated on your girlfriend but love her, you first need to understand that there’s no guarantee your relationship will go back to normal once you’ve told your girlfriend about the cheating. Chances are she’ll leave you or close off emotionally and detach. No word or action will stop her from leaving if she’s convinced cheaters don’t deserve second chances.
If she was cheated on before, she probably won’t tolerate any more cheating. She’ll think it’s cowardly and unworthy of her time. Cheating will tell her you don’t value her and that she shouldn’t value you either.
With that in mind, let’s now discuss what to do if you cheated on your girlfriend. If you physically cheated on her, get yourself tested. You don’t need to physically show her the results unless she doesn’t trust you and wants to see them.
Once you have the results, find the time and place to tell her the truth. If she has a lot of work or exams coming up, it may be better to wait for a better time. Wait until she has a few days to herself to process the betrayal. You don’t want to drop the bomb on her when she’s already going through something difficult or stressful. That would hurt her a lot and make her want to leave the relationship even more.
Tell her what transpired when she’s free and alone.
You can start the conversation like this. “Hey, are you free? I’d like to talk about something. I don’t want any secrets between us, so I think you deserve to know. Last week, I went out with my coworker, her name’s Anne. We talked mostly about work, but then she invited me to her place. We had a few drinks and one thing led to another. I acted selfishly and ended up cheating on you. I’ve been dwelling on this non-stop and have been thinking about the best way to tell you. I wish I’d told you sooner, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I knew it would hurt you. I just want you to know that I regret it more than anything. I can’t even imagine how much this has hurt you. I love you so much and care about you, so I got myself tested. It came back negative, but I understand if you can’t trust me and don’t want to be with me anymore.”
Maybe the person you cheated on wasn’t a coworker, but you get the gist. You must admit to cheating concisely, yet empathetically. Try to tell the whole story, and then give your girlfriend a chance to respond.
There are a few things your confession must include. Make sure to:
- Acknowledge your partner’s right to know what happened
- Tell the full story (without the graphic details, of course)
- Explain why you waited so long to admit to cheating
- Apologize sincerely and take full responsibility for your actions
- Express feelings and desire to fix the broken trust
- Say you had yourself tested (if you cheated physically)
Once you’ve confessed to cheating, wait for your partner to respond. Make sure to sympathize and empathize and answer any questions she may have. She may get angry and yell, get shocked and start crying, feel unsafe and ask for her stuff or money, or perhaps even slap you and walk away. People act unpredictably when they’re under a lot of stress and feel mistreated.
You may not like it, but you should let her say and do what she wants. Consider it her way of processing betrayal. Eventually, she’ll get ahold of herself and leave you, give you another chance, or ask for some time to think things through. No matter what she decides to do, be apologetic and considerate of her feelings.
During and after the confession, make sure to avoid:
- making excuses (blaming the alcohol, relationship problems, lack of affection, stress, family issues) for the cheating
- over-apologizing, begging for a chance to fix things, and guilt-tripping
- using conditional language: “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” I’m sorry, but…”
- interrupting and dominating the conversation
- making it all about your emotions and problems
A solid confession to cheating doesn’t guarantee respect and forgiveness. But it does maximize the chances of stabilizing your girlfriend’s emotions and showing you’re willing to fix your mistake. Cheating is, of course, more than a mistake. It’s a series of mistakes you refused to do anything about until it was too late.
You had plenty of chances to avoid cheating. But because you concluded the reward was worth the risk, you did what felt right rather than what was right. You cheated on your girlfriend and soon regretted it.
It won’t be easy to convince her to give you another chance after you’ve been with another woman.
But if you’re an open book and express the desire to grow and help her feel better, she might trust you just enough to give you another chance. She might ask for information on the person she cheated with and how it led to betrayal. Tell her what she asks for even if she wants to know about the sexual stuff.
She will hate hearing it, but if she thinks it’s important, tell her what she wants to hear.
If you realized how badly you messed up, you should do what’s best for her. The best includes telling her the truth, caring about her emotions, and giving her time to process things.
Don’t pressure her to make her decision. People don’t respond well to pressure. They tend to feel trapped and angry and run away from emotions they don’t understand.
Ultimately, say what you need to say, but let her decide what she wants on her own.
Having said that, here are the most important things that determine if your girlfriend will forgive you/take you back after cheating.
What if I cheated on my girlfriend and she doesn’t want to be with me?
If you cheated on your girlfriend and she doesn’t want to forgive you and trust you again, your girlfriend officially became your ex-girlfriend. She has given up on the relationship and doesn’t want you to try to change her mind. In her mind, he gave you a chance to show her what she meant to you when she was still with you.
Now that she’s not with you, you shouldn’t beg her for a chance and try to show her you can change. Even though you can change, it’s no longer about that. It’s about killing the innocence of the relationship and telling her to be with a cheater.
You have to understand that she has values and boundaries. One of those boundaries may be cheating. She doesn’t want to be with a person who selfishly pursues his interests and ignores the feelings of others. Words and actions can’t make her lower her standards. She has to want to lower them herself.
To make an exception for you, she has to have a super close bond with you, be codependent on you, or fail to find happiness without you. She has to want your validation, closeness, or support to consider you worthy of commitment and investment.
You may already know this, but most relationships get only one chance to work. Cheating takes that chance for granted and lets the relationship go in any direction it wants. Usually, it goes south as the cheatee feels betrayed and doesn’t want to forgive the cheater. The cheatee decides the cheater doesn’t deserve another chance after he has acted on temptations and betrayed her in the worst way imaginable.
If the girl or woman you cheated on doesn’t want to be with you, you don’t have a choice but to let her go. Accept that you messed up badly and that some relationship errors are unredeemable. Cheating, lying, stealing, manipulating, controlling behavior, and physical violence are usually at the top of the list. They’re impossible for people with boundaries and decent self-love to ignore and work on.
People would rather focus on healing and start anew with someone they consider pure. You can’t blame them for wanting a relationship they can invest in without the reminder of betrayal and the fear of being betrayed again.
Although not all cheaters cheat again, some people would rather not take the risk. They prefer to move on with their life rather than focus on fixing their ex’s mistakes. Short-term couples tend not to survive cheating. They don’t have a tight bond, so they go their separate ways and do better with the next person.
It’s the long-term couples that consider giving cheating another try.
If she won’t forgive you for cheating, consider the rejection a lesson to appreciate the relationship while you still have a relationship. Learn a thing or two about gratitude and deal with temptations maturely and successfully. What you learn from this ordeal will determine your happiness and success in the next relationship.
What if she forgives me for cheating? How do I fix the relationship?
It may take one person to cheat and ruin trust in the relationship, but it takes two to fix it. Two people need to work closely together to rebuild broken trust and create a loving relationship worthy of their time. One person alone can’t make the other person forgive him and see the value in the relationship.
If only one person puts the work in and tries to fix the other person’s problems such as fears of commitment, insecurities, depression, resentment, and trust issues, the less motivated person soon loses the drive to invest in the relationship. She considers the relationship a waste of effort and time and gives up when an opportunity presents itself.
An opportunity typically presents itself when she convinces herself she could be happier on her own.
So bear in mind that reconciliation is only the first step toward making the relationship work. The next step includes improving communication, resolving trust issues, confronting fears of betrayal, establishing relationship boundaries, and growing individually and together as a couple.
Growth and forgiveness both take time, so don’t expect your girlfriend to instantly be over the cheating. She may take you back, but that doesn’t mean she trusts you and feels comfortable just yet. Cheatees need months to recover from cheating. Some need a year or longer. I know a woman who had panic attacks and needed years to overcome her husband’s cheating.
How long they need depends on their mental health, self-esteem, and way of coping with betrayal. Their partner’s empathy is important too. The more empathetic their partner is, the safer they feel and the quicker they recover.
No matter how long your girlfriend needs to trust you, love you, and feel calm with you, be patient and supportive. Talk to her about her thoughts, feelings, and unwanted emotions, and show her you have her best interests at heart. She might not trust you at times, but she’s trying. Remind yourself that infidelity takes time and consider yourself lucky that she’s willing to rebuild trust with you.
Many cheaters don’t get this privilege. They get dumped and feel forced to live with pain and regrets.
The relationship may seem different and difficult at first, but it should slowly return to normal. If you prioritize your partner and tend to her emotional wounds, she’ll deal with anxiety and fear of the unknown. She’ll learn to trust you as long as you’re consistent and show signs of improvement.
Don’t expect her to trust you just because it’s you. Expect her to trust you when you’ve shown regret, care, and patience long enough to ease her worries. After infidelity, trust is earned, not given. So work on regaining her trust and she’ll eventually deal with the trust issues caused by infidelity. She’ll see that you regret cheating and want to do whatever it takes to be with her.
Did you cheat on your girlfriend and wonder how to fix it? What do you think you should do to make your partner or ex-partner trust you fully again? Comment below the post and we’ll reply shortly.
However, if you want help expressing yourself politely and saying the things she wants to hear, get in touch with us directly. We have years of experience in helping people reunite with their loved ones.
My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
