Did you just find out that your boyfriend was cheating on you? it really sucks and I’m sorry that you’re going through it. you’re going to feel like crap because you entrusted your heart and energy to somebody that you love and they decided to break that trust.
most of the people that I coach want to repair things immediately (instant gratification) so you really have a couple of choices here. You can stay or you can go.
People usually jump to the conclusion that they want to stay with somebody because they’re still in love with them and still in shock.
As time goes by you will come to your senses a little bit and most likely visit the idea of never going back but that’s not where you are yet.
I have coached thousands of people and I’ve seen many different cheating situations. this article will help equip you with the right knowledge and insight from somebody who has coached many people on what to do.
I found out my boyfriend is cheating on me and what should I do about it
1. Assess the situation and take time away from them
It’s important to separate yourself from that person because they can try to manipulate you. they may even try to apologize and get you to stay. you need to look at the entire situation as objectively as possible which is very hard when you’re in an emotional state.
You’re going to be wondering why you’re going to have all these questions through your head. I call this the aftermath during my coaching sessions.
Things are going to get a lot harder before they get easier. you’re gonna have good days and bad days. the bad days will outweigh the good in the beginning, so I want you to understand and expect that it’s going to hurt.
One thing I usually ask my coaching students during calls and e-mail coaching sessions is “did you find out from somebody else, or did you catch them red-handed?”
the reason why you want to ask this is you want to see if the source is reputable. sometimes people are out there to sabotage relationships. sometimes women will automatically believe somebody that they heard instead of gathering evidence.
Now if you saw some text messages that definitely proves that he is doing some shady shit then, of course, he’s at fault.
I’ve done coaching sessions with guys who were accused of cheating and actually didn’t do it and they were asking me how to get that girl back. the girls weren’t willing to listen to them. I just want to make sure you’re not jumping to conclusions.
2. Face it head on
One of the most difficult things to do is actually confront and face your pain head-on.
There’s a lot of fear sitting in most people’s hearts post-cheating.
What you must do is face this fear head-on. you want to face the pain head-on.
A lot of people want to avoid the pain and you can’t. You cannot skip the pain process because at the end of the day Payne teaches you something and you can’t skip life lessons.
Whether you choose to stay or go you and that person that cheated on you have to discuss what happened because there’s an underlying issue in the relationship.
I have coached a lot of people in the past have swept cheating under the rug and they hold resentment for many years later because they never really discussed it at length and fix the underlying issues.
men and women cheat for different reasons so getting to the bottom of those reasons is important.
3. Accept what happened
Now I’m not saying that you should just accept it and feel better about it but you need to accept what happened and not deny it. letting it sink in is very important to your sanity.
what I’ve seen coaching students do in the past is just try to make excuses for the person because they don’t want to accept what happened because they want to avoid the pain.
Human beings are very pain averse.
There are going to be days where it’s really difficult and could be days where it’s easier but nonetheless, you’re going through something that really sucks.
right now you want to be taking things day by day here’s a little chart here for you that helps with understanding emotions and vibrations.
So if you look at the chart the bottom half of the chart is when people are the most hurt. the top of the chart is the happiest people in the world (very oversimplified but easy to explain)
When you’re dealing with somebody who cheated on you, you’re going to be dealing with a lot of fear and shame. the thoughts that you’re going to have are going to cause a lot of emotions. thoughts and emotions are closely tied together.
A lot of people that get cheated on will automatically think “what is wrong with me” or “what did I do wrong”
on this chart, you will see acceptance in the blue area. to first accept something, you have to be courageous enough to face it.
Pain tends to come in waves. usually, it’s about 90-second cycles. During this acceptance, you’re probably going to have moments where you’re sad and hurt. Just understand that it will pass, and it won’t be as painful as it is in that particular moment forever.
4. See what he has to say
Now I know what you’re thinking “what the F are you talking about?” if you decide that you want to stay with him, you’re going to have to hear him out at one point. remember there is an underlying relationship issue here. This is not going to be easy to hear but he might have lost attraction to you.
Men typically cheat because they lose attraction for their girls, but they don’t want to lose their relationship. it’s totally unfair but after coaching many men and seeing how men operate this is what they do.
women typically cheat because they are emotionally checked out of the relationship. if you want to leave and never look back that’s totally OK and you don’t have to hear him out at all.
men are very visual creatures and sometimes his attraction for her will fall because sometimes she gains weight or stops taking care of herself. I understand this is not the kind of thing you want to hear but it’s the truth.
men will also lose attraction to a woman who is too masculine.
Masculine and feminine energy is very different. men are obviously more dominated by masculine energy.
with today’s media and movies, they’re trying to make men more feminine and women more masculine.
This is killing polarity in relationships.
I understand as a woman you’re probably not going to hear a lot of this but that’s the way it is.
You’re going to gather more information after hearing him talk as well.
Is he remorse full of regret or does he not really give a shit.
if you’re up to it see what he has to say. which leads perfectly to my next point
5. Excuses he might have and what to watch out for
One of the most important things that he needs to be showing is remorse for his actions. If he’s not he’s most likely going to cheat again. there is a saying “once a cheater always a cheater”.
Sometimes they will completely deflect and blame the entire thing on you when they’re the ones who did the act. Earlier I said he might have lost attraction for you which could be true, but he should be talking to you about it and if he doesn’t want to be in a relationship anymore, he should leave the relationship and then pursue other women.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS HE SHOULDN’T BE CHEATING ON YOU!
People will try to justify and make excuses for why cheating is OK. The bottom line is he willing to take responsibility for his actions.
6. Talk to a professional coach or therapist
Sometimes having an outside perspective can really shine some light on the whole relationship. I have personally seen a situation where a woman was treating a man like complete shit, and he decided he didn’t really want to leave but wanted to pursue things with another woman.
Now in my opinion he should have just left her.
A lot of people go to their family and friends for advice and most people don’t understand how attraction works, how feminine and masculine energy works. a lot of them just put a Band-Aid on the situation instead of trying to get to the crux of the situation
An outside perspective can show you what you might be doing wrong and of course what he is doing wrong. your emotions are going to be all over the place so it’s going to be very difficult to decide what you really want to do and stick to it.
I’ve personally worked with thousands of people at this point some of them are still in my coaching mastermind and we have worked through tons of different issues. The chart that I placed above is one of the best things that you can use as an individual to continuously judge where you’re at.
if you’re full of grief or apathy it’s going to be very difficult for you to be happy as an individual let alone in a relationship. outside perspectives can draw certain pictures for you that you wouldn’t normally see.
7. How good was the relationship
It’s really important that their relationship has a good history. The only way you’re going to be able to salvage a relationship that had any kind of cheating involved is to be able to remember what it was like to have good times.
Most people that are not actually involved in the relationship are going to tell you to take a specific approach to cheating which is just let them go. For anybody that’s actually in emotional turmoil it’s not that easy.
Especially if their relationship itself was rocky for a long time. but if the relationship was really good and there happened to be a small bump in the road and he decided to cheat it’s not going to be as easy to let somebody like that go.
Healthy relationships operate with certain standards and practices.
One of the biggest reasons people break up is a lack of communication.
Not being able to freely express who you are and what concerns you make for a terrible relationship.
From there people sweep a lot of things under the rug and just hope that “love” will conquer all. the truth is too much negativity will ruin any relationship.
As negative as the world seems we humans are not built to deal with a lot of negativity for a continuous amount of time. we need some positive energy in our lives.
that yin Yang balance is what makes the human experience so worthwhile.
8. Seeking revenge is a no-no
I’ve had a lot of students in the past ask me if it’s OK if they sleep with another person and I always say no. you’re doing it from an emotional place and it’s not really fair to the other person either. women tend to have a lot of male orbiters around guys that are in the friend zone. sometimes when a relationship goes sideways she’ll just talk to one of those guys and sleep with him.
Matching their actions won’t really get you anywhere. doing what they did is just stooping to their level and you don’t want to do that. it’s understandable because you want to hurt the person that hurt you but really it’s just going to make things more complicated and worse.
The people who have done it and who are in my coaching program always regret it. I don’t want you to have the same regret.
seeking revenge is beneath you anyway. focus on your own goals. focus on your health. focus on the things that really matter to you.
9. Don’t let the sadness drive you crazy
People tend to overthink like crazy when they get cheated on. it’s not so much that you’re overthinking it’s that you’re over feeling. thoughts and emotions are closely linked.
Take a look at the chart and see if you’re stuck thinking negatively. if you’re stuck in a loop when you start acting like one of those emotions (courage) then you’re going to pull yourself out of that negative energy.
pick an emotion that you want to strive to achieve from that chart.
One of the best things that you can do is get extremely focused on something. turn off all the distractions and focus on something that you’ve always wanted to do.
I help a lot of men and a lot of those men want to work on their bodies. they want to get in really good shape. so we formulate a plan to do that and get extremely focused on doing it.
sometimes in doing so we’re going to go against regular health norms like rest and recovery. some of these guys are in the gym two to three times a day but they love being so focused on their goal because it helps take away from that negative energy.
I would suggest that you do the same because only you know how you feel right now.
is there a relationship in your life that you want to focus on? could be your parents, maybe a sibling, maybe even a friend.
Just get focused on it. there’s a good saying that I love which is “wherever your focus goes energy flows”
10. The other woman
I’ve personally been cheated on, so I know what it’s like to constantly think about the other person.
Do you measure up, are they better than you, etc. (thoughts can drive you crazy)
I understand it’s very difficult for you to just forget about them, but your focus should be on yourself.
I coach a lot of people and a lot of those people want to confront the person that the significant other cheated on them with and that person really has nothing to do with the whole situation unless it was a close family member or friend. That is a lot more personal.
Most of the time you have no idea who that person really is and there really is no point in confronting them. a lot of guys like to think this way but they’re just deflecting their anger.
You have to hold him accountable. That’s what he deserves.
focus on you and focus on the things that you need. take a lot of space from the whole situation get your head clear and focus on what you want.
If you do decide to take him back and stay together do this
If you could take him back and work on things with him there should be some guidelines you should follow and I’m going to list them here.
1. Be willing to work on the relationship
Experience coaching people the person who got cheated on will often hold that over the other person’s head the rest of the relationship. relationships have disagreements and sometimes fights normally and if there’s a disagreement the person who was cheated on will usually use this as their trump card to win the fight.
this happened when I took my ex back who cheated on me. I would use it against her to win every single fight and she had nothing to say afterward. yes, she cheated on me but I’m the one who decided to take her back. this is over 10 years ago now so I’m looking at it with extreme hindsight.
it wasn’t fair to her because she would bring up genuine things that I was doing wrong and I would just throw back in her face that she was a cheater and a liar. this created an extreme amount of negativity. and the number one rule of relationships is there needs to be positive energy for it to work. too much negativity will break up any relationship, it doesn’t matter who you are.
2. If you’re going to stay together make sure you truly believe it’s the right decision
A lot of the time people will get back together without even really thinking. They’re so caught up in the moment and they actually believe that taking the person back will heal their wounds but it doesn’t work that way.
I’ve helped married couples get through this and a lot of them want to stay together for their kids which is honorable but children need to see what love looks like. if their relationship was mostly good and the husband slipped up then I would say OK if you’re going to get back together make sure you guys are good Emotionally. children watch what you do and do what you do. they will grow up thinking that fighting is normal.
in other words, make sure that there is a lot of positivity. and the only way that you could do that is to truly forgive. If you decide to forgive him then make sure that he is totally regretful. if he has a take-it-or-leave-it attitude about the whole thing then he’ll most likely just do it again.
don’t stay together with him out of fear that you won’t find somebody else because you will.
3. Take a look at yourself and him as individuals
The relationship itself doesn’t change the two individuals involved. For some reason, some people have this fantasy idea that a relationship is a totally separate entity. the relationship is literally created by two people.
If one person is a totally put-together individual and there’s extremely focused on having good energy in their lives most of the time they’re not going to date somebody who has negative energy going on all the time. they might do it for a couple of months but then they realize this is not where they want to be.
I personally had to get to this place because I started out being very negative and then as I worked on myself and grew as a person I do not want to be with somebody who’s negative. I focus on positive energy only.
I personally have a rule of my life called “drama-free zone” and if somebody comes into my life who creates drama I get rid of them immediately.
I lost a few friends doing this and of course a few relationships. At first, it sucked because I didn’t have many people in my life.
What this does though is it creates a room for good people to be there. A lot of people are very pain and risk-averse so they want to hold on to what they have instead of making room for something better.
There can only be positivity in your life if you truly want it to be in your life. everything is a choice. if you hang on to somebody who’s negative and who hurts you that’s your fault.
A couple of years after I made that decision to only let positive people in my life, I met my wife. We’ve been together for the last eight years at the time of writing this article.
It took me some time to actually match her energy because I still had some old bad behaviors that I was still running on. I had to do some real work to get rid of them.
So, as you can see my whole point is a relationship is just two individual people coming together to share their life experiences. If I didn’t do that work, she would not have stayed with me.
The guy that’s in your life is he willing to do that work? if you’re going to take him back make sure that he’s really dedicated to working on himself and making himself a better guy. some men are willing to do that work and some men are not.
just remember everything is a choice and letting him back into your life is a choice
4. Do you date toxic people?
I have a few ladies in my mastermind program, and they were notorious for dating guys that were just full of red flags. one of them even said “I don’t like the term red flags”
one of my favorite sayings is “you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality”
you can say that you don’t like the term red flags all you want or whatever excuse you’re going to make. But at the end of the day, there are men who are good for you and there are men who are not good for you.
Obviously, I coach men as well and they are similar because they continue to chase certain kinds of women who are just not a good match for them.
now to be honest women are going to be attracted to what they’re attracted to and that’s fine but if you’re not getting results the common denominator is you.
A lot of people will quickly blame the other gender for the mistakes that they are making. No, not all men are bad and not all women are good. we have a narrative being spun right now that “men are trash”
Healthy relationships come from healthy people. love is about giving and letting the other person feel and be free.
if you’re dating a guy who is toxic over and over again. a guy who wants to control you and manipulate you. you obviously shouldn’t be with him. now that may sound obvious to you but so many women that I coach ignore this fact.
men also ignore this. we will look at all their traits on paper and I will wonder “what attracted you to this person” they are terrible!
that’s why it’s important to cover this because emotions can completely cloud your judgment.
Don’t let yourself fall for a guy just because he’s so attractive. is he good for you? that’s the main question you should ask yourself before getting involved in any kind of relationship.
Don’t fall in love with the idea of somebody
5. Stopping the same patterns
I understand how difficult it is to fall in love and keep somebody in your life who truly cares about you.
The more that you seek it the more it will run from you. when you seek love, it implies that you lack it. you will accept somebody into your life that’s not a good match or a good fit for you.
You’ll find it’s a total paradox because when you’re not looking for love or a relationship, you’ll find it.
This is what happened to me. I personally got out of a toxic relationship and started a new job and started really working on myself.
This new job is where I met my wife whom I mentioned earlier. I lost weight, I was looking because I’d been hitting the gym. most of all my confidence was coming back.
She walked by and I just started talking to her. I wasn’t really looking for a relationship. I just thought that she was cute, and I asked her for her phone number, and we’ve been together ever since.
This just reinforces the idea of what you think in your brain becomes reality. take a look at the chart that I put above. I would not have been able to attract her into my life if I was in a really bad place as an individual.
if you continue to date people who are in the orange category of that chart then you’re going to continue to get people who treat you that way.
You’ve probably heard of the idea that people project what they feel inside. if you date somebody who feels like crap all the time, who is full of insecurities and full of all kinds of baggage and drama what do you think they’re going to bring into your life.
one of the most common things that my female students have is they don’t feel like they’re worthy. and we do exercises to reinforce that they are worthy.
just because you made a really bad decision with one man does not mean that you’re a bad person and that you’re not worthy.
Do what I did and start making better choices. start choosing positive energy over negative energy. do this in all aspects of your life. stop inviting negative people into your life.
if you’re going to take this man, back make sure that he really does want to change, and he does want to treat you better.
If you want further help you can definitely book a coaching session with me.
take care
