Cheating: How Should You React?

Excuse me sir, may I have your wife? Excuse me madam, may I have your husband? These are two questions none of us anticipate, yet when our loved ones cheat on us, or abandon us altogether, we are likely to run ballistic or hit the roof in anger, awestricken as if it came out of the blue.

Cheating results partially out of an unmet needs or some sort of dissatisfaction in a relationship, and more often than not we are partially to blame. When you find a man or woman with your spouse, do not blame him or her. They didn’t steal your spouse for he or she is an adult with free will and at least by my understanding should be in the right frame of mind otherwise they wouldn’t cheat on you.

How should you react then?

1. Cry as much as you can – Crying raises a lot of weight off your shoulders. It doesn’t matter whether you are a man or woman. Shedding tears is good for you, that is why children cry irrespective of their gender. Do not keep your hurt inside; it may actually give rise to violent if not suicidal ideas. Get it out by way of either talking or crying. You have to tell someone close to you for like they say, a problem shared is a problem half solved.
2. Do not fight or react violently – Fighting whoever you find with your spouse is illogical mainly because they wouldn’t have come to you to request for your spouse, and probably didn’t know you at all. So, why fight them? They carry the least blame in the game of cheating. Instead, you ought to maintain your calm! Don’t get physical for like I pointed out, getting physical is a sign of emotional immaturity. I would rather you congratulate them with a card or some other gift. This would have a more tremendous effect than that of blows and kicks and scratches and whatever violence you can come up with.
3. Establish the root cause of the problem – Maybe, just maybe you are the cause and if you would have listened to him or her, they wouldn’t have cheated on you. What made him or her do what they did? That matters much more than what they did for what they did is merely a symptom and not the disease and treating the symptoms never cured any man or woman. Establish the missing link that made your spouse cheat on you.
4. Whatever happens, do not go on a revenge mission – In haste, I have known of some people who upon suspicion or ascertaining of their partners cheating, go in search of some other man or woman in revenge. The dangers of this revenge mission are just as grave if not worse than what you are reacting against. Two wrongs do not make a right, you have probably heard of this before and going for revenge will probably worsen the situation.
5. Do not take it upon the children – Children have nothing to do with your marital problems. Strangling the children or shooting them dead because their mother or father cheated on you is missing the point. If you cant take the pain, and need to take an innocent life, let it be your own, but never, never that of your children.
6. Take some time off – You have been wronged; I want to look at this as the labor of love. The hurts caused by love are sometimes worse than those caused by hatred. Take time off to cool your heart and breathe in some fresh air. The damage is not irreparable but you need some time to look at it from another angle. Who knows, you may be able to forgive this hurt and move on. I know it can’t be forgotten, but at least try to live with it.

Good luck as you travel down this familiar road. Many have been on it before, and many more shall come along.