My girlfriend cheated on me but I still love her. Is there any worse experience than that? I think there’s nothing more painful than when you know deep down in your gut that something that your girlfriend or ex-girlfriend did to you is wrong, but you still just can’t stop yourself from loving the woman who hurt you. When that happens, in a way, we subconsciously do this on purpose, because we are desperately grasping for a sign that the one who betrayed us isn’t a terrible person — but of course, just because your heart tells you that you still love her, you probably shouldn’t. So let’s talk about it.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster, and here I teach men how to move on from an ex-girlfriend. I recently saw this great line in a TV show that went something like “There’s nothing worse than when you can’t help but loving someone who you know will always disappoint you,“… That’s roughly how it feels to love a cheating woman. I want to get this straight out of the way beforehand, I do believe that cheating can be forgiven and that people can change. Both men and women. It’s possible to never cheat again after a once-in-a-lifetime mistake. But of course, the problem is that most toxic traits in a relationship tend to be repeated eventually, unless there is enough motivation to change.

I think that’s where this glimmer of hope comes from. That an ex-girlfriend who cheated on you didn’t mean it, it was just a mistake, she gave in to her weakness, and so on. And, sure, this can be 100% true. Couples often mistreat each other because well, they are mentally weak, but also inexperienced with relationships. 

The problem, however, is that you shouldn’t decide whether your ex-girlfriend is that type of person or not right after you have been hurt and have broken up. Right after a breakup, especially when your ex-girlfriend cheated on you, it will be extremely difficult to rationally see whether your ex can be redeemed or not. In most cases, you are more likely to get tempted back into a relationship with a cheating ex because she is pretending to make a change, rather than actual change having happened.

This is why the most important thing you need to do after a breakup is to gain distance from your cheating ex-girlfriend and see your breakup and the entire relationship in a more rational light. I think it is very difficult to see your ex-girlfriend’s actions for what they really were early on after a breakup. That’s because you are looking for the hope that your ex-girlfriend is not a bad woman. You want to convince yourself that loving her is OK. You want to believe that all this time, maybe for years, your love for her hasn’t been in vain. But, it’s possible to see a relationship as not having been in vain, yet still accept that you’ve been mistreated. Just because something really bad happened to you doesn’t mean that there weren’t a lot of important moments in that relationship, and for sure, you have taken away many important lessons from the relationship, especially because of the cheating.

If your ex-girlfriend cheated on you, then you have to see it as it is. The last time that you were together, she had no capacity to properly love you. And when someone doesn’t give us love as we desire it, we should withhold our own love. That’s not an advice to immediately stop being affectionate in a relationship when you don’t get affection. That, obviously, is a recipe for disaster.

But at some point, you have to call a spade a spade. A woman who can’t love you with a proper moral framework, doesn’t deserve your love. Can she maybe earn that love again in the future? It really depends, I can’t speak for you and your situation. In most cases, probably not. Change is very difficult. It’s possible, but you should recognize that most people never change or they may fall back to their old habits. I think this type of change is much better to be observed WHILE you’re still in a relationship.

This is why couples therapy works, because if you actually want to change, and you’re actually doing the work together, it’s more likely that you can fix the issues in real time. But if you already broke up, and now you’re hoping that your ex has magically seen the error in her ways, AND she is changing the way she behaves in life… Well, it is possible in theory, but you can’t know for sure. You have to be incredibly careful with forgiveness of an ex who cheated on you. I’m not suggesting that it’s not possible, but the better course of action is to create distance from your ex, and even IF she had a real change of heart and she is worth forgiving… She would still be worth forgiving, even if you had moved on with your life. Because under such a scenario, you could still give the relationship another try, but you also didn’t risk of holding on to false hope.

So, my advice for you, in terms of being in love with your ex, even though she cheated on you, is to actually write down all the bad qualities that you remember about her. Trash-talking an ex, or more accurately, making yourself aware of all their bad qualities, can really help with moving on because you become more aware of all the bad sides of them.

Whether an ex cheated on you or not, eventually, you always have to let go, see the bad parts for what they were, and then stay positive, and set out for a new life, and search for a new relationship, where all these bad things won’t happen again. Being cheated on is just one more bad quality of a woman that you have to learn to no longer accept in a relationship. And with time, as you no longer make excuses for your ex-girlfriend, you will begin to move on. It probably won’t happen immediately, and even if rationally you know that she doesn’t deserve your love, of course, you will still have feelings for her for a long time. Especially because of what happened. It’s ironic, but these abuse-like behaviors tend to make us cling to someone even more, not fall out of love with them.

But the more consciously you make yourself aware of her shortcomings, and perhaps also make yourself aware of all the great qualities that OTHER women have, the easier and faster it will be for you to finally let go. Leave it all behind. And hey, maybe in a year, or two years from now, you’ll look back at this and you won’t even believe that you still loved her despite of the things she did. So don’t paint your ex-girlfriend in a good light. Especially not if she hasn’t tried to repent for her sins. You deserve a better woman, and eventually, you will find her.

I wouldn’t suggest you to start dating right away after you’ve been cheated on… In fact, I think it’s one of the times, where you need the longest time to heal, so you don’t get into another relationship with a really great woman, but you’re still an emotional wreck. So instead of focusing heavily on dating, I would encourage you to focus on yourself. Toxic women, not only cheaters, tend to hold us back a lot in life. As they say, the person that you marry is the most important decision that you’ll ever make. 

It’s likely that your ex-girlfriend has been holding you back to reach your full potential, and because of this, it’s best to focus on precisely that. To become happy with all the things that you can achieve. The sky is now the limit because you are no longer burdened by a terrible relationship. So use your time of being single, and likely still being heartbroken, to develop a strong inner sense of strength and independence. Being cheated on by a woman has a very detrimental effect on your self-esteem, so the best thing you can do is rebuild your confidence, heal from the wounds inflicted by your ex-girlfriend, and let go of your love for her, because she’s not worth it. Neither is she worth it to feel insecure or believe that you aren’t a valuable man. So, I hope you can move on from your ex, and convince yourself that it’s not worth being in love with her.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time.