The betrayal of an affair can be one of the hardest things to get through as a couple – it’s something these women know well, who were betrayed by their partners and are each are revealing why they stayed after he cheated

Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend. 

This week we check in with a story from 9Honey where four women tell what made them stay after their partners cheated on them.

TW: This story mentions suicide

It’s the question that’s been around for years and that is, why do people stick around after an infidelity in their relationships?

Cheating is not uncommon in today’s day and age and according to The Healthy Journal, infidelity impacts one in almost three couples and most (around 65 to 70 per cent) stay together after.

The ultimate question is why?

Now, no two relationships are the same just like snowflakes, so what exactly does it take to put it behind and leave it in the past?

Previously, 9Honey spoke with relationship expert Louanne Ward who said “more often than not a woman might stay with a man after he’s cheated on her due to having low self-esteem.”

“The thought process is generally, ‘I can’t do much better’, and lacking self-confidence while being emotionally invested,” Ward said.

Talking to some women who have been in this situation, they shared their story as to why they stayed in relationships after being cheated on.

Amanda, 26: ‘He sweet-talked his way back into my life and we continued dating for almost two years after’

Amanda was in a relationship with a guy who, after a few months of them dating exclusively, kissed another girl on a “drunken night out.”

After she confronted him – friends had seen it all unfold – he profusely denied it until he was caught out.

“What followed was the most incredible amount of love-bombing and desperate attempts to win me back you’ve ever seen. Crying on my doorstep, suicide attempts, you name it,” she says.

“It was pathetic. At first I was beyond done with him – I didn’t want a bar of it, and broke things off immediately. But he sweet-talked his way back into my life and we continued dating for almost two years after that.” 

Amanda says she stayed with him because she was simply naïve and wanted to believe he had changed. 

Jess, 28: ‘I just wanted to give him a second chance because I loved him’

“After two years my partner cheated on me and I’d been cheated on in the past before so I was like nope not again and cut ties,” she says.

“We broke up for maybe a week before I took him back. I just wanted to give him a second chance because I loved him.”

Jess says she stayed because she was “young and stupid”.

Although this is very much in her past, one of the biggest things for her in any relationship now is trust.

They broke things off just under a month after. 

Diana, 25: ’I could see how upset he was that he had hurt me’

After being cheated on by her high-school boyfriend after four years together, Diana and her partner stayed together for another two years after.

“I stayed because I loved him and could see how upset he was that he had hurt me. He was in tears and distraught so much so that I truly believed he would never do anything like that ever again,” she says.

It was a “drunken mistake” that she believed wasn’t premeditated or planned, which is why she thinks she was able to forgive him. 

Diana also says out of her friends, it hasn’t just happened to her.

“I have a number of friends who this happened to in their younger relationships and it’s almost like cheating is some strange right of passage and lesson that a lot of boys go through to realise it’s something they will never do to someone they love again,” she says.

“I think there is a difference between cheating once and a continual affair or premeditated though.”

Chloe, 20:  ‘I didn’t have enough self-worth to realise that I shouldn’t have to put up with that’

Chloe was cheated on in her first proper relationship.

She realised that before, the only relationship experience she had was through family and friends or in movies where it was a false romantic reality.

”I didn’t understand that it wasn’t my fault or anything I had done, and I just remember thinking, ‘What did I do to cause him to cheat?’ Thinking I wasn’t sexual enough to keep his interest was also something that crossed my mind,” she says.

She gave him another chance as she said, “I didn’t have enough self-worth to realise that I shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

In the end, the last straw for Chloe was when she found out her boyfriend had messaged other girls one night asking for explicit pictures and if he broke up with her, would they date him?

She confronted him, which left her boyfriend unimpressed to say the least.

”I decided enough was enough but he wasn’t happy that I stood my ground as he went from telling me that he’d end his life because of me, to telling me that I should end my own, because I was a horrible b–h,” Chloe says.

In the end, she says she found enough value in herself to know he clearly wasn’t worth it, and was proud of herself to realise she deserved better.