Positive Ways to Handle Infidelity

Infidelity is a common problem amongst romantic relationships across the world from the luxurious  life of celebrities to the everyday of  regular joes. Recently Teyana Taylor most famous for her dancing role in Kanye West's video "Fade", was subjugated to rumors of her professional basketball husband Iman Shumpert sleeping with other women. While the other day, a Miami supermarket owner was criminally charged for hiring accomplices to murder his wife's lover. 

In an ideal world no one would have to face the heartbreaking realities of a partner's deceit and cheating. However, these occurrences do happen and it is very important to know how to emotionally and mentally handle infidelity within a monogamous relationship. 

The most painful part of infidelity is the instant break of trust that takes place between a couple. The partner that remained faithful feels so many emotions such as anger, sadness, disgust, and so much more. These emotions can be compounded if a couple has made their relationship official for family, friends and social media to see. 

The faithful partner may not want to reveal the infidelity in their relationship, because of fear of what others may think. But in these situations it is very important to reach out to trustworthy people and confide in them about the partner's cheating and explain those difficult feelings about the situation. Opening up helps people figure out the next step to take in their romantic life. 

Dramatic changes in a person's life can create a chain reaction of negative episodes in the future. Undoubtedly, discovering a lover and trusted person is committing betrayal  by having sex with another partner can make one want to react immediately. However making a quick emotional reaction can cause even more damage to the situation.

 For example, some people display all of their relationship baggage on social media for everyone to see directly after breaking up. Others in a way of getting revenge on their partner pick up a rebound or have casual sex with someone just to forget about their former partner. In extreme cases some resort to violence and or murder to deal with the pain of a cheating partner. 

All of these quick emotional reactions to the revelation of an affair are very irresponsible and potentially destructive. This is why it is very important to take time to emotionally and mentally process one's feelings about the infidelity. 

After the time of healing and processing through the emotions of being hurt from cheating there comes a time for a decision. The faithful partner has to decide whether they want to continue to stay in a relationship with the cheater. This can be an agonizing and difficult decision, because all the trust that there was in the relationship has just vanished. 

 So the loyal partner must decide if they want to work to rebuild a positive and healthy life with the other person. Depending on how serious the relationship was before the breach of trust the relationship may be worth salvaging.

 However it is very important for the faithful partner to forgive and not hold on to the anger they felt if they do want to continue in the relationship.  Hoarding negative emotions will only cause more pain and suffering for both partners.