The sordid truth is out. Your partner has been having an affair and you are now aware of all the gritty details, or at least those your partner was willing to confess to. So now it is time to forgive and move on, or is it?
In more cases than not, it is next to impossible to forgive your partner for adultery. You may have thought you were a forgiving person before hand, but when faced with something as heart breaking and truely confidence destroying as finding out your partner has been intimate with someone else is a true test of how forgiving you really are. This is especially true in cases of marriage, where the vows state til death do us part. Adultery is everything the wedding vows are not about, so why should a person be expected to forgive a cheating partner.
Depending on the individual and the extent of the relationship, for many of us, one single misdemeaner with another person is enough to end the relationship right then and there, never to be reconciled. However, for others there may be more at stake. Perhaps you have children together, or other than that one (huge) mistake, everything has been wonderful since the moment you met. In such situations, many betrayed partners actually do try their best to forgive and move on in their relationship.
If you have been on the other side of a cheating relationship, but your partner has laid it all out on the table with promises never to cheat again and reassurances that they will spend a life time making it up to you, you may be tempted to give it another go. However more often than not, the betrayed partner finds themself unable to trust again. They suddenly cannot help but check their partners phone messages, call history and sent e-mail list. If their partner is half an hour late from work, the worst case scenario is already playing across their mind that their partner is again in the arms of another. This destroyed trust is often irrepairable and over a period of time where the stress is immense and unfading, the betrayed partner realises that things simply cannot be the same again.
On the other side of the situation is the one who cheated. You have been forgiven by your partner for this one major slip up. They are willing to work on things and you have promised them the world to make up for it. For many who have been forgiven, this may send the wrong signal. If you have been forgiven once, what is to say you will not be forgiven again? And if this were the case, would you risk another affair? Or perhaps you lose respect for your partner for forgiving you for such an act when you know in your own mind you would never forgive them the same sin.
The other major factor in all of this is the reason for the adultery. If one partner has strayed from the relationship, it is a pretty good time to stop and assess the situation. A person does not stray for no reason. It could be that something is lacking at home. Perhaps the intimacy has dropped since having children, or perhaps there is stress in other areas of life so that one partner's confidence is so low they thought an affair would help them feel good about themselves again. For a person to have an affair, it means something was not right to begin with and unless the problem is easily defined and repaired, there is a high chance things will not be okay again and perhaps the relationship has passed its expiry date even before the adultery occured.
Whilst there are rare cases where adultery can be forgiven, forgotten and become a thing of the past, with a relationship becoming stronger in spite of the hurt it caused, in most cases adultery cannot be forgiven. If you have been the victim of a cheating spouse, you need to assess the situation for yourself and see which catagory you fall into. Usually it is safer to walk away and find someone who will respect you enough not to commit the ultimate betrayal.