My heart goes out to women like Karrueche Tran and Keyshia Cole. They’re in the public eye, and they had to suffer through the devastation of learning that their men stepped out on them with other women. Being in the public eye puts them in a position to be heavily criticized if they make the decision, for themselves, to take Chris and “Booby” back. I couldn’t deal with that.
I was cheated on by my fiance many moons ago, and deciding to take him back wasn’t an easy decision to come to. It took a lot of time and a lot of healing. Taking a man back after he’s cheated requires a different level of strength. You have to be an extraordinarily strong woman to continue to love and live with a person after they’ve betrayed your trust in such a way.
So how does one deal after finding out that their man has been emotionally or sexually connecting with someone else? Though every individual has their own way of dealing with a cheating spouse, here’s what I did and what you can try if you’re considering taking him back.
Do Not Blame Yourself
For a lot of women, including myself, the natural reaction to learning that your man ran to someone else is to question your own worthiness and actions. You ask yourself, “what did I do that pushed him out the door and into the arms of another woman?” And when the comparisons between yourself and the other woman begin to cloud your mind, you ask yourself, “what didn’t I do?”
I would hope that Cole and Tran have a solid grip on the reality that when a man cheats, it rarely has much to do with you. They made that decision for themselves, and people who bend over backwards for their man can still be cheated on.
However, if you have the sudden urge for self-improvement based upon your experience, go for it! These kinds of things have an interesting way of fueling a woman to strive for better. However, be careful not to confuse bettering yourself with stopping your man’s infidelity. As far as his character goes, he has some obvious issues to unpack and that is not your fault, girl.
Give Yourself Some Time
When I took my fiance back, my best friend said to me, “You let him back already?! Girl you should have at least made him suffer for a few more months.” She was right. There should be a literal “cooling off” period. The last thing we care about after our man has stepped out on us is his feelings, but it’s unfair to him and unhealthy for you to allow him back into your life soon after learning that he’s been creeping. Give yourself time to collect your thoughts and yourself, because living together with built-up anger and distrust is like trying to build a home on top of a minefield.
When you have unresolved emotions lingering and a man who’s trying to go back to normal as quickly as he can, the healing process for both of you will be delayed. You don’t have to put an exact date and time on when you’ll take him back, but there needs to be some time for you to just sort through YOUR emotions before you decide to face him and all the mess you’ll both have to untangle. If you can, pretend you’re Usher and let it burn for a little while. It will do you both some good in the long run.
If You Decide To Forgive, You Probably Should Forget
A lot of us can forgive our men for cheating, but many of us don’t believe in letting him forget what he did. For him, being reminded of his mistake won’t be anything more than annoying, but for you, it can be like reliving that first day of heartbreak all over again.
If you’ve accepted him back, you’ve decided that you want to make it work, so bringing up the past or harping on it in your mind is a no-no. It’s easier to simply stick to solutions when talking about what happened, but be mindful that you can’t live in the past when you’re trying to create a future with someone.
In order to live in peace after you’ve forgiven him, you will have to set your attention on rebuilding the trust, not on thinking about the act of infidelity. Learning to trust again is painful, but that pain lasts longer when you’re constantly digging up the past. It keeps you in that negative space and it’s counterproductive to what you and your spouse are trying to do.
Skip The Details
I remember wanting to know everything that went down between my fiance and the other woman. I wanted to know so much so that I reached out to her and asked her to send me all the photos, text messages and emails from him. Well, she did. I was even more devastated.
Digging for details is like pouring salt on an open wound. If you’ve already made the decision to accept him back, then trying to find out any and everything is unnecessary and does more harm than good.
Trust me, you don’t really want to know all of the details. For the most part, you will only see and understand what your hurting heart perceives, but you’ll rarely get the full truth. Skip all the details and focus solely on rebuilding if that’s what you want to do.
Depending on how well you know this man, you should quickly be able to figure out if what happened was truly a mistake, or if this will be the first of many uphill battles when it comes to your man’s infidelity. As a human, being flawed is expected and inevitable. But a woman should not allow herself to constantly be disrespected by a man who can’t commit to only her. Taking him back after multiple cheating incidents will begin to set a precedent in your relationship. It lets him and the world know that you are down for whatever. If that is what you agreed to, so be it, but be careful not to continuously take this man back simply because you are in love with what he “could be.”
In the end, taking a cheating spouse back is a difficult decision to make. But in some cases, surprisingly, doing so can completely change the relationship for the better.
