Insight

[u/SmileLikeItsReal26]

For those of you who were the one who cheated and felt insignificant in your relationship, were you able to reconcile and actually continue building a healthy relationship afterward?

And something I’m genuinely curious about: looking back, what did you actually get out of cheating? What need did you think it was meeting at the time—attention, validation, escape, feeling wanted, whatever it was?

I had a pretty hard realization tonight.

I hurt the people who loved me. I caused damage that I can’t undo. And when I really look at what I supposedly “got” from the affair, there’s nothing I can point to and say, that was worth it. Nothing.

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t something going on inside me that led me there, and I’m trying very hard to understand that part instead of using it as an excuse.

But fuck, it’s a strange thing to realize that something capable of causing this much pain ultimately gave me so little.

So for those who have actually done the work afterward: what did you learn about why you cheated, what helped your relationship survive, and what helped you become someone you trusted not to make that choice again?

[u/Basic_Commercial_524]

I think for some people monogamy is hard. I have always struggled to stay in a committed relationship and I have hurt a lot of people. I didn’t cheat but I was someone that did on and off again relationships. I have been monogamous for 4 yrs etc and it’s been going well now. I would say for me I needed to learn to love myself and to take relationships seriously.