Yes, Lemonade and Before He Cheats unequivocally slap, but with the ability to relate to the sentiments of betrayal weaved inside them will not be ideal. Cheating is the type of thing that may seem genuinely unimaginable once you completely trust and love your companion. Yet, from dramatic celebrity breakups to highschool relationships to IRL adult marriages, infidelity still happens. In an episode of Call Her Daddy, Brittany Snow shared her experience of her ex-husband Tyler Stanaland, a star on Selling the O.C., potentially having a bootleg relationship with one among his co-stars while they were still together. Though the details should still be blurry, Snow made it clear on the podcast that she felt cheated on and betrayed by her ex-husband. Her story and perspective resonated with 1000’s of listeners who had been through something similar.
Whether you’ve been cheated on yourself, have a friend who’s going through infidelity of their relationship, or just chronically fear being cheated on in your relationship, all of us interact with the concept of infidelity in another way. Having a toolbox for processing it’s something that we will all profit from, and if we’ve learned anything from Brittany Snow’s story, it’s that it is feasible to return back stronger after being cheated on.
With that in mind, we spoke to 2 social employees about how breakups after infidelity can impact our mental health and well-being and why grieving loss after cheating is particularly difficult. Although heartbreaking, there are some powerful lessons weaved throughout Brittany Snow’s story that we will all learn from, and we’re sharing all of them, plus more of our thoughts on the matter ahead.
Overcoming infidelity requires trusting yourself and knowing your price
On Call Her Daddy, Snow emphasized how she was hurt and dissatisfied but not necessarily surprised by Stanaland’s cheating. “I had instincts, and because I was in love, I didn’t trust them,” she said. Out of her entire interview, that is the road that exemplifies the fear all of us, to some extent, hold in our relationships about infidelity: What if I’m so blinded by love, I can’t see what’s happening right in front of my face? Or worse, did I realize it was happening and just ignored it because I didn’t wish to face it?
This lack of trust in ourselves is some of the common challenges individuals face after being cheated on, in accordance with Brooke Sprowl, LCSW. Trusting yourself again after experiencing these thoughts and feelings is a process, but thankfully, Sprowl says it is feasible. Giving yourself grace and never placing blame on yourself for not catching the infidelity sooner or for not ending the connection earlier is essential to overcoming them.
In addition to feelings of mistrust, “It’s common to see questions about self-worth, desirability, and adequacy arise, alongside intense feelings of betrayal, loss, and self-doubt,” says Sprowl. You might end up questioning why you weren’t enough in your partner to stay loyal and monogamous or if there have been things you would have done higher to stop it from happening to you. In these instances, you might have to keep in mind that another person’s actions usually are not a measure of your self-worth. “It’s beneficial to work on self-esteem and self-trust, reminding oneself that the actions of another person are not a reflection of your worth or desirability,” Sprowl said.
As you progress forward in your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others, be kind and forgiving to yourself, especially should you’re scuffling with intense feelings of doubt. Practice affirmations, hold yourself accountable, and ramp up the self-care. The more you see that you may depend on yourself and keep in mind that you might be enough as is, the further you’ll inch along within the healing process.
Comparison is not going to serve your healing process
When you might have been cheated on, comparison can creep in. Snow highlighted in her interview that it’s common to turn out to be obsessive about the opposite person with whom your partner cheated. You’ll wonder the way you measure as much as that person in your partner’s mind. As she highlighted when she said that her ex-husband’s actions have “taken up so much real estate” in her head, the largest challenge after infidelity tends to be coping with this inner dialogue. What makes them higher than me? What made my partner more occupied with their intimacy than mine?
The comparison and obsessive considering that being cheated on can spurn—whether this shows up as desirous about your partner, the opposite person, or spiraling thoughts of self-doubt—could be so difficult to shake, and so they may even make other relationships harder. According to Madison McCullough, LCSW, “It is quite common for people to carry insecure thoughts and feelings into new relationships, which often shows up as hypervigilance or a reading into any potential signs or signals that one’s partner could cheat or is cheating,” McCullough said.
Comparing yourself to others and even comparing a brand new partner to the one who cheated on you isn’t abnormal, but it surely’s not productive. It can hinder your self-esteem and seriously decelerate your healing process and skill to happily move on in the longer term. These feelings can take quite a little bit of pain, patience, and work to beat. But we’re joyful to listen to that after with the ability to recognize these feelings in herself, Snow is in a spot to slowly start dating again, which she revealed within the episode.
Grieving a breakup after infidelity takes patience
As Snow’s story illustrates, it’s not like there are only two sorts of breakups. (That is, breakups involving infidelity and breakups not involving infidelity.) There are numerous blurred lines about what a person counts as having their trust broken. With that said, there’s something about grieving a breakup after being cheated on that’s uniquely painful. According to Sprowl and McCullough, it is because you might be grieving not only the time you shared together with your partner but additionally your trust in yourself and others, your understanding of reality, and your mental image of the person you were dating.
On Call Her Daddy, Snow highlighted how disorienting it was to search out out that her ex was cheating on her. First, she emphasized how confused she felt from one moment to the subsequent, one when she went from loving and trusting him completely and one other when she was so upset and heartbroken. Second, she noted that it was only after being cheated on that she began to see Stanaland as an actual, flawed person as an alternative of the mental picture that she had built up around him and their relationship. Both of those emotional challenges are unique to the experience of being cheated on. They could make the healing process after a breakup like Snow’s much slower than in other situations.
For those that are going through the emotional aftermath of infidelity, Sprowl has one key piece of recommendation: Give yourself time. “This type of grief is often accompanied by intense feelings of anger, confusion, and isolation, making the healing process more intricate and, at times, more prolonged as you restore your sense of trust in others and also in yourself,” she said. If you might be going through an identical situation yourself, it’s essential allow yourself time to regulate to your recent reality. Work through feelings of anger and sadness, learn the right way to trust yourself again, and learn the right way to trust others again. That healing process will not be something that may occur overnight. Grieving this loss goes to be different from the get-go, so spare yourself from feeling impatient about your grief.
Finding the intense side will make you stronger
The most poignant, nuanced a part of Snow’s interview on Call Her Daddy got here when she discussed the undeniable fact that she didn’t regret her relationship with Stanaland in any respect regardless of the way in which it ended. “I don’t have the anger that people wanted me to have,” she said. “I don’t regret anything that happened because I loved that time that we had together.” Snow recognized that even though it was painful and terrible, she knew that the rationale why Stanalad betrayed her trust was because he was unhappy in the connection. That was, in some ways, a present.
Like all types of grief, grieving a breakup after infidelity can have to return with an acknowledgment of the bad times and the great. Healing from these situations means balancing betrayal and gratitude, which could be incredibly difficult but is ultimately worthwhile. “Cultivating gratitude for the relationship does not negate the validity of the hurt, but rather, it’s a recognition of the relationship’s multifaceted impact on one’s life and growth,” Sprowl said.
Holding the sentiments of pain and anger toward a relationship that resulted in infidelity alongside feelings of gratitude is an indication that you might have reached a brand new level of emotional strength within the aftermath. That is, a level of strength that lets you understand two seemingly contradictory truths at the identical time. As McCullough highlights, “We do ourselves a disservice when we erase the complexities of our experiences.” The experience of being cheated on is not any different.
Final thoughts
It’s unlikely that when most of us experience infidelity, it’s going to be paired with a media frenzy, reality television show recordings, and an episode of Call Her Daddy. But we will still learn from the approach that Brittany Snow has taken regarding her divorce from Tyler Stanaland. Being cheated on will include rattled self-trust and trust in others, a chronic grieving process, and a balancing act of anger and gratitude. All of those are exemplified in Snow’s experience.
This interview is a reminder to do what it’s essential do to grieve your relationship, from screaming into your pillow to leaning on your folks after which attempting to take that next step forward. So blast your I-just-got-cheated-on playlist for so long as you wish. On the opposite side, you’ll find a way to look back on the experience with a recognition of each the pain and the great times.
