9 Ways To Get Over The Fear Of Being Cheated On
Being afraid that our partner will cheat on us severely limits our ability to enjoy the best part of being with someone else.
What follows are some tips to help you conquer this fear that’s robbing you of a healthy relationship.
1. Work on your low self-esteem.
A healthy, long-lasting relationship cannot happen where one or both parties are, for want of a better word, ‘broken.’
One of the best things you can do for your relationship is to work on yourself and learn how to love yourself.
It is only when you love and value yourself that you can do that for someone else.
You need to improve your self-esteem and self-worth so that you feel deserving of love.
Because if you feel you don’t deserve love, it’s likely you’ll come to fear anything that might confirm that feeling—infidelity being one of the key things.
2. Date someone you can trust.
Do you trust your partner? As in deep down inside, do you trust them with your heart?
It’s okay to say no. What’s not okay is staying with someone you don’t trust.
Maybe you have an unrealistic fear of being cheated on. Or, perhaps your partner is actually engaging in suspicious behavior and gaslighting you into thinking you are the problem.
It’s possible the problem is not that you are afraid your partner will cheat. The problem might actually be that you don’t trust them to stay faithful to you.
If you’ve looked at your relationship objectively and know that the missing piece is trust, it’s time for you to find someone you can trust.
A healthy relationship is based on trust. If mutual trust is missing from your relationship, what do you have? Love cannot survive in such an environment.
3. Understand your boundaries.
Boundaries let your partner know how you will accept to be treated. They teach them what you are willing to put up with.
If you don’t set boundaries in your relationship, you can’t expect the other person to know the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
For example, perhaps your partner thinks it’s okay to flirt with other people, even in front of you. Unless you have told them otherwise, they won’t see a problem with it.
If you haven’t communicated this to them, you may see that flirting as a sign they want to cheat on you or are going to cheat on you.
Your partner may, in fact, have no intention of cheating and just see it as innocent fun.
Do yourself a favor and set some boundaries around behaviors your partner currently does—or may do—that cause you to feel insecure and concerned about their commitment to you.
4. Communicate your fears to your partner.
If your relationship is healthy and will go the distance, you can’t be afraid to express yourself to your partner.
One of the best ways you can overcome the paranoia of being cheated on by your partner is to communicate your fears to them.
Be open, vulnerable even, and talk about what you’re afraid of.
Explain to them how you’ve been hurt in the past and how some of their actions remind you of that wound.
A good partner will reaffirm their feelings for you. Some might even commit to working with you to help you overcome your insecurities or paranoia.
Do you know how some wounds need to be exposed to air in order to heal? That’s what talking about your fears does—it airs it out and helps you heal.
Otherwise, the paranoia will continue to feed itself and grow until it destroys your relationship entirely.
5. Stop snooping.
Have you ever noticed that when you suspect someone of doing something and snoop through their things to find information to support or refute it, you usually find information to support it?
That’s because we’re so emotionally tied to the situation that we misconstrue harmless information into damning evidence.
An innocent text sent to a colleague saying “I miss you” gets blown up into an admission of a torrid affair between the two.
You might not consider the possibility that the colleague may have been out of the office and your partner simply misses having them around at work.
Stop snooping because it’s a huge violation of trust. Stop snooping because you’ll probably find information that will increase your paranoia. And stop snooping because it’s a huge waste of energy.
Put yourself in your partner’s shoes. Why would they want to stay with someone who does not respect their privacy or trust them?
Stop snooping and put your energy to better use.
6. Stop worrying about it.
You may be right. Your partner might be trying to cheat on you.
The only thing that’s keeping them from doing so right now is… absolutely nothing.
If they are going to cheat, nothing and no one will stop them from doing so.
Not your hypervigilance. Nor your suspicions.
In fact, those things might actually drive them to cheat if they weren’t planning on doing it before.
They will cheat regardless of what you do or say if they really want to. You can’t control their actions.
So, stop worrying about it.
While this may seem like a pretty pessimistic way of looking at the situation, it releases you to focus on the things in your life or relationship that you can actually control.
Instead of worrying about what they are doing or not doing, focus on being a better you and enjoying the present moment.
7. Hold on to the good you do have.
What is good about your relationship?
What do you like about your partner?
Why did you choose to commit to them?
If you’ve been obsessing over your fear of them cheating, chances are you’ve been focusing on the negative aspects of your relationship.
You’ve likely forgotten the many things you appreciate about them and concentrated solely on characterizing them as a lying, cheating bastard.
But they can’t be all that bad, otherwise, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to catch them in the act.
Let go of your suspicions and concentrate on what makes your relationship worth all this stress. Focus on the good you have with your partner.
8. Face the fear.
Let’s play a game. It’s called “And then what?”
The purpose of this game is to help you realize and face your fears.
Imagine the worst-case scenario—your partner is cheating. Ask yourself the question “and, then what?”
The answer might be something like “I’ll be hurt.”
Once again you ask “and, then what?”
You might respond with something along the lines of, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to remain in the relationship.”
Then you ask, “and then what if you can’t stay in the relationship?”
Keep playing that game until you get to the actual point of your fear, which could be the fear of abandonment or rejection.
Once you drill down to exactly what you’re afraid of, you’ll know two things:
– what you need to work on
– no matter what happens, you’ll be okay
Identify your fears, work through them, and conquer them.
9. Know that you’ll be okay.
Bob Marley once said, “you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”
This basically means that no matter what life throws your way, you have the strength to handle it.
If your partner is cheating on you, you will be okay.
You are a lot stronger than you realize or give yourself credit for.
While being betrayed by a trusted partner is excruciating, it is not more than you can handle.
Embrace the fact that you will bounce back from it and know that you will be okay.
