57: We Both Cheated on Each Other: Advice for Moving Forward After Affairs

Mar 22

Is it possible for a relationship to work when both people have cheated on each other? In this episode, I answer two questions from listeners who want to make their relationships work, but are both struggling with feelings of guilt, resentment, and mistrust.

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I also explain why it's okay for you to have all your feelings, why it's okay to be lonely, and how to start your healing journey to move forward from infidelity. I also dive into whether telling the truth is always the best solution for your relationship.

Journal Prompts 🖊️

Free Resources 📑

New View Advice Infidelity Hub - One-Stop-Shop for all things related to infidelity

Book Recommendation 📚

More Resources 🔗

More Episodes on Cheating & Infidelity 🎙️

Referenced Episodes

Timestamps ⏱️

0:00 Intro
2:00 Listener Question
15:40 Listener Question

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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher 0:00
Welcome to New View Advice. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher. And I invite you to join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever problem or trauma is holding you back from living life to the fullest. Let's get started. Hey there beautiful souls. My name is Amanda Durocher. And this is New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. As always, I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe you have all the answers, you just may need a new view and a little help along the way. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. Today we will be talking about infidelity and cheating in relationships, and specifically instances where somebody has cheated on a partner who has cheated on them, or someone who cheated on a partner and found out that that partner cheated on them as well. So these are questions where there's a lot of cheating going on. There's a lot of infidelity going on. And these two listeners are wondering what to do next. As many of you know, I have done many episodes on infidelity. So if you're new here, I have plenty of resources, you can listen to episode 22, Episode 29, episode 3031 32. And another recent Episode, Episode 51 also covers infidelity. So if you're new here, I have many resources where I talked about healing from infidelity, and I invite you to check those out. I also have journal prompts on my website for healing from being cheated on. And you can check those out and all those resources will be in the show notes at newviewadvice.com/57. So I thought this was an interesting topic, because this is a bit of a different situation where both people feel betrayed. Both people feel hurt. And both people also feel shame. And both people feel responsible for the cheating that they did. And the question is, can a relationship move forward from here? Can we create a relationship that is loving, caring and trustworthy from this place where two people have cheated? And if you've listened to the podcast before you know that I believe that is an answer that it will be different for everyone. But I'd love to explore a bit deeper today with both these questions. So I think this will be a really interesting conversation and a bit different than the other episodes. So let's jump on him.
Amanda Durocher 2:00
I listen to your podcast, and I really need your help with this. My partner cheated on me and lied about it before eventually telling me his truth. I still feel like it wasn't the whole truth. I broke up with him. But I still got back with him because I love him so much. The relationship brought so much value and I couldn't deal with the loneliness. While struggling through the hurt and pain. I cheated. I knew I shouldn't have. But when I thought about my partner, I felt like he could even be cheating at that moment. And I was there being a good partner. I don't know if I cheated for revenge, or it just wanted to feel loved or for validation. But I regret everything I did. My partner eventually found out I cheated. I lied at first. But I eventually told him part of it. I haven't told him that I cheated with his colleague, because I feel like it'll make him break up with me. I don't know if I should just tell him the truth and accept what will happen. Or I should just keep it to myself. Thank you for this question. I am so sorry, that you find yourself here in this situation. And I'm sure it has involved a lot of heartbreak and a lot of hard feelings. And I just want to honor that. And I just want to honor that I think it's beautiful, that you're reaching out for help, and that you're looking to learn from this experience. Because I believe that when we have experiences that we regret, and leave us in pain, the best thing we can do is to learn from them, and to become wiser people from our hardships. So for your question, Should you tell him the truth? Or should you keep it to yourself, I'm going to say that that's only a decision that you can make, but I want to help you to be able to make that decision. So as I talk a lot about in the podcast, I think you need to decide what would be your intention in telling him because I believe that we want to make our decisions out of love, not fear. So when making a decision, you want to become intentional about why you're making that decision. Is it from a loving place, like I love this person. And I believe that in order to move forward, I need to be fully truthful. That's from a loving place. Er, I'm not going to tell him the full truth right now. Because I need some time in order to heal myself before I open myself up to that conversation. Or it could be from fear, I fear I'll lose him. I fear he won't forgive me. I fear if I tell him I'm confirming I'm a bad person. And I believe that for you, knowing that he cheated on you. You can ask yourself, what would you want him to do? Are you glad that he told you that he cheated? Are you glad that you know the whole truth? And even though you said you don't know if it's the whole truth? Are you glad that you know part of the truth at least because if that's the case, maybe you do want to tell him because you see that in your life, you're grateful that he told you. So you want to become intentional about why you're making the decision you're making. And you want to make it from a loving place because if you'd make decisions from a loving place and you follow your heart, you'll always be guided to the places that will help you to heal and to become that full version of yourself and that version of yourself who's aligned with who you want to be. You may want to be a more truthful person going forward so it may be in your best favor to tell him or You may need time in order to honor your own heart because you've been through a lot of hardship recently, and you've been through a lot of pain that you just may need a little time in both of those are okay, it's going to be different for everyone. Another thing I wanted to mention with this question is that I invite you to explore deeper why you did cheat? Because maybe you want to explore that question before you tell him because maybe you want to give him the reason why you cheated. Because I know that when people are cheated on, oftentimes, they want to understand why their partner did it. And they do want their partner to be self reflective about the process. And that is healing for many people to go through a self reflective process with their partner, because that helps you develop that trust that you're going to want moving forward if you decide to stay in this relationship. So I know you said that you don't know why you cheated. And it could be because you wanted validation, it could have been for revenge, it could have been for love, it could have been all three. But I invite you to get clear on why you did this. Because the truth is, there is a reason why you did this there is an underlying belief and underlying feeling and underlying fear that led you to do this, I invite you to become curious, not judgmental with yourself, the decision was made, it happened, this experience already happened. You don't need to pile on shame. And make yourself feel bad for it any more than I'm sure you already have. Because you said you regret it. So I invite you to become really clear with yourself about why you did it and to become self reflective, and to invite yourself into a deeper dialogue with why you do the things you do. In order for us to change and to be good partners. And to be in loving relationships, we need to begin to understand why we hurt people. And it's okay that we hurt people, we're human. So I invite you to be kind with yourself and compassionate with yourself as you begin to bring more awareness to yourself than you may have before. I also want you to become aware of the loneliness that you felt when you broke up. Because sometimes the best things we can do for ourselves is to be single. Sometimes we're not ready to be in relationship, because we need to take care of ourselves first. And you said that you got back together with him because you couldn't deal with the loneliness. That is a sign to me that there is a part of you that is dying for your attention. There is likely a piece of you likely an inner child or an inner teenager, but a wounded part of you from your past that is looking for attention. And you're not going to find it outside of yourself. It is a lie to think that somebody can love you deeper than you love yourself. It is a lie to think that somebody can fill the holes that only you can fill within you. It is a lie to think that someone else can heal you. If you're listening to this podcast, the hard truth is you are responsible for your own healing. You're responsible for loving yourself so deeply that then you are able to love others so deeply. You have to fill your own cup up first. And sometimes we need to be single or not in relationship in order to learn how to love ourselves. We need to learn how to choose to be with people not to need people. And of course, as human beings we biologically need to be in relationships, and part of communities. But many of us are living from a trauma and a wounded place. Because the love we did not get in our childhoods. And in our youth and in our teen years and the love we didn't get from our parents, we're searching outside of ourselves for it. And the truth is, you have to learn how to love yourself in the ways that you wish somebody loved you. You have to learn to see yourself so deeply that your pain doesn't go unnoticed. Because many of the actions we take that we're unaware of why we did that is because a part of us is looking for our attention. And we act it out. Because in our youth, maybe we used to act out and think somebody would notice and take attention. And that didn't happen. Or maybe it did, maybe it did get people to notice. And now you're still playing out that pattern. So part of healing is learning that it's your responsibility to learn to love yourself. And I can tell you that I used to feel extreme loneliness. And I used to cling to people. I used to be really needy. But what I learned along my healing journey was that only I could love myself deep enough to heal my own wounds. That the love I was so desperately looking for was my own love with my love of self, and a communion with myself and a communion with a power bigger than myself. So I don't know what your self care practices look like. But a few things I recommend that you begin to do so you can become more clear on what you're looking to do. And what's best for you is one to begin journaling. It is such an amazing practice on how to move hard feelings and also how to get in better relationship with yourself is to start journaling is just to start writing down your thoughts or to use a journal prompt and to explore why you do the things you do and to trust what comes out on the page to trust the wisdom within you. Many of us don't trust ourselves Because we live in a world that has taught us not to trust ourselves, and it's taught us to seek outside approval or external sources of validation. But what I invite you to start doing is to seeking that internal validation is seeking inner wisdom, because you hold the answers to your questions, you know what's best for you. And I also don't believe there's a right or wrong answer here. So you could tell him what happened, or you could not. And both will lead you down a different path there's no right or wrong, each choice will lead you to new choices, there is not the choice that ends all choices, your life will continue to guide you where you're meant to go, there's just an easier path and a more difficult path. And the easier path is the one more aligned. And it doesn't mean it's easy. Don't mistake that the easier path is easy. It's only easier because you are following your heart. So you don't have that extra feeling of being out of alignment. But many of the steps I am asked to take on a regular basis, many of the things I am asked to look at many of the hard truths about myself I had had to witness have not been easy. And many of the things I do are not easy. My life is not easy. But it flows because I follow my heart. And when I don't follow my heart, and I live in resistance to it, which happens all the time I'm human to my life becomes more painful, it becomes more difficult because I'm putting extra obstacles in my way, it becomes unbearable, or I begin to numb and that doesn't feel good. And then I eventually fall back into alignment, if that makes sense. Here's some journal prompts to assist you if you're new to journaling, and you find this might be helpful. But for you and your question, one I invite you to journal about should you tell him the full truth or not? Allow yourself to explore that question. And allow yourself to journal about what I mentioned at the beginning of this question of Why are you making the decision you're making? Is it out of fear? Love? What is the most loving thing you could do here? for yourself and for your partner? What is aligned with your heart? Journal about what you think love is? Another journal prompt would be what do you think an ideal relationship would look like? What do you wish your relationship look like? What qualities are you looking for in a healthy relationship? Another journal prompt for you would be to start diving into why you did this. So is it out of revenge validation, love something else? But begin to explore this. Ask yourself why did I do this? And then go deeper? If it's for revenge, ask yourself, why did I think revenge would make me feel better? Where did I learn that revenge was the answer? If it was for validation, ask yourself why did I think that this would be the validation I was seeking? Why did I think cheating on my partner would make me feel better? What was I looking for? What did I think this experience would bring me? What did it actually bring me become curious about your inner world and the decisions you make. And as you begin to journal, if your journaling goes off topic, allow it. Just allow whatever comes up for you to come out on the page. Just begin to commune with yourself through writing. This is a very helpful practice on feeling your feelings and getting to know yourself and I highly recommend you begin journaling. Another piece of advice I have for you is to explore this loneliness. So I invite you to begin intentionally spending time with yourself. If I were you, I would begin spending time with myself daily. But that may be scary for you. So I invite you to weakly set aside time to be alone. What does it feel like to go to dinner by yourself? To go see a movie by yourself? Does that feel unnatural? What would it be like to go for a walk by yourself? Is that something you do? What would it be like to sleep by yourself? I invite you to explore doing things by yourself and doing them. Many times when we've never done things by herself. For example, go to dinner by ourselves. It feels unnatural at first, and then we realize it's okay. Oh, that wasn't so bad to spend time with myself. And if you find it is unbearable to spend time with yourself start to pay attention to your thoughts. Why is it so hard? Because my guess if it was really hard, it would be the things you're telling yourself about being alone. Which if that is the case, I invite you to listen to last week's episode which is how to stop a negative thought cycle and to start becoming aware of the thoughts you're telling yourself about why it's unbearable to be alone. You deserve your own hearts love and there's nothing wrong with being alone. It means nothing about you. You are just as lovable in and out of a relationship. And there is most likely an inner child or a wounded part of you that is seeking love and is afraid of being alone. And I invite you to explore that fear through journaling, possibly through therapy or finding somebody To work with one on one, and also through beginning to spend time alone. And my last piece of advice for you would be to begin to forgive yourself. You say you regret this decision. And I invite you to work on that self forgiveness, which will come when you begin to become aware of what you did. So if you're having trouble forgiving yourself, it's likely because you're looking to see why you did this, bring awareness and healing to it, and then you will be able to let it go. But it can be really hard to let go of things that we are completely unconscious of. So I hope something in this answer was helpful. As always take what resonates and leave what doesn't. And thank you so much for this question I'm sending you so much love.
Amanda Durocher 15:40
A couple months back, I cheated on my partner, they were unaware. And I felt very guilty about it. I tried to be completely loyal and tried to make things better between us because I felt so ashamed. And I loved the man very much. He ended up finding out about my cheating and showed me private messages between him and some other girls from the past month or two in our relationship. Is it normal for me to feel guilty, betrayed and hurt? I feel so down about myself. But then he reminds me I cheated. Also, the difference was I wasn't making other men fall in love with me. Thank you for this question. And my first answer is yes, it is very normal to feel all those things at once. Even though those emotions may feel contradictory for you. It is very normal for us as humans to feel an array of emotions at a time, I often like to do an exercise that I did in an acting class back in the day, where I asked myself, What three emotions Am I feeling right now, because oftentimes, we are feeling more than one emotion. And so it is totally normal, you're feeling all these things, there are days I feel happy and sad at the same time. And these don't seem like they should mesh together. But part of emotional maturity is understanding that it's okay to feel these contradictory emotions at the same time. So I want to say that I'm sorry, for the situation you're in, it does not sound easy. And this is a real struggle that you're in. So I just want to honor that, because it's not an easy situation you found yourself in and what I want to offer to you is finding what is best for you moving forward, because it sounds like you two may be at odds, because you both cheated on each other. So you're both kind of throwing that cheating at each other. And in order to move forward, you're both gonna have to let down that excuse almost of like hurting each other, the visual I'm getting is you're kind of throwing swords at each other, right? So he cheated on you throw that at him, you cheated on him and he throws a sword at you, you're gonna have to let down those sorts, you're gonna have to let down those weapons. And you're gonna have to feel the tough feelings about how you both broke each other's trust. And then you have to decide. And you may have to decide this for yourself. I don't know what your communication is like, but you have to decide if this relationship is worth pursuing. Because if you decide to let down your defenses and your weapons, and he doesn't, that's something for you to look at. Because it's going to take both of you to move forward in a healthy relationship, it's going to take both of you being self reflective about what you did, it's going to take both of you rebuilding the trust that was broken. And it's going to take both of you grieving your old relationship in order to make room for a new one. In Episode 51, I talk with Andrea Giles, and we talk about how when cheating happens, the old relationship is gone. You have to grieve what you thought your relationship was, in order to create a healthy relationship. So if you choose to stay, or you choose to go either way, you're still grieving that old relationship, you still need to let that go, that is not coming back. And so part of what is going on here is that you have all these feelings and you feel guilty, maybe having all these feelings. So in order for you to move forward, you're going to have to accept that yes, you can feel hurt, guilty and betrayed at the same time. Because the truth is, you did cheat, which I understand why that makes you feel guilty. And the truth is you were cheated on. And that would elicit betrayal. Both these experiences exist. And just saying, Well, you cheated, too isn't going to heal your heart. It's not going to fix the situation, it's not going to help the two of you to move forward. So you have to decide for yourself if this relationships worth pursuing and if this person is willing to heal with you. Or if this is a relationship you need to say goodbye to. I'm not sure what the answer is for you here. But I do want to offer for anyone out there and this isn't just for you. But this is for anyone that not all relationships are meant to last forever. Sometimes people come into our lives to teach us really tough lessons. That's part of being human. Not every person we love is going to be the one we stay with forever. Not every relationship we're ever in is going to last forever. So it's okay to grieve and to move on with heartbreak. And with that said the Sometimes the hard things that are happening in relationships are there to teach us how to be a better partner. But this isn't something you can control, you have to work with your partner to see if they're willing to work on this too. Because when this partner says to you that you cheated. Also, when you express your feelings, it sounds like it may create shame within you, and you to have to learn how to communicate about both cheating on each other. And that's really difficult. So, a piece of advice I have for you, if you do decide to stay in this relationship would be to go to couples therapy, it sounds like you both have wounds that are coming out very strong in your relationship and need some attention. So it sounds like you both may not have the coping skills on how to heal from this. And that's okay. Many of us don't have the skills it takes to heal in relationships because many of us didn't grow up in households with healthy relationships. And we didn't see healthy relationships growing up. So we are not given the skills to have healthy relationships. So I invite you to explore couples therapy, I also invite you to explore relationship books. So a book I talk about a lot of the times is getting the love you want. It's a great book because it will help you to see how your past woundings, your inner child wounds or what happened in your childhood or your relationship with your parents is affecting your current relationship it does with the brain and how the brain is seeking to heal that which is unhealed within us. And so many times in our current loving relationships, we are seeking to play out situations from our childhood in order to heal those situations. And the more awareness we can bring to our own wounding and also our partner's wounding can help us to show up as better partners and also help us to see our partners in a new light. Another book I've been recommending a lot recently is adult children of emotionally immature parents. If you feel like you had emotionally immature parents, this book also does talk about current relationships, and how you may be playing out some emotional immaturity because of your relationships with your parents, and how looking at those relationships can help you to heal in your current relationships. Those are two things I invite you to explore. For you personally, I invite you to also journal just like the person in the previous question. I also invite you to explore self care practices, you do have a lot of feelings to feel. So it's going to be important that you will begin to feel your feelings, feel what it feels like to be betrayed. Write down your thoughts and also take care of yourself. And many times when people cheat, they don't feel like they deserve to be taken care of. But no matter who you are, you deserve to be taken care of you deserve to be loved. And only you can give yourself the self care and the love that you are really dying for and you're needing right now. And so it's important for you to take care of yourself. And it's important for your partner to take care of themselves. And then for you to come together in a more healed space. By continually taking care of yourselves and committing to looking at why you both cheated on each other. It's important here that you have a partner who's also willing to be self reflective, and is also willing to be a trustworthy person moving forward, you want to ensure that you're setting yourself up as you heal, to be in a trusting and loving relationship. So I invite you to take care of yourself. I also have an episode on self care where I talk about self care is the bubble baths, it's also feeling the hard feelings. So you may find that helpful for you on your healing journey. I also invite you to be kind to yourself. I know when it comes to cheating, there are so many thoughts or so many feelings, there's so much devastation. And for it to be cheating on both ends, I can just sense that. It's very heartbreaking situation for you. So be kind to yourself, treat yourself like a young child, treat yourself like you would someone you love. Treat yourself somebody who needs to be held and cared for at this time. Because many of the choices you made were from an unconscious place, which is why becoming self reflective and aware of why you do the things you do is going to be so healing and helpful for everyone listening to this episode, because that's the way that you will change that you will heal and that you will ensure that different things happen moving forward or that you react differently. Moving forward, you have to bring awareness to why you do the things you do and where all this originated from in order to be in healing. So you may be able to do this on your own through journaling. But as I mentioned, a couples therapist or even an individual therapist or I offer one on one sessions if you think that would be helpful, but finding a safe place to explore this will be really helpful for you on your healing journey. So I hope something in this answer was helpful. I am sending you so much love as you continue to heal from this. Again, this is not easy. When we experiences like this. We often try to rush through them because they're matters of the heart but matters of the heart are extremely painful, and deserve energy and attention. And many times matters of the heart we don't see that external gold so we don't see a project finished or we don't see the house built or we don't see a ring on the finger or you know we don't see that external validation but matters of the heart deserve just as much attention as anything that needs to be built or cared For outside of us, so I am sending you so much love and I hope you found something in this answer helpful. Thank you for this question.
Amanda Durocher 25:12
Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of New View Advice. As always, I am so grateful to offer you guidance on your healing journey. If you are unaware, I have a website newviewadvice.com that has lots of resources and a lot of free resources and also show notes so if you want to visit you can visit at New View Advice.com And check out different journal prompts I have I've journal prompts on many different topics. I also have meditations and I also have resources there to assist you on your healing journey. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of newView advice as always, I hope I was able to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through sending you all my love. See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai