Betrayal after years of marriage is undoubtedly painful, and it often means huge sunk costs, as well as the breaking of deep emotional bonds, and so on. But does this mean that betrayal before marriage is simple?
It stands to reason that betrayal before marriage can even be called a kind of luck, at least to avoid binding with the other party, and to be able to withdraw in time before further investment, it seems that the decision in this case is simple and easy.
But this is not always the case.
Recently, I saw a netizen ask: I made an appointment with my boyfriend to get the certificate in May, but he cheated before I got the certificate, I am very painful now, can I forgive him?
To this, my answer is:
When the cost and risk of doing something is higher than the reward you want, you should learn to let go.
Don't mistake the words "learn to let go" for me trying to persuade you not to forgive. In fact, in the face of many key choices related to long-term interests, the temporary attitude is the least important, and whether you have the ability to implement the attitude is the key.
In other words, it's only when you have the ability to let go that you really have the freedom to make your own choices.
Why do many people become indecisive and suffer from gains and losses when they encounter a marital crisis? Because once emotional factors are superimposed, most people's decision-making ability is directly paralyzed.
Forgive him, you will worry that if he continues to cheat after marriage, wouldn't you be miserable?
If you don't forgive him, you will feel sorry for the relationship that is about to come to fruition, and you will also worry about what if he won't do it again after marriage? What if you can't find a better marriage partner than him in the future? Wouldn't you be at a loss?
Many people don't know that when faced with a dilemma, it is not about comparing the best case which is better, but about comparing the worst case which outcome is what I can afford.
For the cheating party, the decision-making costs and decision-making risks borne by forgiving premarital infidelity and forgiving postmarital infidelity are obviously different.
The fact that a relationship can get to the point of talking about marriage necessarily means that you both have a desire to build a deep long-term relationship with each other. And the question of betrayal at this time is largely a sign that there is disagreement between you about how to build a long-term relationship.
As for the bad character of the other party that everyone thinks of as soon as they hear about cheating, it is just one of the possibilities that causes disagreement.
Maybe the conflict between you has been going on for a long time, and cheating before getting the license is just an explicit behavior of his subconscious desire to postpone marriage;
Maybe the relationship between you is not deep enough to "share weal and pain", the process of discussing marriage and preparing for marriage is the most likely period when conflicts between two families are most likely to erupt, and cheating before getting a license may be an escape behavior he uses to get rid of pressure;
Maybe you don't know him as well as you think, and your decision to get married is just following psychological inertia, and you haven't had an in-depth discussion about each other's needs and expectations for future married life.
Maybe your original intention of wanting to enter marriage is different, what you value is your relationship and loyalty to each other, what he values is your conditions, the suitability between your family background and the role of your wife.
The cost and risk of decision-making that you need to bear behind each of the above possibilities are different. Whether they are higher than the returns you want is currently unknown, but what is certain for now is that you don't seem to have the ability to say let go in the worst case scenario.
I can understand that part of your heart that wants to forgive, because people always have a survival instinct when faced with dangerous situations. When you fall into a huge emotional black hole because of betrayal, you have lost the ability to analyze and make rational judgments, no matter what the other party does, you will unconsciously make reasonable excuses for him, so that you can forgive him, so as to return your life and your emotional state to the "right track" before the betrayal happened.
It's actually quite normal to have this reaction, it's your instinct to try to grab on to something that makes you feel familiar and safe, and to avoid the truths that might make your emotions fall deeper. You can allow yourself to stay in this state of self-rationalization for a while, but be sure not to rush to make a decision at the moment.
In fact, rationalizing the attribution of bad events based on your comfort zone is inherently a very dangerous thing, it is like a drug that is the root of all evil, although it can relieve your pain for a short time, but in the long run, it will only make you more and more addicted to avoiding pain, and you will be absorbed deeper and deeper by a bad relationship, until you lose all your subjectivity in it and become a tool of the other party.
Allowing yourself to stay in the familiar zone for a while is to allow yourself to have a buffer of emotions, so that your rationality can be restored, to put your relationship in perspective, to give yourself some mental energy to face and digest the things that you have been avoiding and fearing, rather than taking this thing as a placebo, which will only drag you down step by step.
When your emotions can be eased in the familiar zone and the energy slowly returns to you, you can take a more peaceful and rational view of whether or not to forgive. I know that for the vast majority of onlookers, this question seems to be a matter of no need to think too much, neither married nor have children, and now betrayal can be said to be a blessing, what are you waiting for if you don't run away quickly?
Unfortunately, you can never deal with the problem from a bystander's perspective, for you, the real decision must be that you balance your emotions, and have a comprehensive review and cognitive update of the other party and your relationship before you can make a decisive decision, do not rush to make decisions according to the establishment of others, but first listen carefully to your own heart.
Of course, what I can do as a counselor is to provide you with some perspectives from my experience as you sort out the relationship, which you can use as a reference in the process of reviewing.
Most people often talk about "weighing the pros and cons", but it is not so easy to really weigh them. Because whether it is good or bad, it is not an absolute thing, it will change with the change of individual personality maturity, thinking and cognition, time and space, and perspective and position.
When it comes to a betrayal that hasn't officially entered a marriage, there are a few things you need to pay special attention to when weighing the pros and cons:
01 A clear understanding of the reasons for the betrayal
Although most people like to attribute betrayal to the character of the betraying party, in real life, such a one-size-fits-all statement will not solve any problem at all. Although the betrayal happens, you certainly won't let go of someone so easily emotionally, and you don't even want to believe that the person you've always loved is an out-and-out scumbag.
It is very necessary for you to understand the underlying reasons for the betrayal of the other party, which means that your understanding of your relationship and your perception of the other person is not simply based on your own rational attribution in a vulnerable state or the simple judgment of others in black and white, but through honest communication with the other party, understand each other's real thoughts on this issue, and clarify where the problems of the relationship are.
When you understand the reason for his betrayal through communication and analysis, you will have a more realistic understanding of this person and the relationship, and you can measure whether this person is worth rebuilding trust, whether there is room for repair in the relationship, and even how much time and energy you need to invest if you want to continue.
In the final analysis, it is better to do an in-depth analysis and combing of the context of your relationship and the reasons for your betrayal than to be forgiven or not to be forgiven 10,000 times.
The reason why it is difficult to weigh the pros and cons is because the more abstract the conclusion, the less guiding the decision-making, and only the specific analysis of specific problems can make us understand what kind of situation we are in, what resource advantages we have, what resource disadvantages exist, what risks we may encounter, and which risks we cannot bear.
02 Grasp the difficulty of establishing the bottom line
Betrayal is a serious issue involving the bottom line for the vast majority of people, and when a person tramples on your bottom line for the first time, you must have a serious deal with the matter, otherwise your bottom line will become a toy for others to fiddle with, and you can move wherever you want.
Forgiving betrayal itself is a very risky thing, which means that your bottom line has been loosened in the betrayal, which means that you accept and allow other people's infidelity to a certain extent, so it is definitely much more difficult to keep the bottom line without forgiving the other party than not to forgive.
When many people think of keeping the bottom line, they subconsciously begin to ask what methods and means there are. For example, whether you can check the other party's mobile phone at any time, or ask the other party to hand over economic power, or buy a house and add a name, etc. These tools are certainly useful in helping us keep the bottom line, but they are not decisive.
In our actual case experience, we have achieved all of the above, but we still feel that our bottom line is no longer there. Because to put it bluntly, what we really expect is respect and attention from our partner, and betrayal is essentially a disrespect and disrespect from our partner.
Therefore, even if we are compensated for our financial benefits, it mainly reduces our physical risks. The bottom line is actually related to the risk at our inner level, and if we want to really hold on to it, we need the cheating party to really see and understand the pain and entanglement at our inner level, so that we can feel respected and valued again.
So, what I mean by "there has to be a serious deal about this" is not just a physical precaution, but also an internal level where you really need to communicate effectively. The reason why this degree is difficult to grasp is mainly because it requires the two of you to cooperate with each other, whether he is willing to return, whether he cares about your feelings, whether there is a problem with your past communication experience, these are all important factors that affect the degree of cooperation between you.
Forgiveness can truly become your alternative when the other person is fully willing to cooperate with your demands and you are confident enough to keep your bottom line. On the contrary, if the premise of forgiveness is to let you lower the bottom line and increase the tolerance of the other party, the other party will mistakenly think that your bottom line can be lowered at will with his personal needs, no matter how cruel you say and how ruthless you do, the attitude of others towards us is ultimately dominated by the quality of the relationship between them. When he steps on your bottom line the next time, it will be even harder for you to hold on.
03A clear understanding of your own needs
One of the most common mistakes a betrayed person makes is to forgive the other person in order to relieve the pain and avoid the problem.
Betrayal is very lethal to most people, mild is falling into various negative emotions, forming a traumatic reaction, and in severe cases, suffering from depression and other mental illnesses. So many people don't actually have a proper decision-making and analysis process when they encounter this situation, they just choose to forgive in order to avoid the pain, even though the person is a person who hurt her, even though the relationship is already an unhealthy relationship, but as long as they forgive, they don't have to face the sense of loss caused by emotional fracture, which is fatal to people who are in deep pain.
If you want to break this state of being dominated by emotion, you must regain your own subjectivity, and in the state of betrayal, turn your attention away from the other person and the betrayal itself, and return to yourself.
The easiest way to regain agency is to ask yourself more questions, such as: How am I feeling now? What kind of relationship do I want to be in a relationship? What qualities do I need from a partner? Will I get what I want in this relationship?
When you have a clear understanding of your own needs, you will not be led away by emotions when you look at this person and the relationship, and if you step into a relationship that continues to hurt you without a goal, you will be able to see the meaning of the relationship more clearly for you, and find your own main line and sense of direction.
In fact, no matter what kind of betrayal it is, we can't give you a conclusive answer about forgiving or not forgiving, because every choice you make must ultimately be tailored to your own needs and the actual state of your relationship, and these are often topics that you need to do on your own, and I can only give you an empirical reference.
Returning to your problem itself, the betrayal before marriage is actually a betrayal with the lowest sunk cost, but if you want to forgive, needless to say, the difficulty of maintaining the bottom line is very high, which means that the risk after you get married will inevitably be very large, standing in the perspective of a consultant, I may be more inclined to stop losses in time.
But all of these suggestions are just a reference for you, you can give yourself some time to balance and repair, and then follow the above aspects to sort out one by one to find the best solution for you. Forgive or not, what you end up on is not a path of gain and loss, but the path that can truly lead you to happiness.
Finally, I wish you the ability to forgive, and the confidence not to forgive.
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This article was first published on the Zhihu platform: Chen Man, Wang Xiao, Zhang Yan
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