For many people, once they are married or in a committed relationship, they hold expectations of maintaining a monogamous relationship. Unfortunately, this does not always occur and one or both people end up cheating. Sadly, about one out of every three couples will experience some form of infidelity.
How can you avoid worrying about cheating? By discovering the reasons why people cheat. Affairs are not something that just occurs out of nowhere. When two people are in love with each other, they are not going to purposely attempt to hurt the other by cheating. Quite often there are underlying reasons which have been building for a period of time.
Some of the more common reasons for infidelity include:
- There is a lack of excitement in the relationship.
- There is a lack of satisfaction in some other area of their life, like their career.
- They regret they did not get to experience more sexual experiences when they were younger.
- They do not feel like they are worthy of their partner’s love and unintentionally self-sabotage the relationship.
- They may feel undesirable and unattractive and are attempting to prove they actually are.
- They suspect their partner is cheating and do so out of revenge, even when they do not have sufficient proof.
- They believe cheating is a normal part of relationships if one or both of their parents cheated during childhood.
How Does an Affair Affect a Relationship?
Even if you can understand the reason why your partner cheated in the first place, it is often difficult for you to forgive them quickly. They broke your trust. Conversely, the cheater should never think all they have to do is apologize and everything will go back to how it was before.
Since trust is an essential component to all relationships, when our loved one breaks it, it can bring up painful memories of where our family and friends have broken our trust in the past. If prior experiences were not fully resolved, one can experience the hurt from these experience all over again.
Moving Forward After Infidelity
It can be very difficult to move on after you or your partner cheated. There can be many different issues and concerns which need to be voiced to be able to move forward. Yet expressing these can seem difficult, especially if you were the one who cheated.
Most couples, who want to move forward will turn to professional marriage and couples counsellor for assistance. A counsellor is able to meet with each person individually as well as together to help guide and support the couple as they start to rebuild trust and address unresolved issues.
Counselling provides a safe haven where you can openly speak your mind without judgements. Your counsellor helps both of you determine what is best for your relationship. Sometimes this is reconciling. Other times it is taking steps to dissolve the relationship in an amicable manner and moving on. No matter the outcome, your counsellor will never take sides.
To request a consultation appointment to discuss infidelity or other relationship concerns, please feel free to contact Toronto marriage and couples counsellor, Ellen Starr at 416-488-3102 today!
