Letting Go Of A Cheating Spouse

Letting go of a cheating spouse may seem easy to someone who wasn’t cheated on, but it’s anything but. Letting go requires a ton of determination, emotional strength, reflection, and reminders that moving on from the cheater is the best thing to do if you want to be healthy, happy, and in control of your life.

The thing about letting go of a person you love (or used to love) is that it takes a lot of time. It took you weeks or months to fall in love and get attached to your spouse, so it will probably take you weeks or months (probably the latter) to detach and rebuild your self-esteem and internal happiness.

The longer and the more intense your relationship was and the more attached and shocked you were by your spouse’s cheating, the longer you can expect your healing to take.

Infidelity and breakups are two of the most painful experiences a person can go through. They’re tough because they destroy your self-esteem, trigger your childhood/unresolved issues and fears, and make your future uncertain.

So don’t think that letting go of a cheating spouse is a quick and easy process. It’s quick and easy only if you stopped caring about your spouse, detached emotionally, and wanted to break up or entertained the idea of breaking up before you learned the bad news.

Most cheatees go through emotional turmoil because they didn’t see the cheating/breakup coming. They thought their partner was loyal and that they were safe and had nothing to worry about.

But because their partner wasn’t loyal and left them or because they felt betrayed and left themselves, they felt they had no choice but to start letting go of their ex and making their life about themselves rather than their ex.

They essentially forced themselves to start accepting reality and preparing themselves for an independent life. 

The reason letting go of a cheating spouse (someone who isn’t worth fighting for) is difficult is because he or she directly or indirectly rejected your feelings (made you take his or her betrayal personally) and invalidated your importance as a partner.

He or she hurt you, ruined the innocence of the relationship, and destroyed the future you’d hoped for and worked toward.

Since you’ve learned that your partner couldn’t resist temptations to cheat and didn’t value you as much as you valued him or her, you suffered an immense shock and started going through the rejection stages and stages of a breakup.

During these stages, you’re learning new things about yourself, your relationship, and the breakup, slowly accepting the cheating/the breakup, and seeing that a life without your spouse is possible.

It may not be the life you wanted for yourself, but it’s the life you need now that you aren’t a priority worth fighting for and staying loyal to.

Cheating changed or started to change your perception of your spouse. It made you understand how your spouse thinks of you, how he or she deals with romantic and sexual opportunities, and how likely it is that you’ll have a committed/fulfilling relationship with him or her. 

Cheating non-verbally tells you everything you need to know about your spouse. It reveals his or her morals, self-control, (relationship) mentality, priorities in life, and gratitude for your commitment and effort.

Infidelity is no mistake; it doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t happen solely because the relationship isn’t as good as it used to be. Although relationship problems can encourage people to cheat and justify their cheating afterward, most of the time, cheating happens gradually because cheaters bond with a person they find attractive and don’t pull back and invest in their spouse before they develop feelings or cravings.

Because bonding feels good, they keep getting to know the new person until they cross the friendship boundaries and emotionally or physically cheat. That’s when they feel validated by the new person and may or may not feel guilty.

Guilt depends on their morals and what they think of their cheating. If they blame their loyal spouse for it and think they deserve to be happy, they don’t feel bad at all. They defend their behavior and monkey-branch to the person they cheated with.

People can be extremely cold and heartless when they fall out of love with their spouse and become infatuated with someone else. They often start treating their ex terribly and love-bomb their new love interest like crazy.

Their inconsiderate behavior makes their ex feel punished, abandoned, and replaced by someone new and exciting they barely know.

If your spouse cheated on you, left you, or made it impossible for you to trust again, it’s in your best interest to start letting go of your cheating spouse. Recognize your spouse as a cheater who stabbed you in the back, violated relationship terms, and destroyed the foundation on which the relationship sat.

This will help you stop idolizing your ex and craving his or her affection and validation.

Don’t beg a person to be with you if you have a zero-cheating policy, don’t trust your spouse, don’t sense any interest or regret, and don’t want to work on the damaged relationship. You’ll do both a favor if you start investing in yourself and letting go of the relationship instead.

That’s because you’ll let the broken relationship rest and focus on letting go and being happy.

In today’s post, we shed some light on why letting go of a cheating spouse is so hard and how you can let go of a cheater in the quickest time possible.

Why is it so hard to let go of a cheating spouse?

Letting go of a cheating spouse is so hard because cheating is not a nice way to end a relationship. Cheating betrays the intimacy between you and your partner, makes you feel undesirable and not good enough, and threatens your sense of security.

If your spouse didn’t cheat but kindly explained that she fell out of love because she got overwhelmed with work and fell into depression, you’d have a much easier time letting go and moving on.

You wouldn’t take the breakup so personally, blame yourself for not emotionally or sexually satisfying your spouse, and wonder if you’ll ever find love again. You wouldn’t be happy, but you’d see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So bear in mind that how a relationship ends is very important. It’s one of the primary factors that influences how challenging it will be for you to cope with the breakup and move on from it.

Other important factors include:

• your coping mechanism
• your post-breakup plan (no contact, full contact, occasional contact)
• your breakup mistakes
• your self-esteem
• your social circle
• the professional help you get
• how busy you are
• what your ex does after the breakup

If your ex is rubbing a new relationship in your face and appears happier than ever, you’ll have a difficult time letting go of your cheating spouse. This is because your spouse will constantly make you feel scared and insecure and reopen your betrayal/breakup wounds.

He or she will remind you of cheating and the experience you went through as a result of his or her immoral actions.

It’s hard to let go of a cheating spouse because your spouse traumatized you and made you feel undeserving of his or her love and recognition. Your spouse’s selfish behavior sent your brain into “overthinking mode” and triggered feelings you didn’t even know existed.  

Cheating put your self-love, emotional independence, and ability to deal with betrayals to the test. And if your ex left you after he or she cheated, it also made you deal with the breakup and fears of abandonment/being alone.

These fears will take some time to overcome.

I can’t say how long they’ll take because I don’t know how you deal with problems, but they’ll definitely make the letting-go process harder.

Every cheatee/dumpee deals with treachery and desertion differently. Some focus on themselves, get affected less, and need less time to get over it whereas others focus on the cheater, are more sensitive, and need longer to come to terms with cheating. 

It doesn’t matter how long recovery takes because it isn’t a race. It’s a self-discovery and self-growth marathon meant for you to figure out who you are and what you want in life. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should do nothing and keep suffering day after day. You should still do everything in your power to heal and leave the cheating behind. By leaving the past in the past, you’ll free yourself from your cheating spouse and find peace and joy again.

You’ll no longer doubt your worth as a partner and a person because you’ll understand that some things are out of your control. You can’t control what your spouse thinks, feels, wants, and does because your spouse is in control of such things.

If he or she does a poor job at it, you’re not to blame. Not unless you ignored his or her feelings, needs, requests, and compromises.

Always remember that relationships take two to tango. You’re both equally responsible for investing in personal growth and relationship matters. If someone takes a healthy relationship for granted, cheats, and wants to leave, that person has failed to identify and resolve problems before they snowballed into unresolvable issues.

How to let go of a cheating spouse?

In theory, letting go of a cheating spouse is easy. All you need to do is consult “relationship expert” friends and follow the rational advice from people online. They will tell you what you need to do and avoid doing to let go of someone who cheated on you.

In reality, though, letting go of a cheater is much more complicated than that. Betrayals and breakups are highly emotional situations that push you to your limits and tempt you to do irrational things.

Anyone who tells you to be strong and to just get over it either doesn’t understand what being cheated on is like, how you feel, or doesn’t care how you feel. He or she gives you logical advice that makes sense rationally but doesn’t feel right emotionally.

Emotionally, you’re not ready to hear things like “Get over your ex, stop crying over your ex, and be a man.” If you were ready to hear such things and stop feeling the way you do, you wouldn’t need to know how to let go of a cheating spouse.

You’d be doing okay on your own and enjoying your post-breakup life.

Therefore, take note that letting go of a cheater requires you to understand that cheating and letting go takes time and effort. It requires you to slowly learn to accept the unfortunate turn of events and become okay with them.

The first thing you should do when you get cheated on is understand that it wasn’t your fault. It’s important to know that your ex’s motives for cheating (and leaving) have nothing to do with your personality and behavior.

Your ex made an immoral decision to cheat on his or her own because that’s what your ex wanted at that particular moment. He or she felt tempted to cheat and didn’t want to stop it.

When you understand it’s not your fault and that your ex cheated due to temptations and inability or unwillingness to do anything about it, you must begin to change your perception of your ex.

You may be able to instantly brand your ex as a cheater and a person who doesn’t deserve your time and love, but that won’t instantly make you stop craving your ex’s company and affection. It will merely acknowledge that you’re a victim and that you mustn’t blame yourself for the end of the relationship.

Instead of blaming yourself, write down your ex’s negative traits and behaviors. Put down as many shortcomings as you can remember and read them whenever you think that your ex was a perfect partner.

If your ex was perfect, he or she wouldn’t have betrayed you in the worst way possible. Your ex would have realized that he or she was getting too close to someone else and that he or she needed to do the morally right thing.

This includes:

• pushing the other person away
• telling you what happened
• working on his or her flaws
• growing the bond
• and improving trust

The point of writing down your ex’s traits is to stop yourself from putting your cheating ex on a pedestal and delaying your recovery. If you remind yourself that your ex made some seriously bad choices in life, you’ll let go of your ex quicker than if you tell yourself that you lost someone amazing and that you need to get back together with your ex.

Whether your ex is dating the person he or she cheated on you with, you should start no contact with your ex. Tell your ex you need time to yourself and that you don’t want to be friends right now.

Your ex probably doesn’t want friendship either, but do tell your ex you’re not ready for it during the breakup and later if he or she reaches out.

You need to stay away from your ex and avoid seeing how happy your ex is. Do this by unfollowing your ex, going no contact, and asking your friends not to talk about your ex.

No contact will help you focus on yourself rather than your ex’s new dating life.

During no contact, work on forgiving your ex. Forgiveness is an important part of letting go of a person who has hurt you as it will enable you to deal with intrusive thoughts and unwanted emotions. Forgiveness will teach you that life can be unfair and that you mustn’t seek revenge.

Revenge will hurt you more than it will hurt your ex because it will turn you into a vengeful, impulse-driven individual.

When you’re having a hard time coping with betrayal, remember that your ex did you dirty and that it’s okay to feel angry and hurt. It’s better (healthier) to feel angry than it is to feel depressed and suicidal.

Anger gives you a feeling of power and control whereas depression makes you feel weak and helpless.

To conclude, here are my tips on how to let go of a cheating spouse.

The letting-go process will have ups and downs. Be prepared for them and follow the tips in this article no matter how anxious you get and how badly you want to converse with your ex. If you want to let go and heal, you must be patient and kind to yourself every step of the way.

Prove to yourself and others that you’re set on letting go of your spouse and that you won’t act on difficult emotions when they arise. A promise to yourself and the people you respect will give you strength and make you more determined to do what’s needed to let go of your cheating ex.

Make sure to also appreciate the things and people you still have in your life. Gratitude will help you see that life isn’t as bad as it may seem and that you mustn’t let a cheater change you for the worse.

If you start drinking and taking drugs because of your cheating ex, you’ll give him or her too much power over your life and complicate your healing process.

Do you have any questions or tips on how to let go of a cheating spouse? Share them in the comments section below and we’ll get back to you shortly.

However, if you want to discuss the process of letting go of your cheating spouse directly with us, check out our coaching options and select the ones that align best with your needs.

Zan

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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.