Getting Over An Affair: Healing After Being Cheated On And Regaining Your Sense Of Worth

By Rebekah Clarke

The pain of being cheated on is an emotional trauma that's incredibly difficult to endure, let alone heal from. The shattering realisation that your partner has strayed and given themselves to another is heartbreaking. You think your life is over, you doubt you'll ever be happy again and you just want things to go back to how they were before. Perhaps you wish you could go back in time and do something - anything - to stop the affair ever taking place. Maybe you're praying that you'll wake up one day and this is all one big horrible nightmare.

 

The dark, painful feelings that we have to endure after discovering we've been cheated on are some of the worst days we'll ever have to make it through. I know what you're going through because I've also suffered the heartbreak of infidelity - but I also know what it feels like to come out of the other side.

 

From suffering a breakdown and neglecting myself and those around me to now thriving and able to trust again, I know you can bounce back from this traumatic time. This book won't offer judgement - I'm not here to tell you to leave the relationship nor am I an advocate for you to stay - but it will offer you the tools you need to heal. I'll offer you my thoughts and advice based on my experiences, and I'll give you a little glimpse of the pain I endured, too.

 

Throughout this book, I'll cover the following:

 

• Why did your spouse cheat?

• The nasty effects a cheating spouse has on us.

• Coping strategies after discovering the infidelity.

• Building up your sense of worth.

• A non-judgemental commentary about the "should I leave the relationship or not" question you may be pondering.

• How to trust a new partner.

 

This book began as a little project for a website I was writing for, but as time went on I decided it served best as a series of books. I read a ton of books when recovering from the heartache of being cheated on, and to offer that same kind of comfort and actionable advice to someone who's in the same position as I was is amazing to me. I hope this book series serves its purpose - to help you heal and to inspire you to know your worth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebekah Clarke Books
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393591054

Book preview

The Pain Of Infidelity Hurts Like No Other

The dagger in the heart, punch in the guts feeling of discovering you’ve been cheated on is utterly world-shattering. The dizzying realisation that the person who ought to love you - and only you - have strayed is enough to make you crumble into a thousand pieces. The feeling is incomparable to anything I’ve experienced in life so far, and as you can imagine, I certainly wouldn’t rush to experience that kind of deflated feeling ever again.

You feel utter betrayal; you feel immense anger, grief, and shock. You wish so much that it’s just a horrible nightmare that you could wake up from. You flit between wanting to hurt your partner for hurting you to wanting their affection. Your emotions are all over the place, and you find yourself behaving in ways you usually wouldn’t.

I know the feeling all too well.

My ex-partner cheated on me several times, although each time hurt just as much as the last. This book is for people like me; those who have been cheated on and who wish to stay with their unfaithful spouse or who’ve tried to forgive and just can’t. I want to show you that you deserve better, help you understand why people cheat and how (no matter how much you don’t believe it right now) that you can live without your spouse.

A lot of books offer help for those who’ve been through infidelity and want to fix their relationship. I do believe an unfaithful partner can change, depending on the circumstances. The level of intimacy, the length of the lying and the overall situation dictate whether the relationship can be fixed (for good - no more cheating and lying), but the chances of this being a fairytale ending are slim. Plus, in what fairytale did the Prince go off and cheat on the Princess? There’s no fairytale where the knight in shining armour lies and lies to the damsel, causing her to think she might be going mad. No relationship is perfect, but you deserve more than being deceived and hurt like that.

With that in mind, this book is about the most important thing right now: you. Whether you stay or leave, you need to rebuild yourself from the ground up, and that’s just what I’m trying to do with this book. Get you better, fix your broken emotions and prop you back up so you can find yourself again.

I’d been with my partner for two years when I discovered he’d cheated. He went out one night for drinks with friends and didn’t come home until 2 pm the next day. While it wasn’t uncommon for him to stay out until the early hours, this time, I just had a gut instinct that something had happened. His phone was going straight to voicemail; none of his friends would answer my calls (and when they did, they acted like they’d no idea where he was). I was sick with worry until he turned back up the next day, reeking of booze. His jumper was on back to front. I knew deep down in my gut that something had gone on.

In his still-drunken state, I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him as to where he’d been all night/day or why his jumper had been taken off and put back on the wrong way round. He went to sleep for the next ten or so hours while I sat in the living room, racking my brains as to what had happened.

When I spoke to him about it when he was sober, he claimed he’d gone to another friend’s house, passed out drunk, and his phone had died. He had no idea that his jumper was the wrong way round and had no answer for that. Still, my gut knew something was up. I did some digging.

I was friends with a girlfriend of one of the men he’d been drinking with and caught up with her. I did some subtle questioning, acting like I was fine with my partner being out all night, like I knew exactly where he’d been and who with. She left me a clue, unintentionally, by mentioning how she didn’t understand why Antony, another of my partner’s friends, had invited his ex to the party as she was trouble. I was unaware other women were there, which isn’t an issue - but why did my ex omit this from his retelling of the night’s events?

So, in a move I still can’t comprehend doing (but that miraculously worked), I called Anthony and told him I knew about that night, and I know why he wasn’t answering my calls. I didn’t