Can a cheater ever be forgiven?
I have next to zero actual experience. I have never been in close proximity of someone cheating, or someone being cheated on. Up until now I had no experience (or so I believe) of being cheated on, and if I am in a relationship with someone, I have no desire to cheat (otherwise I wouldn’t be in that relationship.
I have had stories relayed to me by friends however. One friend married her boyfriend of many years, only to find out he had been cheating on her for the past nine or so months (she had had suspicions prior to the marriage but had always been reassured). She left him, the marriage ended, and two relationships later she is happier than she has ever been, with a man who she has said she knows would never do that to her. Her ex-husband apparently still cheats on his partners.
Another friend had a partner for maybe three years before finding out that he had cheated on her (I forget if this was before or after the birth of their first child). She thought long and hard, but ultimately decided to stay with him, believing the lies he told her. However, the cheating continued, and although initially she accepted it or believed his excuses and promises, she ultimately decided, with two children now in the house, that this was not what she wanted her children to grow up believing was a normal relationship. Again, she is now married to a wonderful man and expecting a child with him. She has stated that her children’s father is still cheating on his partners.
As my only source of real life cheating, this doesn’t offer support for the side of ‘forgive the cheater and take them back’, and if anything it proves that there is always better afterwards.
That’s real life, but I have so much more experience from the fictional world.
In Neighbours, because obviously Neighbours is wonderful and amazing and a fantastic way to obtain life experience, there have been multiple examples of cheating occurring within a couple believed to be THE couple.
Let’s start with Ramsay Street stalwarts Karl and Susan Kennedy. I could really fire out the facts here and say how many times they have separated and got back together, how many affairs there have been, and how many times they have got married, but I’ll just give you the basics. Karl has cheated, multiple times, and even has a child with one woman he left Susan for. During one separation Susan remarried and gained two step children before her second husband passed away. But ultimately, they have always come back together. Karl does sometimes have a wandering eye, whereas Susan is the epitome of loyal, but through all of this they are still together. And there is no doubt of their love for one another and their dedication to work through things.
Next, still in Neighbours, is Toadie and Sonya. Branded as the next Karl and Susan they were expected to be solid, until Toadie’s supposedly dead wife comes back with his child. So it wasn’t actually his dead wife, rather a doppelganger intent on scamming them out of money (this is technically a soap opera let’s not forget), but before this was discovered his thoughts and emotions were so mixed up and confused that ultimately he slept with her and Sonya found out. That broke up their partnership and everything went bad. But, they came through it and ended up back together. Then, in television drama style, a baby turns up on their door and it is identified as the child of Toadie and the ‘dead wife’. Ultimately Toadie and Sonya take care of the child, despite Sonya’s initial reservations of this baby being a constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity. So look, another couple who have come through a life-shattering cheating scandal. (We won’t talk about the later devastating death of Sonya.)
And now to The Archers, the long running BBC Radio 4 drama in the UK. Brian and Jennifer Aldridge, married for many years, but with various infidelities between them. Jennifer came to the marriage with two children, and then bore two more to Brian. Then later in their marriage Brian fathered another child through an affair. Prior to this, he had had other flirtations and adulterous relationships. And Jennifer is no saint either, cutting contact with a gentleman when a risk of an affair become apparent, and committing adultery herself. Yet here they are, all those decades later, still married and seemingly devoted to each other. Not too long-ago Jennifer even said, when the topic of their tumultuous marriage was mentioned (it’s mentioned quite a lot) that she wasn’t with Brian for the house, the farm, or for the sake of the children, she was with him because she wanted to be with him.
The point I am trying to make is that if you want a relationship to work, fight for it. Right? Not all cheaters stay cheaters. But do I say that with conviction or with a question mark on the end. That is the thing I don’t know and can’t answer. I have never once been tempted to cheat or looked at another person when I have been in an official exclusive relationship, so I can’t understand that. I will admit that in the past there have been small overlaps (I’m talking a few days or a week), but that was when a relationship was at the end, we both knew it, and it was a case of pulling the pin.
If someone has cheated on you, and has cheated in the past, can they realise that is not the life they want to lead and stay faithful? And more importantly, is that a risk you can take on someone, regardless of how much you love and miss them?