How do you regain trust after being cheated on

You should never trust anyone to begin with, they have to earn it, so make them earn it and try to gain their trust as well

@xueli: Sorry, but to me all those "reasons" just sound like excuses. In fact a lot of what you said is standard rhetoric for a cheater. Someone can come up with a list of excuses for anything. And I tend to stop listening once they make excuses for their behavior. :\

@Gudmoore, of course they would sound like that because I was listing things that can motivate someone to cheat. I'm empathetic towards the motivation, but I'm not sympathetic as to the cheating action that the other person can have. In situations like this, the best case would be that the potential cheater would have a conversation with the person potentially being cheated on. But, of course as with life, there's a lot of reasons why a problem with the relationship can get to the point of cheating. Which is also why, while I understand the knee-jerk reaction to paint things in black and white, it's hard for me to form an opinion since there's so many variables. Well, not that my opinion really counts. Only the people involved in the situation can figure out what they want. I dunno, I'm a very big everything in shades of gray kind of person. Too much empathy probably hahaha, it makes me feel bad for everyone involved :p

Relationships rarely fully recover after cheating is involved from what I have seen and there is always a scar and a lingering doubt no matter how long it fades away. It is not impossible to move beyond it but requires you both to tear open the inner workings of your relationship and selves and examine objectively; few can do that easily. Cheating is usually either because the relationship is dysfunctional and/or one or both of the partners are. If there is no immensely strong indication the incentive to work on things exists beyond words, which can lie, it is best to move on ~90% of the time. If you give it a shot and keep going, the first signs of relapsing or they actually cheat again it's game over. You are not equitable partners if you are not sufficient for each other. @crimson - Two wrongs rarely make something right. To repay cheating with another act of infidelity only serves to inject further doubt into the relationship from the opposite direction and often becomes the last nail in the coffin for the relationship. If they are the right person you would never want intimacy from another. It can be a bitter consolation prize. @xueli - Biology is a part of the issue but some now days want to use it as license for hedonistic behaviors(not implying you were). The war of the sexes is indeed natures fault however. Men and women are wired very differently in how they experience, perceive, and react to life. We were built to be complimentary and need the other to survive and thrive as a competitive species. To facilitate this nature wired our primal instincts to be strong and override our rational minds sometimes via hormones. For instance they recently observed in brain scans when a man sees a sexy naked woman or a woman he is very attracted to his mind changes similar to chugging 2 beers. He is not dizzy but has impaired reflexes and sometimes speech trouble and the same suppressed neural activity in the reasoning centers of the brain allowing the reptilian areas to take over and obey the call of nature as it were. It works differently but women have a similar system that governs attraction and the same suppressed reasoning is observed. My favorite cheater excuse: 'I don't know why, it just happened' may not be that bad of one after all. Having said that once upon a time a criteria of being a human being was the ability to override instinct with conscious reason otherwise they are just another animal.

Not everyone is built to forgive someone after that. I tried to and it took me a year to realize that I couldn't. I think the more loyal the person is the more likely they are to NOT forgive a cheater.

@xueli: The difference is I'm kind of a cynic, where you seem to be more of an optimist. In the end OP is getting both viewpoints from us. So it's all good.

Ok so I'm just going to put my opinion out there. People are human ok. We all make mistakes and have temptations and urges and in my opinion the emotional bond between two people is more important than the sexual nuances that happen. Don't get me wrong I think that boundaries and comfort zones are something that should be discussed beforehand but if part of who she is or part of who you are is having multiple sexual partners then that's not necessarily "cheating" or being "disloyal" or "betraying" you. But if you feel this has underlying emotional problems its best just to move on from it. Either she's into causing dramma or she wants to toy with your emotions or she is uncertain of you. Idk if that helped but I just wanted to assure you cheating isn't always a bad thing.

"but if part of who she is or part of who you are is having multiple sexual partners then that's not necessarily "cheating" or being "disloyal" or "betraying" you" That doesn't stop it from being any of that. There is a massive difference between being in a relationship and just sleeping around. Yeah, it's different with open relationships. However, the thing is in open relationships both parties know the partner will possibly be sleeping around. When a relationship is supposed to be exclusive and one side starts sleeping around, that is 100% cheating and betrayal. It doesn't matter if "that's part of who you are". It's still cheating, disloyalty and betrayal. When someone says it's a part of who they are it's saying that they ARE all these things.