Should You Take Back A Cheating Girlfriend?

If you’re contemplating taking back a cheating girlfriend, you should know that you’ll be taking a big risk. Not only will you have to slowly rebuild trust from the beginning, but you’ll also have to forgive your ex for betraying you.

You’ll have to live with the fact that she’d been intimate with another person and at the same time, love her as if she never cheated on you. Of course, it won’t be impossible to relax around her, but it will take some time to get used to it.

And that time will greatly depend on the things your girlfriend does to prove her loyalty.

For example, if she keeps talking to other guys and downplaying cheating, you’ll most likely have a hard time trusting her completely. You’ll fear that she’ll cheat on you again and possibly even leave you for someone else. But if she starts paying more attention to you and telling you who she talks to and where she’s going, she could ease your worries and help you rebuild your trust in her.

All in all, how quickly you forgive her really depends on how caring she is as a person, how high your self-esteem is, and how naive you are (how fast you are at trusting people).

There are many things you should think about before you accept a cheater back. But the very first thing you need to do is to discern if she’s even the right woman for you.

You can do that by answering the following questions.

• Has your relationship with this person been fulfilling? Is going back to the same relationship worth the trouble? It will take months before the relationship goes back to the way it was before the cheating occurred. That’s why you should get some emotional distance (get a better perspective on the relationship) and learn if you were happy with her.
• Does this person love you or just claim to love you now that she’s regretting her actions? You can probably tell how she feels about you by remembering how she treated you prior to the cheating. If she was nice to you and is regretting the cheating, she may truly want to be with you and learn from her mistakes.
• Is she telling you what she’ll do/is doing to prevent cheating from happening again in the future? Her self-improvement plans can tell you whether she’s serious about improving herself or if she just wants you back to ease her pain and forget the fact that she failed with the other person.

If you conclude that your ex is the right person for you and that you want her back (not need her back), your relationship with this person might be worth another shot. Although cheating is no mistake, it’s something that you can get through with lots of hard work and understanding.

But if you think that the relationship you had before the cheating was full of arguments and unhappiness, then getting back with your cheating girlfriend may not be the best idea. It’s probably better to part ways for good and focus on getting over the breakup instead.

I can’t tell you whether you should give your cheating girlfriend a chance or not. But if this person has been good to you for many years up until the cheating occurred, you might at least want to hear her out and see what her self-improvement plan includes.

If it includes stopping all communication with the guy she cheated with, giving you the password to her phone, improving communication skills, and getting therapy, the relationship might be able to survive the cheating.

But if she has no idea what she’s going to do when you take her back, it may be better to stay away from her. And that’s because she could make the same or similar mistakes in the future and hurt you again.

In this post, I’ll discuss whether you should take back a cheating girlfriend. I’ll talk about the risks of reuniting with a cheating ex and also share my personal opinion on this matter.

Should you take back a cheating girlfriend?

Cheating is an indication that a person isn’t ready for a committed relationship as she lacks the will to stay committed. It shows that she doesn’t value the relationship nor the person she’s cheating on.

Whether the cheatee is more at fault for the demise of the relationship than the cheater doesn’t matter. What matters is that the cheater acts on her temptations rather than morals and betrays her partner in the worst way possible. She does that despite knowing that cheating is immoral.

So first things first, don’t defend your girlfriend’s cheating behavior. Don’t blame the alcohol or the way your relationship functioned before the cheating. If your girlfriend cheated on you, you were a couple and she didn’t care if her actions hurt you or not.

She just worried about herself, so she put herself before you and left you alone to suffer for her lack of commitment and self-control.

The question in front of you, therefore, isn’t whether your girlfriend wants to be with you. It’s whether you can forgive her for betraying you and if she can improve her shortcomings. Her capability to grow is very important as it will determine whether she can outgrow her old self and be the person she needs to be.

So instead of thinking about taking your ex-girlfriend back just because you love her and need her, consider her shortcomings and the ability to grow. These are the things that will determine how happy you can be with this person if you get back together with her.

Some of the things you mustn’t get distracted by if you’re thinking of reuniting with a cheater are:

• Her personality
• The things you went through as a couple
• The way she made you feel
• Children, animals, or assets you share
• How you feel about her now that you’re hurting
• Her desire to be with you

If you’re seriously contemplating being with a cheating girlfriend, you have to be rational and exclude your desperation for being with her. You have to focus on her worst traits and characteristics and think about her ability and willingness to contribute to your life.

Ask yourself whether you want to be with this person for the person she was and is or because you feel need her to nurse your wounds and boost your broken ego.

Most dumpees who take their ex back after they get cheated on and/or dumped do so because of their hurt self-esteem. They lose respect for themselves, so they take their ex back to patch their broken hearts.

So don’t make the same mistake thousands of cheatees make. Heck, don’t make the same mistake I did when I took my cheating ex back. I took her back not because I loved her but because I didn’t love myself.

People thought it was because I loved her but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I just didn’t respect myself and thought that the pain I felt meant that I loved her.

What about you? Are you deciding from a position of confidence and strength or are your emotions also playing with your decision-making process?

If you’re still not sure whether you should take a cheating girlfriend back, here are 6 rules that might help you decide.

What does it mean if you take your cheating girlfriend back?

If you take your ex back, you’ll either take her back because you trust her and love her or her because you don’t love yourself enough and need her to help you increase your self-esteem.

It’s important to take some time to decide what’s best for you. Your girlfriend or ex-girlfriend won’t go anywhere if you take a few days to think things through. If she truly regrets cheating on you, she’ll be in a lot of pain and will probably want you back even after weeks.

Most people crave their ex for months, so rest assured that there’s no need to rush. The tides have changed, so technically, you’re the dumper. You get to decide what you want in your life and who you want to share it with.

Your ex will have to wait for your decision.

Just make sure not to take forever. A few days should suffice. If you can’t decide after a few days, then you’re probably better off not taking her back. Uncertainty means that you have trouble trusting her and that a relationship with her might not be worth another chance.

The consequences of taking back a cheating ex

Obviously, the worst thing that can happen when you take your cheating girlfriend back is that she sees you love her more than yourself and cheats on you again or breaks up with you. That would make you feel foolish for taking her back and letting her into your heart again.

Getting back with an ex is always a gamble. You just don’t know what your ex has learned from cheating and how committed she is to working with you again.

That’s why you have to ask her as many questions as possible before you open the doors to your heart. You have to see if she’s serious about you and willing to correct her mistakes and keep improving herself.

If you take her back when she blames you for her cheating and shows no interest in growing after betraying you so badly, it’s only a matter of time before you suffer again. She may not break up with you, but she will nonetheless refuse to support you emotionally and let you fight your internal battle yourself.

A person like this isn’t of much use to you. She can’t support you and won’t grow at all, so you’re better off rejecting her before she hurts you again. You can do that by saying that you’ve thought about it and that you’ve decided it’s better to end your relationship and stay out of touch for a while.

Suggest a period of no contact and wish her the best of luck.

How to make a relationship work after cheating?

If you decide to take her back though, you’ll both have to work hard on overcoming trust issues. You’ll have to work together and communicate about everything.

If someone gets hurt or insecure, the other person has to step up and provide reassurance. You have to be stronger and wiser than before and work as a couple even though it won’t be easy to do that sometimes.

Cheating takes time and patience to get over. I can’t say how long it will take you because I don’t know you. But no matter how long it takes, your girlfriend must be understanding and supportive of your healing process. She has to reassure you as many times as she needs to and do whatever it takes to regain your trust.

She has to:

• willingly show you her conversations
• cut out people you’re not comfortable with
• tell you what she’s working on
• ask you for feedback
• support you emotionally
• learn more about relationships
• boost her morals
• show improvements

You, on the other hand, must:

• not accuse her of being a horrible person
• give her a sense of freedom and independence
• show her you respect yourself and that you’ll be okay with or without her
• ask her to talk about cheating when you get anxious
• check in with her about the things she’s been working on

Relationships can overcome cheating. But only the most mature couples improve their flaws and find ways to work together after their trust has been broken.

My experience with taking back a cheating girlfriend

I’ve made the mistake of taking back a cheating girlfriend before and I still think it’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made. It was a mistake because neither of us grew from the cheating.

We just carried on as if nothing happened and hoped for the best. And because optimism wasn’t enough to solve our differences, we slowly grew apart, returned to our undeveloped selves, and killed the relationship that was on the brink of destruction even before the cheating occurred.

So how could I have predicted that the relationship wasn’t worth saving and going to last?

Firstly, I saw that the relationship wasn’t good for us. There were too many issues with it. And secondly, I should have noticed after taking her back that my ex wasn’t:

• reassuring and patient
• understanding of the pain I was going through
• eager to learn and improve
• willing to talk about the cheating (avoided it out of guilt and shame)

Of course, I didn’t know much about relationships back then and had poor self-esteem, so I couldn’t do the right thing.

But you reading this now know what signs to look out for. So make a rational decision based on your ex’s ability to grow and contribute to your life now and in the future.

You should have enough information to decide if she’s truly unique and worth the trouble.

Do you think a guy should take back a cheating girlfriend? Let us know in the comments section below.

Or if you’d like to talk 1-on-1 about your cheating girlfriend, go to our coaching page to learn more.

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. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.