Relationships are based on love, respect and trust. While we have no control over the first of these ingredients, the other two do have a place in our decisions and in the choices we make on a day-to-day basis.

However, when it comes to maintaining fidelity, it is very easy for a single mistake to ruin a dating or marriage project that has been going on for months or years. Overnight, everything can change, and even if the infidelity is hidden, the feeling of guilt often ends the relationship.

But that doesn’t always happen. There are cases in which the couple is still together after an infidelity . Why does this happen? Let’s look at the causes of this phenomenon.

Overcoming infidelity or self-deception?

An infidelity puts us in a position where we must necessarily choose between two options that have important emotional repercussions. Breaking up with a partner means leaving behind many of the elements of life that we had become accustomed to, as well as the need to see the relationship we came out of with other eyes, and spending time alone. At the same time, not separating from your partner means continuing with a relationship that it is very easy to doubt, and investing time and effort in something that tomorrow may definitely break.

Infidelity is, by its very definition, a betrayal. That means that does not consist in having sex with someone with whom you are not in a relationship based on love that is reciprocated; after all, there are open couples and polyamory.

To be unfaithful is, basically, to break one of the commitments that are part of the pillars on which a courtship or marriage is sustained . Usually absolute sexual exclusivity is one of those commitments, but this is not always the case. In any case, almost all relationships require a certain degree of exclusivity to function (even if it only consists of the privilege of dedicating much more time and attention to the loved one).

But there are many philosophies of life with which to confront infidelity when it has been committed. Many of them lead to an end to the relationship, understanding that it is either hopeless or based on a lie.

Relationships that are rebuilt after cheating on a partner

From what is currently known, the factors that explain why certain couples continue to exist after an infidelity known to both parties are as follows.

1. Prefer happiness to justice

Happiness is something shared but fragile, while justice can be something unilateral, but it does not have to make us happy. The choice between justice and happiness governs many of the decisions that have to do with whether to forgive an infidelity or not.

Many couples who remain together after infidelity bet on happiness through forgiveness . It may seem like the easy way out of the conflict, but it is not. Forgiving someone in a genuine way is complicated in these cases, and the person who has cheated on his partner often sees in this something that allows him to better appreciate the value of his courtship and marriage.

2. The beginning of a formal commitment

Many times, infidelity occurs because of an absence of well-established rules governing the relationship. For example, it is not uncommon for some people to be so fearful of overwhelming the other person at the beginning of a relationship that they try by all means to appear flexible and accommodating. This situation of ambiguity makes it possible to commit infidelity because of a grey area of morality that exists between what is clearly acceptable and what is clearly unacceptable.

Thus, the fact of having to face infidelity draws attention to this lack of communication and allows the couple to have a framework in which to talk for the first time about what their commitment will consist of.

3. Couples therapy

Couples therapy is effective in intervening in many of the issues that cause discomfort about infidelity: for example, to decrease the stress associated with conversations with the partner and to re-learn to dialogue constructively . This, although it does not guarantee the full recovery of mutual trust, makes it easier to reach out.

4. A philosophy of life against the absolutes

People who live love through absolute ideas of “infidelity must be accompanied by a break-up in all cases” will probably not be able to detect those cases where there is an opportunity to repair a relationship.

Therefore, it is usually important to adopt the idea that every relationship is a world and that, although there are situations that are untenable in all cases (such as abuse), in certain cases an infidelity is not the end of the world.

People tend to underestimate our capacity to change when it comes to love, usually because we are not able to find the way to create the ideal situation in which we are allowed to evolve both in habits and in values and beliefs.