{"id":38587,"date":"2018-06-18T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=38587"},"modified":"2018-06-18T09:01:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T16:01:33","slug":"how-do-i-fix-trust-issues-after-being-caught-cheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/dear-gt\/how-do-i-fix-trust-issues-after-being-caught-cheating","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Fix Trust Issues After Being Caught Cheating?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear GoodTherapy.org,<\/span><\/p>\n

I cheated on my girlfriend. Yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a cheater and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never live it down. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve forgiveness<\/a>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve her, period! I made the biggest mistake of my life and now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on the verge of losing the only person in this world that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live without.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a long-term thing, but I selfishly wanted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strange\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not on the same level as what I did\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot even close. I just think it was part of my stupid rationalization. I feel so ashamed and disgusted with myself.<\/p>\n

[fat_widget_right]<\/p>\n

I ended things with the other girl the same day I was caught, but obviously my girlfriend doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust me now. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really blame her. She says she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she can ever trust me again. I have offered to give her all my passwords and go to counseling<\/a>, whatever it takes, but she says she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not sure it would matter. Knowing I broke her heart is the hardest thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever had to know.<\/p>\n

She is taking some time to think about things, and she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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<\/a> feels impossible. Help! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do anything. \u00e2\u20ac\u201dAstray<\/strong><\/p>\n

Submit Your Own Question to a Therapist<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Astray,<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for writing. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to judge. Besides, judgment befogs understanding.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I urge you to focus on yourself during this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.)<\/p>\n

You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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<\/em> and what might have motivated this. You might consider couples counseling<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor, if she is not willing, individual counseling<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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 (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), while your desire for sex with the coworker is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strange\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or almost seedy-sounding (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153down\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153forever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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<\/em> and what might have motivated this.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might be surprised at the relatively simple human desires that become camouflaged in sexuality<\/a>, 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153less than.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Perhaps sharing your vulnerability<\/a> with your girlfriend felt too risky. (This is all speculation, mind you. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just reflecting on examples I have come across over the years.)<\/p>\n

You also describe yourself as the lowest of the low, which indicates a struggle for self-esteem<\/a> or perhaps some self-loathing<\/a> 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, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go ahead and mess around with your coworker. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve your girlfriend anyway. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re only going to lose her once she discovers the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreal you,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 so why not?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I imagine this all fed into your rationalizing.<\/p>\n

Or, quite possibly, there was a rebellion against feeling less than (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153no woman will tell me what I can or can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan assertion of sorts of your freedom before giving up something \u00e2\u20ac\u0153forever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Maybe there was a combination of these two (or more) threads running through this sexual detour.<\/p>\n

As for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fixing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d your girlfriend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand owning it, examining it, and working on it. Nothing is more courageous than facing one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own psychological struggles. It never ceases to amaze me how many are simply too afraid or unwilling to do this. Many would rather just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153change the channel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153swipe left\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and forget it.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, resentment<\/a>, self-criticism, and so on).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, be patient and accepting of what your girlfriend needs. Talk is indeed cheap. Show <\/em>her you will do what it takes to make this right. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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.<\/p>\n

Best wishes,<\/p>\n

Darren Haber, PsyD, MFT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do anything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1061,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625,542,623],"tags":[1072,522,384,41,388],"class_list":["post-38587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","category-featured-articles","category-issues-treated","tag-cheating","tag-dear-gt","tag-infidelity-affair-recovery","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships","tag-trust-issues"],"acf":{"author_show":false,"author_name":"","author_role":"","author_avatar":null,"author_profile_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}