People find out about their partner’s infidelity in many different ways. Some cheaters confess when the burden just becomes too much or when their partner confronts them. Others are discovered by a third party. But research shows that 21.4% of cheaters are exposed by their own partners.
That’s what happened to these cheaters: a husband discovered his wife and her sister’s husband were having an affair. After the word got to the sister, she detailed her experience online, confessing how she would never be able to forgive either culprit, especially since the affair resulted in pregnancy and the pair planned to get married after the divorces were finalized.
A woman discovered that her husband had been cheating with her sister since before their wedding
Image credits: freepik (not the actual image)
In an attempt to heal and make sense of the situation, she shared her story online
Image credits: EyeEm (not the actual image)
Image credits: offmychestthrowra276
“This is one of the worst ways to be cheated on,” the commenters sympathized with the woman
A few months later, the woman posted an update about the divorce process and how she was coping
Image credits: EyeEm (not the actual image)
Image credits: freepik (not the actual image)
Image credits: freepik (not the actual image)
Cheaters should not be forgiven if any of these four conditions are true
How can one forgive such a horrible thing as cheating? The people in the comments under this story expressed no judgment of the wife for not being able to forgive her husband or her sister. Indeed, whether to forgive cheaters is a really personal decision. And there are a lot of circumstances that either make that decision harder or easier.
Mental health experts say that there are different reasons why you should or should not forgive someone for infidelity. The ones not to forgive include:
In a previous interview for Bored Panda, Dr. Kathy Nickerson also added that, in her experience, affair relationships don’t last. “The unfaithful partner may believe they’re in love, but that ‘love’ is often built on obsession, fantasy, escape, and a distorted sense of reality—not true compatibility.”
Image credits: freepik (not the actual image)
Men and women cheat and forgive for infidelity in different ways
Cheating has been a part of the human experience since the very dawn of relationships. Research from the University of Colorado Boulder shows that 34% of people in committed relationships cheat: 21% of men and 13% of women. Proximity also plays a role in affairs. Most (53.5%) cases of infidelity occur with people whom the cheaters know well, like close friends. 29.4% happen with co-workers, neighbors, or acquaintances.
Apparently, the reasons for cheating and types of infidelity differ for men and women. A 2023 study published in The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium studied the answers from 94,943 people to gain better insight into the subject.
They found that women tend to have emotional affairs more often and engage in infidelity online. The women also felt they had justification for being unfaithful, such as having problems in the marriage or feeling dissatisfied in bed.
Men, on the other hand, would engage in physical infidelity more often. Whereas women would do it with someone their husbands knew, men were more likely to cheat with strangers and to do it more than once.
When it comes to forgiving their partners for cheating, women were also found to be less forgiving. While men were more likely to stay and try to repair the relationships, women would leave their husbands after being cheated on.
Image credits: gpointstudio (not the actual image)
Commenters didn’t judge the woman for not forgiving the cheater: “You did best for yourself, not every action can be forgiven”
Follow Us
