Knowing When To Move On After An Affair

There are lots of ways to respond when your partner has an affair. Some people have a revenge affair of their own, some want to stay together and forgive the cheater, while others realize that it's time to move on from the relationship. How do you know if you should stay or go? These are the signs that it's time to move on from a relationship after cheating:

There were problems before the affair.

Sometimes cheating is only a symptom of an underlying problem. It could be that your relationship was damaged before the affair and that the real problem isn't the fact that your partner cheated. Be honest with yourself and assess your relationship before the affair happened. If things were great between you and your partner you might want to consider giving them a second chance, but if your relationship was already broken then it's likely just time to move on.

You can't forgive them for cheating.

The idea of getting over an affair and forgiving him for cheating might seem great in theory but sometimes a person simply can't move past the heartbreak of an affair and find it in themselves to let their partner back into their life. When your partner cheats on you it breaks your trust and no matter how badly you might want to fix the relationship and get it back to where it was, it's sometimes just not possible if you're not able to forgive them. If you just can't imagine ever trusting them again then it's probably time to just move on instead of forcing yourself to do the impossible.

They aren't making an effort to change.

If you and your partner are trying to work through an affair and you're trying to find forgiveness after cheating you'll need to see signs that they're trying to change and improve the relationship. If they aren't doing anything to indicate that they want to win you back or aren't showing you that they're working hard to regain your trust then you'll probably want to just move on. If it's not important to them to improve their ways and fix the relationship after they cheat then they're probably not the right person for you.

The effort doesn't seem worth it.

Forgiving her for cheating takes a lot of commitment and work. For some people, the effort needed to get a relationship back on track just doesn't seem worth it. If these steps to finding forgiveness after cheating seems like more trouble than it's worth then you're probably just ready to move on. An affair can often be the wake-up call that people need to realize that their relationship just isn't something worth fighting for. Relationships that weren't that strong to begin with, or the fact that you weren't right for each other are some of the reasons why couples choose to move on after an affair instead of trying to fix the relationship.

They cheat again.

If your partner continues to cheat then you need to really ask yourself if they're the person you want to be with. No matter how sorry they say they are after an affair, your partner might continue to cheat again and again, putting you through the heartache of an affair time after time. You may have found it in your heart to give them a second chance after cheating once before but if they continue to stray then you're likely better off moving on after their cheating instead of staying and trying to fix a relationship that's too far gone.