So you cheated.
I’ll level with you here: You screwed up. You did something both incredibly selfish and unbelievably stupid.
Unpopular opinion? This doesn’t necessarily make you an asshole.
It might. If this is something you did for fun, repeated, and took pride in hiding from her? Yeah, you’re an asshole.
But sometimes things happen for really unexpected reasons. In my relationship, it was misunderstanding the terms of our open relationship.
For some people, it could be getting caught up in something you didn’t know how to back out of or being too scared to make a decision.
Don’t get me wrong, those are still stupid and selfish.
They still led to something that should have been avoided and you still caused unnecessary pain because you didn’t bother to think about your SO for five minutes.
You damn well be ready to acknowledge that.
But I’ve always been of the opinion that feeling genuine remorse and working to repair the damage you’ve done redeems you from “asshole” status.
So how do you do that? How do you fix things?
DECIDING IF YOU’RE STAYING
This is the same decision your SO will make after being cheated on and they’ll have a hard time of it too.
Respect how open they want to be about the situation.
Don’t make public confessions to clear your conscience; your SO will be facing a lot of scrutiny and likely feeling judged, don’t add to that.
Don’t insist on keeping things under wraps to protect your own feelings if your SO needs someone to talk to for support.
Respect your SO’s feelings, obviously; help them in any soul searching they need to do about how you’ve treated them, what they need from you, and how your relationship is going.
Look for answers in yourself.
Maybe you cheated to avoid admitting you’re not in love anymore or because sex was more important to you than your SO. You’ll have to be ready to face that head-on.
Take time together to come to that decision, but recognize that since you’re the one that messed up, your SO may come to a conclusion other than the one you want.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THEM
They’re going to hurt.
You hurt them.
Keep in mind you were their safe space and think about the degree of betrayal involved in losing that. You need to understand their perspective and help them.
It’s not just “You hurt me a lot, and I’m having trouble with that.”
You destroyed something that felt like a solid foundation.
You took away the thing they held to when nothing else seemed to be going right. You took something that felt real and safe and made them question the entire history of it.
You screwed up and they are going to hurt a lot.
They’re going to ask you the same questions over and over– how you felt, why you did it, what you were thinking, what happened, when, where, how many times, how much you enjoyed it.
They’re going to look for holes in your stories while they ask all these questions because you broke their trust.
Will it feel like they’re trying to trap you? Yeah, sometimes. Can you really blame them? Anything you say is suspect at this point because you already lied in a big way.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
Own up to what you did.
After that, you owe your partner two things: absolute transparency and patience.
(Normally “you owe them” would not be in my relationship advice vocabulary because relationships are not about debts, but in this case, you really do.)
This isn’t to say you have to put up with any abusive behavior from them. If things devolve into nonstop verbal abuse, you have just as much right to walk away as they do.
But you need to answer every question they ask.
Whether you want to or not. Whether you think they need to know or not. Whether you think it will make the situation worse or not.
Don’t lie to save “us” because “us” isn’t worth saving if you have to lie to save it.
Be patient.
When they ask you the same questions over and over again or try to trap you into a confession, you owe it to them to recognize the pain you caused and bear with them.
Sure, you’re going to get mad. You’re going to fight, yell, and probably throw things, just like they will.
Your partner will not be infallible in the fighting that will ensue, but you owe them those two things.
It may take years to fix this. That’s a long time and it feels longer when you’re in the thick of it, so you’d better be prepared to put in the work.
If you really want to stick around, you must be dedicated.