Is it possible to forgive treason and how to do it?

Cheating on a loved one is always a great personal drama, which can be very difficult to cope with. No one is safe from this situation: any woman and any man may one day fall into the category of deceived spouses. According to existing statistics, in Russia at least once up to 75% of men and 25% of women cheated on their partner. Very often, families break up precisely for this reason. If you think about not chopping the shoulder, then in most cases, divorce and separation can be prevented. But this will require the most difficult thing - to forgive. How to do this will be discussed in this article.

Treason is treason. The circumstances and situations in which adultery may occur, the motives of a person who changes him, his behavior before and after an unpleasant truth is revealed, the type of relationship in this family - all this and much more will ultimately determine the possibility of forgiving the wrong partner. After all, you can forgive treason, and many have successfully managed to cope with it. There are also a lot of those who did not succeed, and those who decided not to even try.

Forgiveness - a lot of internal labor, painstaking and phased work, a sign of psychological maturity and "maturity" of a person. The hardest forgiveness is forgiveness at a young age - girls who cheated on boys, guys who cheated on girls, are more categorical due to their young age, and therefore often the relationship is painfully broken, leaving trauma in the soul of the one who was betrayed.Middle-aged people can be easier to forgive due to their accumulated life experience, but we cannot say that they suffer less. At any age at all times treason - it hurts.

Both the man whom the wife cheated on and the woman who found out about the husband’s infidelity are experiencing this stage equally hard. But it is necessary, because it is she who is the key in the formation of the decision on readiness for reconciliation.

Only the person himself must answer the question whether to forgive or not. Advisers in this case are not needed and harmful. Advisers will rely solely on their life experience, on their ideas, on generally accepted norms, which far from always correspond to the ideas about the happiness of a certain person, the one who is now in trouble. Imagine a man asking friends to forgive his traitorous wife. With a high degree of probability, they will answer that this can not be done, because after that the deceived husband will look like a weak-willed henpecked man.

Is this what a man wants, who is really wholeheartedly attached to his wife and really wants the relationship to be preserved? A woman who asks for advice from her mother or friend also runs the risk of receiving a stereotyped answer that “all men are like that” and you need to leave him and live on. And if she really loves a partner and believes in the opportunity to build relationships? Thus, if anyone needs to be consulted, then only with himself. Listen to your heart, your mind, your intuition and act boldly.

In addition to the internal readiness to forgive, one must take into account the opinion of the partner himself. If the cheater after revealing the truth about his “left” move and did not think to apologize, if he is not looking for a dialogue, does not try to explain himself, then most likely do not pull remorse from him by force. Perhaps the cheating partner generally wants to end this relationship.

Usually a favorable moment for such a conversation comes some time after the discovery of the fact of adultery. Both need to calm down and decide what to do next.

Forgiveness is permissible in all cases if it is allowed by man for himself. It does not matter how long the adultery lasted, with whom the partner cheated, what methods he used for conspiracy, how the facts were revealed and whether he repented. You need to forgive not for him, but for yourself, because it’s much easier to live if you do not hold resentment and evil, not to mention that resentment is a strong destructive feeling that can quickly cause dangerous and difficult to cure diseases on a physical level. For example, oncological diseases, psychosomatics experts often call "the disease of offended people." Think about it at your leisure.

Forgiveness does not always mean returning to the family. Even if you decide to end the relationship with the cheated spouse and live on without him (her), try to sincerely, forgive the former partner from the heart, do not hesitate to tell him about it when it works out.

Life next to the offender will turn into hell for all members of the family, and marriage will end in ruin anyway. Very often deceived spouses want to get a “ready-made recipe” from a psychologist or psychotherapist for how to forgive. There is no such recipe.There is no list of ingredients that need to be added in a certain amount to get what you want. There are only general recommendations. Forgiving is always easier:

• if the traitor or traitor repents, asks for forgiveness, clearly argues the cause of the adultery, and promises not to repeat it again;
• if the feelings for the partner who went “to the side” have been preserved, have not dried up long before the adultery;
• if there is something common and important for both - children, common hobbies, work, common human obligations and responsibilities (for example, caring for an elderly relative).

Surviving a difficult time and coping with the situation, making the right decision in it will help a simple understanding that absolutely no one in this world is obliged to meet your expectations. It is clear that it hurts, is insulting, everything boils and boils in the soul, throws the emotional swing from longing to anger, out of a desire to avenge self-pity for the offended. To align their emotional background a little at the earliest stages, psychologists often advise imagining a betrayal of a partner in the form of a whip. You received a blow with it only once - when you learned about treason. You apply all other blows with it yourself, continue to warm up your suffering and pain, and feel sorry for yourself.

Forgiving and living on (with or without this person) will help understanding the essence of the processes that are happening to you.

• At first it will be negation, in which a person categorically refuses to believe in what happened, then - a protest. This is where thoughts of revenge will be visited, it is at this stage that a person has the most developed malice, resentment and pain.
• Then comes Adoption - the offended person begins to understand that all this is real, that it actually happens and that it is with him that it is no longer possible to cross out the event, it happened and became a part of his personal history. It is at the stage of adoption that a decision should be considered on whether to forgive a partner and return to him, forgive him and leave, or other options.

Whatever happens next, whatever events follow, there are several universal methods that will help to cope with post-traumatic psychological syndrome. Use them if you decide to stay with the offender, to live on as one family. Be sure to try to practice them if you decide to live separately, your new life.

During the day, armed with a pencil and a piece of paper, count how many destructive and positive thoughts and emotions you had. They thought that you were an unfortunate person, and you were so unlucky, you felt sorry for yourself - a checkmark in favor of destruction, noted a beautiful dress on a neighbor, admired her child in her soul - plus in favor of a positive.

If half a day of negativity is twice as much, begin to consciously replace your own emotions with others. I recalled the act of the husband (wife) - go to the store and buy yourself a nice little thing that will give at least a few minutes of good mood.

Oddly enough, but it is art that helps in the most difficult times, it somewhat changes the mindset, and therefore you can read, go to exhibitions, take your own and watch other people's photos, draw yourself, go to the cinema, theater, concerts of your favorite artists, necessary and necessary.

This method was proposed by the founder of the school of humanistic psychology Abraham Maslow. It consists in replacing negative thought forms and destructive actions with positive ones. The principle is this: for every negative thought, there must be at least two real creative actions. Example: I felt sorry for myself, burst into tears, at the same time a vile thought crept in to take revenge on occasion - we get up and go to the elderly parents so that, without good will, without waiting for requests, help them do the cleaning, and on the way back we help unfamiliar pensioners cross the road.

They spoke out in a hasty tone about the changed partner, it’s ugly - we voluntarily sit down to learn lessons with a child, and then we take out the trash, not only our own, but also the trash of a lonely pensioner neighbor, since it is difficult for her to walk up and down stairs with an elevator that is not working. Usually, after a couple of weeks, the emotional background becomes more positive, a person notices that his mood has improved, he has appeared vigor and a sense of self-satisfaction (he has done so much good!), The traumatic situation begins to lose its relevance and sharpness, the sensation of pain, loss becomes dull.

Remember how you admired the actress’s hairstyle in a photo in a magazine or the courage of a friend who recently made a parachute jump. Now is the time to take from life everything that has been put aside in a long box. It's time to sign up for the gym and fight a couple of times a week with a beer belly (for men) or an extra volume at the waist (for women), it's time to go do the same hairstyle, dye your hair, change your wardrobe, take a parachute jump, go and unlearn it on rights that allow you to fly light aircraft, in general, do what you always wanted to.

This is a method of speaking out your feelings. You need a person whom you will trust. He must be a good listener. TOWhen the most intimate and terrible emotions are voiced, pronounced, they somewhat lose their frightening properties. Well, if such a person will be the culprit of the situation, if a decision is made to forgive and live on together. If you manage to apply the method, then the relationship in such couples becomes even better than they were before the adultery, since the couple finally begin to understand each other's feelings, become closer to each other.

If the method does not work with a partner, or you are a very secretive, try talking to strangers - a psychologist, a train conductor, an occasional fellow traveler. Often such meetings help us to verbalize our anxieties and negative thoughts.

And here no one can give any guarantees that the cheater will not go again in search of thrills “to the side”. This almost does not depend on you, but depends to a large extent on what the offender himself thinks about his act. Sincere repentance and shame increase the likelihood that the situation will not happen again. Attempts to justify oneself and partially shift the responsibility for adultery to a second partner (“well, you were also to blame” or “you yourself were wrong”) mean that a person partially justifies his own actions and, in which case, may well repeat them.

It is clear that after establishing the reasons for the betrayal, it will be necessary to conduct a correction of relations. And you have to deal with it mutually.

• If the partner decided on an external relationship due to dissatisfaction with sexual relations, you need to diversify your intimate life, try to make it saturated and regular.
• If the reason was a randomly turned up excuse for a drunken head, you should avoid situations where the cheater will attend parties.
• If the reasons lay in dissatisfaction with the relationship between husband and wife, you should work in this direction, find more common interests, more often spend time together.

No control system has ever prevented adultery. If the partner decides to start another intrigue “on the side”, then he won’t be able to keep him, just knowing the suspicion of the spouse, he will be very careful and very secretive.

If you forgive a partner with the intention of living with him further, you will have to trust. Only trust, coupled with forgiveness, will help create a normal psychological environment in the family. There will be no trust - there will be no family. In fact, people, of course, can remain husband and wife, but life in such a family will resemble a thriller, and children (as, indeed, adults) in such a family can only sympathize.

No one forces you to make this or that decision. It is only yours and the responsibility for it is on you. Even if a person understands the need to forgive, loves children very much, would love to save his family, but everything inside resists one thought of living further with a traitor, going to bed with him, sharing with him one roof over his head, then it’s not necessary in the name of high ideals sacrifice your life and your mental health. Such a life can lead to tragedy or to a separate ward in a psychiatric hospital. Leave without looking back, without regrets, save yourself and your children, because in the end, for all this divorce will be a blessing.

If you decide to forgive, remember that not a day, not a month, not a year to do this to the end will fail. The process can take a long time. It is important to accurately imagine what you are going on this difficult path for - a real love for a partner, a desire to help him and yourself, a desire to raise children together. Naturally, these desires should be mutual.

Whatever the initial decision, psychologists recommend adhering to some recommendations.

• Do not use the fact of betrayal as a weapon against the abuser in the future, do not remind him of this story. Do not claim anything, citing your generous forgiveness. Do not blame him after being forgiven.
• Do not tell relatives or friends about what happened, as this will create a negative image of your partner.
• Do not scream, do not insult the offender, do not humiliate him, do not force him to humiliate yourself in front of you. In the situation of adultery, it is very important to maintain human respect for him, for himself, to maintain his respect for you.

• Do not fill the grief with alcohol and do not go to avenge identically. This does not help to solve the problem, but only makes it even more confusing, nervous and nasty.
• Do not take revenge on the offender, do not try to spoil his relationship with common children, do not hang up “labels”.
• Feel free to defend your right to happiness - with or without this person. Do not manipulate yourself.
• Try to maintain your dignity, no matter how difficult it may be. Do not stoop to fights, obscene expressions, ugly scenes.

It is important after this to outline the circle of permissible so that the partner, who once changed, does not think that your forgiveness is a life-long indulgence that will let him go all his sins for several years to come. If you are starting a new life, avoid making old mistakes in it - do not water the former or former verbal mud in front of the new lover, do not retell the circumstances of your separation.

It is important to be open to everything new, not to be locked into your own misfortune, not to limit the circle of friends, and not to fall into a chronic distrust of all members of the opposite sex. A new meeting may not be far off. It is possible that you have been waiting for it all your life, just so far you have no idea about it. The snapped-up principle of “Everything is being done for the better” actually works great.

It’s worth forgiving betrayal or not, see the video below.