How Do I Fix Trust Issues After Being Caught Cheating?
Dear GoodTherapy.org,
I cheated on my girlfriend. Yes, I’m a cheater and I’ll never live it down. I don’t deserve forgiveness. I don’t deserve her, period! I made the biggest mistake of my life and now I’m on the verge of losing the only person in this world that I can’t live without.
The backstory is that I got too close to a coworker and let my worst instincts get the best of me. We were together 10 or 12 times and I kept rationalizing it somehow in my head. Like, I knew it wasn’t going to be a long-term thing, but I selfishly wanted “strange” sex before the prospect of no longer having it disappeared forever. There was also a time when my girlfriend made out with a guy in a bar. I know that’s not on the same level as what I did—not even close. I just think it was part of my stupid rationalization. I feel so ashamed and disgusted with myself.
I ended things with the other girl the same day I was caught, but obviously my girlfriend doesn’t trust me now. I don’t really blame her. She says she doesn’t think she can ever trust me again. I have offered to give her all my passwords and go to counseling, whatever it takes, but she says she’s not sure it would matter. Knowing I broke her heart is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to know.
She is taking some time to think about things, and she doesn’t want me to call or text her until she figures out what she wants to do. I am giving her the space she asked for. I am just hoping that when we talk again I can reassure her that I can be trusted. I want to make things right. I know I would never make a mistake like that again, but fixing her trust issues feels impossible. Help! I’ll do anything. —Astray
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Dear Astray,
Thank you for writing. I’m not here to judge. Besides, judgment befogs understanding.
I feel your remorse. This does not mean I want to downplay the harm your behavior has caused to all three parties, including yourself and, presumably, your coworker. Sometimes such actions are indicative of a deeper issue that is not resolved by altering the offending behavior.
I urge you to focus on yourself during this “trial” time needed by your girlfriend. (I would take it as a good sign, by the way, she did not end it outright. The two of you must have built a strong connection prior to your affair.)
You can’t make her trust you again. It may sound counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do for her is to come to a rigorously honest (and empathic) understanding of yourself and what might have motivated this. You might consider couples counseling—or, if she is not willing, individual counseling in the name of compassionate but unyielding self-reflection. Here is an opportunity for a reckoning that could greatly benefit you and your relationship, assuming it survives. Even if it doesn’t, it would benefit your next one.
There is a stark up/down contrast in your descriptions of your girlfriend versus sex with your coworker, which might reflect a good/bad way of perceiving yourself. To hear you tell it, your girlfriend sounds almost unassailably perfect or wholesome (“up”), while your desire for sex with the coworker is “strange” or almost seedy-sounding (“down”). This is a bit of a catch-22 in that you appear to judge something that also remains desirable, that you have misgivings about letting go of “forever.”
You can’t make her trust you again. It may sound counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do for her is to come to a rigorously honest (and empathic) understanding of yourself and what might have motivated this.
You might be surprised at the relatively simple human desires that become camouflaged in sexuality, which itself becomes a way of attaching to a desired other. Perhaps sex with your coworker was a way of soothing whichever vulnerable part of you felt “less than.” Perhaps sharing your vulnerability with your girlfriend felt too risky. (This is all speculation, mind you. I’m just reflecting on examples I have come across over the years.)
You also describe yourself as the lowest of the low, which indicates a struggle for self-esteem or perhaps some self-loathing that was likely present (perhaps unconsciously) before all this started. The behavior confirms what lies dormant. It is as if some part of you were saying, “Go ahead and mess around with your coworker. You don’t deserve your girlfriend anyway. You’re only going to lose her once she discovers the ‘real you,’ so why not?” I imagine this all fed into your rationalizing.
Or, quite possibly, there was a rebellion against feeling less than (“no woman will tell me what I can or can’t do!”)—an assertion of sorts of your freedom before giving up something “forever.” Maybe there was a combination of these two (or more) threads running through this sexual detour.
As for “fixing” your girlfriend’s trust issues, decisive action on your part would go a long way toward showing her you mean business: a genuine effort to understand not just that your behavior was painful, but that something else was “off”—and owning it, examining it, and working on it. Nothing is more courageous than facing one’s own psychological struggles. It never ceases to amaze me how many are simply too afraid or unwilling to do this. Many would rather just “change the channel” or “swipe left” and forget it.
Showing her that you want to use this crisis as an opportunity to better understand yourself, which can only broaden your relational and sexual options in the long run, might show her you intend to grow from this. You might even start to see her as an equal, as opposed to her holding a standard you can never reach (which might create unconscious stress, resentment, self-criticism, and so on).
The worst thing you can do is try to shove all this back in the closet and quickly move on. Doing so practically ensures it will happen again in some other form. I can assure you there is nothing innately “bad” about what is behind this. You may discover, with help and diligence, that what lies behind it all is something stunningly human.
In the meantime, be patient and accepting of what your girlfriend needs. Talk is indeed cheap. Show her you will do what it takes to make this right. If you’re going to earn back her trust, it will start with respecting her needs during this difficult time. If you use the space to work on yourself, you will be better prepared to provide what she needs in the future.
Best wishes,