She said she would would never cheat on me.

No matter how difficult the marriage became, we were (supposedly) committed to each other. Cheating was not on the table.

You see this is what makes infidelity so hard to believe. Cheating flies in the face of explicit promises made by the faithful spouse–husband or wife.

In order to accept reality and start healing, faithful spouses must accept that the cheater lied to them. They must stop believing the cheater’s promises, in other words.

That is hard.

We have to learn to look at the cheater’s actions over what she or he says. This is the reality the faithful spouse must learn to accept for his or her own good.

This reality is a harsh one.

The pain of accepting this reality is real. However, we must walk through this pain if we have any hope of healing from such betrayal.

 

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*A version of this post ran previously.