Having an unfaithful mate is one of the most painful and debilitating life events that can happen to you especially if the relationship is of a long duration and life is not stretching out seemingly endlessly before you.People to whom this has not happened can never understand and usually react in one of two ways.

Either they say something along the lines of "Leave him.You shouldn't have to put up with that" or

"What did you do to make him have the affair".Neither of these reactions are helpful when you are in the depths of despair and shock and still trying to work out what went wrong and an unrepentant partner is trying to shift most of the blame to you anyway.

But how do you progress from here if you want to forgive and stay in the relationship especially if there are children involved?
How do you know if he will do it again?
Can you believe in the protestations of never doing it again and that it was a moment of madness?

Most of the research coming out on this topic has shown that once a spouse has been unfaithful,they are very likely to be so again.They may have long periods,years even,of being faithful,but evidence shows that sooner or later they will be unfaithful again.In fact long periods between events is even worse as you are lulled into thinking it was only a one off,it was a mistake and he regrets it,he does believe in our future,he does value our family and so on.

By all means forgive once if you want to, especially as we like to work things out and you want to take a chance on it being only a one off, but sooner or later, you have to be aware that there may be a repeat and that the next time is so much more harmful to your self confidence and you may have children or more children, and may be in an even more vulnerable situation all round.This is why cheating is so much more likely to happen when you are pregnant,have small or teenage children,have financial worries,have sick dependents or are sick yourself.This man knows that these are times when he has greater control over you and you are less likely to call it quits.

The main exceptions to this are if he has a mental illness or it is a genuine mid-life crisis i.e.an affair in his late 40s or 50s after having a blameless past.

Other than this,the signs show up early in a relationship and is the subject of another article.So how do you know if he will be unfaithful again?

TWELVE SIGNS THAT HE WILL BE A REPEAT OFFENDER

1 He shifts almost all the blame onto you.You

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