Those who have been cheated on. How did you get past all of the paranoia in future relationships?
November 4, 2025
Those who have been cheated on. How did you get past all of the paranoia in future relationships?
23 comments
When I was processing it I was worried I might never be able to trust a romantic partner again. That idea was so dark. I realized I didn’t want to live like that or love like that for the rest of my life. I decided I couldn’t let my ex take away my trust and happiness from my future relationships. I could never prevent it from happening again, but I could make a conscious choice in how I handled myself afterwards. Trust is just that – you can’t know it for sure. If I approached every relationship with paranoia and distrust then _I_ was the person who was preventing me from being happy. I think I was lucky in coming to that conclusion so young. It was like a flip switched and I never worried about it again. To my knowledge I’ve never been cheated on again. Which also may be luck, but I’m glad as hell I didn’t waste my own time worrying about
I learned to love myself.. as cliche as that sounds.
You gotta learn how to love yourself and know your own value. Accept that some people are going to be shit. It doesnt matter how “perfect” you are.. people who cheat are going to cheat regardless of how “perfect” you are. You just gotta give yourself the comfort that everythings going to be okay with or without the person, that whether or not u r cheated on, wont affect your value or who you are.
They cheated on me with two and one was from the same university, every day I saw them together and they rubbed it in my face, at first I thought that she had missed me, if it really wasn’t enough, what she had that I didn’t, until I realized that if a person is going to cheat on you you really can’t help it, even if you are the best woman in the world, think about it this way, if I cheat on you, they are doing you a favor, since someone like that is worthless
It took time. I had to let myself be scared, jealous, suspicious all of it without judging those feelings. I had to remind myself that I’m no longer with the person who made me question my worth. Slowly, someone showed me consistency. Small things, like keeping promises and following through. Love feels different now it’s slower, calmer, less fireworks and more steady warmth. And honestly, I prefer it that way.
Therapy, self love, and dating different. As much as our traumas are our problem to deal and heal from, I found that it didn’t help dating people without boundaries, people who lied by omission, men with porn addictions and insecure men who needed validation from other females. It was very triggering. So yeah, seek therapy if you need it, lift yourself up through affirmations that remind you that their disloyalty had nothing to do with you, and steer clear of men who show the same patterns right from the jump. Good luck OP!
To be honest with you there are always flags. There are tells. I don’t care what anyone says: A woman always knows. If you didn’t know, you weren’t paying attention and then this is how it happened. Nothing makes it right but cheating is a sign of something wrong in a relationship. Therefore.. you have to pay attention. It is your responsibility to know what is happening in your relationship. I’ve been really harmed by partners beyond cheating and every time, it was because I wanted to believe things were better than they were
It honestly didn’t affect my future relationships. I’m a “I trust you until you give me a reason not to” type of person.
I just don’t do relationships anymore lol
[removed]
I didnt, I accepted the fact that it can happen to anyone, and anyone can cheat
I understood that this meant that I should never trust my particular cheating ex, not that all men were suspect. And I was right—I’ve been in ten relationships since then; they’ve ended for different reasons; and the one thing they had in common was that it wasn’t infidelity that broke us up! 12 relationships total, 1 cheater. That’s good odds and shows that most men cheat. But some are dicks, just like women who cheat.
There was no paranoia, I’m not going to hold my new boyfriend to the standards of my ex. I’m not naive enough to think it’ll never ever happen, I’m just of the mindset of ‘if it does, that’ll be annoying because I’ll have to end things.’
I waited a long time until I knew what I wanted and what I would accept in a partner. I trust my partner completely.
Looooottsssssss of therapy
Oof, hard one. Lots and lots of therapy to find my own identity outside of relationships. Pushing myself to date and be in a relationship once I was ready, and to not listen to that little voice in my head that told me, ‘but what if…?’. It’s hard, it was almost 10 years ago, and now I’m in a very happy relationship. Sometimes the little voice still comes up, but now I’ve learned to recognize it, realize it’s my own past talking, and not apply that feeling of suspicion to my partner. It doesn’t mean I don’t listen to my intuition. It means that I’m not taking action when there’s no reason to.
Even with a partner that I trust completely I still get scared. I need to be honest about my past and my feelings (even if they are irrational) because I need his support and understanding as I continue to heal.
They’re not that person lol
I had to remind myself that a new person isn’t responsible for someone else’s damage. Healing was slow, but it happened. Trust doesn’t come back all at once, just one small moment at a time.
It took a long time for me to realise that not everyone is the same
Weirdly enough I didn’t carry it with me into future relationships.
The new person isn’t the one who cheated on me. I’m quite good at compartmentalizing stuff and I put blame where it’s due.
If they want to, they will. Positive or negative. Let them.
Someone’s behavior 97.3% of the time is a reflection of themselves not you, particularly when it’s unhealthy behavior. Don’t let someone else’s insecurities make you insecure.
Your past is not your present, there’s a reason it didn’t work out, so don’t let it impact your future.
Be mindful of your own habits and attachments. Don’t fall in love with dopamine.
Effort feels like effort, interest feels like interest. Don’t fall for love bombing. Those butterflies in your stomach is your nervous system telling you something. Listen to your gut.
My grandma used to say if a lion has to tell you he’s a lion then he’s lyin’. It sounds so silly and simple but it really applies. Believe people when they tell you who they are, but more so when they show you who they are. The more they tell you I’m the nice guy I’m not like other girls the quicker you should run.
honestly, I did not preceive the cheating as ‘my’ flaw in the first place. I rather acknowledged that I had absolute shittaste in men, because he had shown signs of dismissive carelessness in order to exclusivity early on, yet, I did blatantly overlooked that. So, what I definitely did afterwards was not giving men who used the same language/showed similar signs a chance to even a second date.
23 comments
When I was processing it I was worried I might never be able to trust a romantic partner again. That idea was so dark. I realized I didn’t want to live like that or love like that for the rest of my life. I decided I couldn’t let my ex take away my trust and happiness from my future relationships. I could never prevent it from happening again, but I could make a conscious choice in how I handled myself afterwards. Trust is just that – you can’t know it for sure. If I approached every relationship with paranoia and distrust then _I_ was the person who was preventing me from being happy. I think I was lucky in coming to that conclusion so young. It was like a flip switched and I never worried about it again. To my knowledge I’ve never been cheated on again. Which also may be luck, but I’m glad as hell I didn’t waste my own time worrying about
I learned to love myself.. as cliche as that sounds.
You gotta learn how to love yourself and know your own value. Accept that some people are going to be shit. It doesnt matter how “perfect” you are.. people who cheat are going to cheat regardless of how “perfect” you are. You just gotta give yourself the comfort that everythings going to be okay with or without the person, that whether or not u r cheated on, wont affect your value or who you are.
They cheated on me with two and one was from the same university, every day I saw them together and they rubbed it in my face, at first I thought that she had missed me, if it really wasn’t enough, what she had that I didn’t, until I realized that if a person is going to cheat on you you really can’t help it, even if you are the best woman in the world, think about it this way, if I cheat on you, they are doing you a favor, since someone like that is worthless
It took time. I had to let myself be scared, jealous, suspicious all of it without judging those feelings. I had to remind myself that I’m no longer with the person who made me question my worth. Slowly, someone showed me consistency. Small things, like keeping promises and following through. Love feels different now it’s slower, calmer, less fireworks and more steady warmth. And honestly, I prefer it that way.
Therapy, self love, and dating different. As much as our traumas are our problem to deal and heal from, I found that it didn’t help dating people without boundaries, people who lied by omission, men with porn addictions and insecure men who needed validation from other females. It was very triggering. So yeah, seek therapy if you need it, lift yourself up through affirmations that remind you that their disloyalty had nothing to do with you, and steer clear of men who show the same patterns right from the jump. Good luck OP!
To be honest with you there are always flags. There are tells. I don’t care what anyone says: A woman always knows. If you didn’t know, you weren’t paying attention and then this is how it happened. Nothing makes it right but cheating is a sign of something wrong in a relationship. Therefore.. you have to pay attention. It is your responsibility to know what is happening in your relationship. I’ve been really harmed by partners beyond cheating and every time, it was because I wanted to believe things were better than they were
It honestly didn’t affect my future relationships. I’m a “I trust you until you give me a reason not to” type of person.
I just don’t do relationships anymore lol
[removed]
I didnt, I accepted the fact that it can happen to anyone, and anyone can cheat
I understood that this meant that I should never trust my particular cheating ex, not that all men were suspect. And I was right—I’ve been in ten relationships since then; they’ve ended for different reasons; and the one thing they had in common was that it wasn’t infidelity that broke us up! 12 relationships total, 1 cheater. That’s good odds and shows that most men cheat. But some are dicks, just like women who cheat.
There was no paranoia, I’m not going to hold my new boyfriend to the standards of my ex. I’m not naive enough to think it’ll never ever happen, I’m just of the mindset of ‘if it does, that’ll be annoying because I’ll have to end things.’
I waited a long time until I knew what I wanted and what I would accept in a partner. I trust my partner completely.
Looooottsssssss of therapy
Oof, hard one. Lots and lots of therapy to find my own identity outside of relationships. Pushing myself to date and be in a relationship once I was ready, and to not listen to that little voice in my head that told me, ‘but what if…?’. It’s hard, it was almost 10 years ago, and now I’m in a very happy relationship. Sometimes the little voice still comes up, but now I’ve learned to recognize it, realize it’s my own past talking, and not apply that feeling of suspicion to my partner. It doesn’t mean I don’t listen to my intuition. It means that I’m not taking action when there’s no reason to.
Even with a partner that I trust completely I still get scared. I need to be honest about my past and my feelings (even if they are irrational) because I need his support and understanding as I continue to heal.
They’re not that person lol
I had to remind myself that a new person isn’t responsible for someone else’s damage. Healing was slow, but it happened. Trust doesn’t come back all at once, just one small moment at a time.
It took a long time for me to realise that not everyone is the same
Weirdly enough I didn’t carry it with me into future relationships.
The new person isn’t the one who cheated on me. I’m quite good at compartmentalizing stuff and I put blame where it’s due.
If they want to, they will. Positive or negative. Let them.
Someone’s behavior 97.3% of the time is a reflection of themselves not you, particularly when it’s unhealthy behavior. Don’t let someone else’s insecurities make you insecure.
Your past is not your present, there’s a reason it didn’t work out, so don’t let it impact your future.
Be mindful of your own habits and attachments. Don’t fall in love with dopamine.
Effort feels like effort, interest feels like interest. Don’t fall for love bombing. Those butterflies in your stomach is your nervous system telling you something. Listen to your gut.
My grandma used to say if a lion has to tell you he’s a lion then he’s lyin’. It sounds so silly and simple but it really applies. Believe people when they tell you who they are, but more so when they show you who they are. The more they tell you I’m the nice guy I’m not like other girls the quicker you should run.
honestly, I did not preceive the cheating as ‘my’ flaw in the first place. I rather acknowledged that I had absolute shittaste in men, because he had shown signs of dismissive carelessness in order to exclusivity early on, yet, I did blatantly overlooked that. So, what I definitely did afterwards was not giving men who used the same language/showed similar signs a chance to even a second date.