Why does being cheated on hurt so bad? How could you ever get over this if your ex-girlfriend cheated on you? Hey guys, welcome back to the Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster, and here I teach men to move on from their ex-girlfriend. 

Being cheated on, man, that is quite a personal topic to me. The experience of being cheated on by a woman is often quite ruthless because some women really go out of their ways to… How to say it right… They practically feel justified in what they were doing. They think that they had a good reason for cheating on their boyfriend.

Now, obviously, not all women act this way, but there is a subset of women who embrace a certain mindset where it’s always the man’s fault for the relationship not working out. I could be talking about men cheating as well, but men tend to cheat for very different reasons than women.

Women primarily cheat due to a lack of emotional connection, which they then often use as a justification to cheat. And a woman who justifies her cheating, is the worst thing happening to a man. Because not only does the pain of being cheated on hurt, but worse, you can see that your significant other has no remorse about what she did.

I’ll be honest… I suppose you could say I cheated in the past. Emotional cheating, you could say. It was pretty mild and essentially nothing happened, but I’ve seen both sides of the coin. Back then, I had a chronic cheating and party-going girlfriend, and I installed Tinder, and matched with a few girls. I never talked to any of them, but that by itself already made me hate myself.

The remorse I felt and the dislike of who I was becoming as a man made me feel extremely dirty and unhappy with myself. I think this kind of behavior resonates with most people. I think a lot of sensible people who cheated in the past, no matter to which degree, would recognize that they acted wrongly, and the experience taught them a lot about who they want to be, who they definitely don’t want to be, and perhaps also what type of partner they would want to avoid so that they can be in a healthier relationship. 

But many women don’t act this way. When they cheated on a man, they believe they had the right to do so. As if it was obvious that they had no other choice but to find another man. But, of course, nobody’s ever in the right when they are cheating on a partner. 

Certainly, the experience of being cheated on, the reasons for it, and the fallout from all of it differs for men and women, but in this post I’ll talk strictly from the perspective of men. When a woman cheats on you, it’s so hurtful because most of the time, a woman cheats because she no longer feels emotionally connected to you. And instead of trying to repair the connection, she will simply try to replace the connection with another man.

This is the core of why cheating is so hurtful for men. It makes us feel as if we were replaceable to our ex-girlfriend. And unfortunately, that is often precisely what happens. When you find out that your ex-girlfriend cheated on you, and when the relationship inevitably ended because of it, you’d expect that she will at least have remorse and try to ease your pain by holding herself accountable. Perhaps she will try to make amends and fix the relationship with you, or at the very least, you’d wish that she would apologize and take accountability for her actions because you needed her to say that she regrets hurting you so much.

But instead, most of the time, you’ll simply see a continuation of the pattern. Now, obviously, with the continuation of the pattern, I don’t mean a continuation of the cheating… After all, at that point, you broke up and you’re no longer a couple. But what I mean is, that she will continue to date the guy that she cheated with you on, or she will continue to go wild, party, drink, meet lots of guys, and seeing her not even being remorseful, sad, disturbed by her actions, and so on, but rather seeing her doubling down on her behaviors is the part that hurts the most.

It’s not only the cheating that hurts. Yes, it’s painful when your girl cheats on you. But the harsher part is the light-heartedness with which a woman does it. From a man’s perspective, generally speaking, we are encouraged and need to be held accountable to our actions at all times. The reality is that if you’re a man and you screw up in life, in your relationships, or with your friends, and so on, then you’re simply going to lose out in life. With your career, with women, with opportunities. 

There’s nobody to hold your hand, and certainly no woman goes out of her way to support you, unless you provide value to her. For women, often they will get support from men without doing much, simply because men care primarily about a woman being attractive, as such, you could say that our standards are somewhat lower and we’re more likely to help a woman out than women would help a man out.

To a man, when he makes a mistake, he really feels that and he has to face reality. Either he changes his way in life, or he is going to repeat the same bad outcome again and again. Just look at dating. If you messed up with a woman and she dumped you, maybe because you were a lazy bum, then the next one is going to dump you again if you continue being a lazy bum. If you’re a woman and you messed up with a guy, she can have a new guy by tomorrow if she’d want to because men have a lower barrier for entry when it comes to relationships. And that guy will stick with her for a long time, even if she still has her old bad behavior trait.

So as such, for a man, cheating in a relationship or screwing up… These are life-defining events, where he’s faced with two choices: Change, go through some pain to achieve that change, and then receive lots of pleasure in the future. Or, don’t change, and go through the same problems over and over again. Of course, not every man is like that. Not every man has an outstanding character. Some men are lazy, love to cheat, don’t work hard, don’t want to see their flaws, and so on. But I think the average guy is committed to being a good man in society, relationships, marriage, and so on.

And so when a woman cheats on you, you often have to face this discrepancy or gap in behavior. A woman may be less likely to hold herself accountable to her actions. I could tell you stories about my own cheating situation, which I won’t out of respect, but let’s just say, I saw some wild stuff back then. Even now, about 7 years later, I can still remember that pain and some of the harsh truths that I had to be confronted with as if it was yesterday. And I actually got cheated on by a girl before that, so I sort of knew what it’s like to be cheated on. 

But I’ll never forget the first time when I was faced with the harsh reality of just how far a woman will go with her cheating, and how she just doesn’t care how you feel at all, because to her, she thinks she’s doing nothing wrong. She thinks you aren’t or weren’t making her happy, so screw you. “I’m what matters!”

And some women will almost highlight their promiscuity to you, sort of as a middle finger, because they want to hurt you. They want you to know that you weren’t good enough for them, and somebody else is. I hope you aren’t going through exactly such a scenario. I hope the way you were cheated on was a brief lapse of judgment by your ex-girlfriend, not something she did out of spite, in a very calculated manner. And I hope you could just move on quickly from it. Accept what happened, as hard as it is, and then move on with your life.

But if you feel like the woman who cheated on you just doesn’t care how it made you feel, then don’t beat yourself up. Don’t think that this is normal. Don’t think that you deserve any of this. And definitely don’t become bitter or think that every woman out there is like that. Yes, I do think there is a higher average of women than men who have this behavior, but I suppose you could say it’s rather that the extremes are more pronounced, not the averages. So, meaning, there are probably more women who do extreme types of cheating than men. 

But in the end, men and women are about the same in terms of cheating, and men actually do cheat more often. And perhaps women would have something to say about the degree of how men cheat and how they perceive it as extremely painful.

The point here is, cheating does happen, maybe about 30% of all couples or individuals have cheated at least once on a partner. And out of those 30%, only a smaller percentage cheat in ways that could be described as extremely cruel. But of course, cheating always feels cruel. But I think you understand what I’m saying. Don’t think that if you’ve been cheated on by a woman, and perhaps been treated like you never mattered, that every woman will treat you this way.

I know how hard it is to get over a woman’s cheating. ESPECIALLY a woman’s cheating when there’s no remorse. I know you are probably going through extreme amounts of pain, and you’re not sure if this pain is ever going to go away. But believe me, it does. It will probably take a long time. Years. And I’m not saying you’ll fully forget. You’ll always carry that experience with you. But there’s not only bad sides to it. If you’ve been cheated on by a woman, now you know what type of red flag to look out for in a woman.

If you’re in a relationship with a woman, you should do your best to have healthy communication patterns, and reconnection rituals to frequently make it a habit of learning to love each other better. And especially if you are a proactive leader in the relationship, which usually a woman should appreciate… So if you are leading in a relationship, suggesting these kinds of things, and the woman that you’re dating won’t reciprocate it, or will feel attacked or uncomfortable about you trying to lead a healthy relationship, then you know instantly that it’s time to date somebody else.

I know, this is not comforting to all of you right now. If you’re watching this, right now you are probably primarily in the stage of going through a lot of pain, grief, feelings of betrayal, maybe even hatred. But see this as an opportunity to gain clarity on what type of woman you would like to date in the future.

Don’t try to make sense of what your ex did. Either she tells you exactly how she feels and why she did what she did, or you have to find that peace all on your own. And even if she gives you closure, or tries to explain herself, there’s a chance that her reasoning for cheating will just sound like gaslighting, like a bad excuse, and that won’t help, it’ll maybe just make it worse, or hurt again.

The best thing you can do right now is try to move forward. Gain clarity on what type of man you want to become now. And it’s even okay to be angry. Use that anger to transform yourself. Become more attractive. Become smarter. Become more successful.

In the end, you will be coming out of this stronger than before. And then, one day, you’ll find a high quality woman who will never treat you the way that the last woman treated you. Don’t give up hope that you will find a good woman. Stay positive and keep fighting, I know you got this, you’ll get over this pain.

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