by Jane Allyson

Created on: September 10, 2008

Will you ever learn to trust your partner again? How can you ever find the capacity to forgive?

Rebuilding trust in a marriage takes a great deal of courage and although you may never forget the pain and anguish that your partner has put you through, it is true that time does heal, and if you give your relationship a little breathing space and wait for the hurt to diminish, you will find that by forgiving your partner and trying to understand why it happened in the first place, you will be able to eventually move on with your life.

However, forgiveness doesn't come easily. Your trust has been abused in a terrible way. A feeling of great bitterness and anger usually follows after the initial hurt of betrayal and this is a normal part of the grieving process. You and your partner have lost that special something, and it must be mourned for properly. If your marriage has any hope of survival, this bond must be replaced with something else.

Many marriages don't survive this initial stage. Some partners find that they cannot deal with such a cruel abuse of their trust, and although a marriage may stagger on for a while, without the act of forgiveness misery turns to bitterness and bitterness turns to anger, suspicion, hate and eventually, indifference.

Talk matters through with your cheating partner. Ask them whether their infidelity was a one off occurrence. Do regret they what they have done? Do they accept and appear to be affected by how much hurt they have caused you? Are they sorry for making the wrong choice, or sorry they got caught? Do they want to work hard at rebuilding their marriage?

The cheating partner should understand that you are going to have to come to terms with what has happened and will need constant reassurance and a lot of consideration to your insecurities in the coming months. It is important that they are sensitive to your feelings, because you are going to find it hard to rebuild the trust that has so been cruelly snatched away from you.

Part of building that new trust comes with the cheating partner appreciating what it would do to you on an emotional level if they ever cheated again. Does he realize that you may not have the strength and courage to recover from it if it happens again?

If you can answer yes to this question then it is time to move on. Give each other a little space and a chance to get to know each other again. Both of you are now changed people, and a new relationship must be forged on the basis of this fact.

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