Deal With a Cheating Boyfriend
Cheating may be a deal-breaker in your relationship, or it may not, depending on the circumstances. There are lots of different factors to consider, and emotions at stake. Follow these steps to help decide how to go forward.
Contents
Steps
How to Know He’s Cheating
- Investigate. Play detective, and notice his suspicious mannerisms. Ask yourself the following:
- Has he been less intimate with you? If you notice sex become less frequent, he might be getting something on the side.
- Has he been dressing to impress? Men do this when they’re first interested in someone, but when things get serious, they tend to slack on their appearance. If he suddenly starts working out or takes an unusual interest in his looks, he’s looking good for someone else.
- Is he “working late” more frequently? If “working late” becomes more regular, or if he’s spending nights away “on business,” he’s probably seeing someone else. Unless he’s been overwhelmed with work, in which case he probably tells you all about specific things he’s stressed about. If he’s vague about his late nights and business trips, and doesn’t tell you very much about them, there’s a solid chance he’s seeing someone else.
- Does he check his phone a lot, and is he secretive about it? Some men are simply more private than others, but if he becomes defensive when you ask him who he’s corresponding with, he’s hiding something.
- Has he become protective of his personal accounts? More so than usual? If he suddenly installs a password on his cell phone or computer, or starts intercepting the mail to open bank statements in private, he is likely having an affair.
- Has he been withdrawn and distant from you lately? If he’s behaving anxious around you, there’s a chance he’s having an affair. But remember, men can be distant for many reasons, so don’t go jumping to conclusions. But if he is being unfaithful, he will most likely be nervous, whether it be out of guilt or paranoia.
- Has he been snide to you in front of company? He may try to justify his infidelity by convincing himself you’re the bad guy.
- Has he been mentioning a female acquaintance or colleague a lot more lately? This may mean he has a crush, whether he knows it or not. The good news is, if he still mentions her to you, he may not have acted on those feelings yet, since they’re still tantalizing him. If he did the deed already, he’d probably never mention her again.
- Ask the woman that he’s having an affair with, if you know or suspect who she is. Most women will sympathize and tell the truth. Oftentimes, this is exactly what she wants—for you to know. She may want you to leave him, so she can have your man all to herself. Many women are offended to be somebody’s secret, or second choice.
- Ask him. He may not answer honestly, but you can still infer by his reaction whether he is hiding something.
- If he reacts defensively or nervously, and fervently denies all accusations, he's hiding something.
- If he "doesn’t dignify your question with an answer," it’s usually because he doesn’t want to lie to you, but he really doesn’t want to tell the truth. If instead of answering, he asks, “How could you think that? Don’t you trust me?” he’s probably just avoiding your question.
- If he comes clean, it is for one of two reasons. Either he is telling you because A) he wants to leave you, or B) the guilt of the affair is killing him. If he breaks down and cries, or keeps his head down when he tells you, it’s because he’s ashamed and he regrets his actions. Ask him what his intentions are in telling you, whether he wants to work things out with you or not.
How to Confront Him
- Prepare yourself for every possibility beforehand. “Cheating” isn’t always black and white. Depending on how many times he’s cheated on you, how long he’s been unfaithful, how invested he is in his affair(s) and how many women he’s been with, you may be able to salvage your relationship.
- If he’s exclusive to one mistress and he sees her frequently, and buys her things, and does romantic things with her, this means he’s in love with her and your relationship is over.
- If he’s slipped up several times, but always with different women who he cares nothing about and hasn’t kept in touch with, he may be fixable, because this means you still give him something other women don’t, if you’re the only one he’s with repeatedly. But you will have to make a change if you want him to change his ways, or it won’t work, and he’ll fall back into old habits.
- If he only cheated once, and it was out of character, and he sincerely, utterly regrets it, he deserves a second chance.
- Decide what you consider a deal-breaker. Where will you draw the line? When you find out how seriously he’s been cheating, at what point will you be through with him? How willing are you to forgive him and move on?
- Realize that you may be partly to blame. Obviously, his actions are inexcusable, but they may be the result of something deeper, and you may be part of it. Ask yourself if you’ve been driving him away. Maybe you’ve been snapping at him, putting too much pressure on the relationship, getting serious too quickly, or not getting serious enough. It could be any number of things, but you may not be satisfying all his needs, and if you want to work things out, there may be aspects of yourself you have to change.
- Confront him calmly. If you approach him angrily, he will immediately be on the defensive, and he won’t be rational or honest with you.
- Be as understanding as possible. Let him be heard. Listening to him may relieve some of the tension that led him to betray you in the first place.
- Ask him specifically how much he cheated.
- How many times?
- How many women?
- How frequently?
- How long has it been going on?
- Has he cheated in past relationships?
- How serious is he about these women/this woman?
- Ask him what his intentions are with you. Does he want to stay with you? Or was cheating his easy way out of this relationship? Is he in love with someone else?
- Decide if you are willing to work through this, or if you're through. Should you stay or should you go?
- If in your heart, you can't fully forgive him, and you don't think you'll be happy if you stay with him, it isn't worth your misery to try to work through it, no matter how much you wish you could.
- If you believe in him and trust him to stay faithful from hereon, you should give him a second chance.
If You Stay Together
- Tell him what he needs to do to earn your trust back.
- You may feel it's necessary for him to stop going on facebook or remove some of his female contacts from his phone.
- Be careful of forbidding him from speaking to someone entirely, because this may drive him to want to do it.
- You are fully justified in asking him to remove his password from his phone. If you feel it's necessary, you may ask him to disclose his Facebook password, or for access to his personal email, but like I said, this may lead him to feel trapped and cheat again.
- Ask him what he needs from you. Something may have been missing from your relationship that drove him to pull away from you.
- Communicate. From hereon out , it's clear you can't let tensions escalate. Trust is built on openness and honesty.
What Drives Men to Cheat
Cheating can be avoided altogether if you know what causes it. Avoid doing the following:
- Give him space. Don't smother him. If you're clingy or possessive over him, he may push you away. If he feels trapped with you, he may resort to cheating as a means of freeing himself.
- Satisfy him sexually. If he doesn't feel his needs are being met, he will find a way to meet them, and if you can't satisfy those needs, he'll find someone else who will.
- Be adventurous in bed and open to do the things he wants to do, as long as his demands are reasonable.
- Boring or repetitive sex can drive him to find somebody else to satisfy his urges.
- Genuinely enjoying sex makes all the difference. If he thinks he isn't satisfying you, this may cause him to reassure his ego that he is good in bed by satisfying someone else.
- Be careful not to play the blame game with him. Blaming and accusing him for every little thing will push him to seek acceptance elsewhere, not just sexual acceptance, but emotional as well.
- Don't partake in power struggles. Love is not a competition, so don't try to win. Dismissing everything he says or being condescending with him will cause him to retaliate.
Tips
- Openness, honesty and communication are key to a successful relationship.
- Be willing to hear his side. His reasons may not excuse his actions, but they may help explain them and help you come to terms with them.
- Go with your gut feeling. If in your gut you can forgive him, stay with him and work through it, and your relationship will be stronger for it. But if deep down you still don't trust him, don't stay with him.
- Be willing to change for him. Cheating is often the result of deeper problems in relationships.
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