Letter of forgiveness to a cheating husband
Writing an Apology Letter to a Betrayed Wife
28/5/2021
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While an apology letter is not an instant fix, it is an important and valuable step in the recovery process. There is no one way to write an apology letter. However, there are some important elements that can be tremulously healing for the betrayed spouse. Below, I have organized those elements into 7 paragraphs based on the acronym APOLOGY.
Keep in mind that this is a sample. Your apology letter needs to be from you, in your own words, capturing the specific details of your situation and the needs of your wife. Also, you would not include the title of each paragraph as I have done below. The titles are to help you see and be aware of the 7 elements.
1. Awareness - This is where you capture that you see your spouse and that you see what your betrayal has done to her.
You trusted me with your heart, with your life, with all of who you are, and I betrayed you. I am the person you loved and trusted most, and I shattered you and brought a turmoil into your life that is indescribable. I unleashed a tsunami of crushing losses, losses so deep they cannot be fully measured, losses that you experience with every fiber of who you are. I humiliated, disrespected, and disregarded you. I see how my selfish choices have stolen from you, exhausted you, depleted you, bewildered you, and turned your world upside down. I see your pain and how it engulfs you, how it intrudes in your life, how it disrupts the moments of your day. I see how hard you try to push through it, and how it overwhelms you and wrestles you to the ground. I see how you fight to press through, emotionally exhausted, and how you fight to get back up, how you show up even though your heart is in tatters and your life feels like wreckage. You live with a new, unwelcome, uninvited reality—a reality of sorrow, of intrusive thoughts, of horrible reminders. And because of my selfish actions, you live with a heavy and excruciating burden of shame and self-doubt.
2. Possession - This is where you take ownership of and responsibility for the betrayal and clearly articulate that the infidelity was not because of your spouse and is not a reflection on her worth or adequacy.
I have watched you struggle under the tormenting weight of self doubt, as you wonder if my infidelity was somehow because of you, because of who you are, or because of who you are not. Thoughts come to tell you that you are not enough, that something is wrong with you. That is not true. My betrayal was not because of anything you did or did not do. My betrayal was not about who you were or were not. My unfaithfulness was my choice and reflected my brokenness and my deviation from what is right and good and loving and honorable. My foolish willingness to squander your trust was a profound and damaging error for which I am responsible. I made the choice to be unfaithful to you and to our family, and I am responsible for those choices. My unfaithfulness was wholly my choice.
I am so sorry for having made that choice. I was so incredibly wrong and selfish and self-absorbed.
3. Outsider - This is where you articulate your rejection of the outsider.
I am so sorry for how I chose to tolerate, entertain, and engage in inappropriate conversations and exchanges with another woman, and how, step by step, I chose to deviate from honoring our marriage and to exchange my faithfulness to you for empty and meaningless interactions with an outsider. I abandoned the love and devotion you offered me, and I gave myself away in ways that were never meant to be shared with anyone else but you. I apologize for engaging in sex outside of our marriage. I violated the sanctity and sacredness of our marriage. I deeply regret this, and I deeply regret the prices you are paying.
4. Lies and Truth - This is where you acknowledge and come clean about your coverups during the infidelity.
I apologize for treating your suspicions and questions with contempt. I responded by lying and gas-lighting you.
I am sorry for how I have practiced deception and allowed you to struggle through mental torment as I covered my tracks, protected my duplicity, and misled you repeatedly. I apologize for what I did to you as my wife, my friend, my ally, a mom, a daughter, a sister. My actions have had cataclysmic affects across the breadth and depth of your life. I see how I was defensive and stonewalled when you sought answers and truth. I made accusations against you to distract from my deceit. I played destructive and corrosive games with your mind and emotions. Those were selfish, self absorbed, defiant attempts to avoid having to face my horrible choices and to avoid facing the damage I was causing and have caused. There is no excuse for any of that. I apologize.
5. Openness - This is where you openly acknowledge your attempts to protect yourself instead of your spouse since the discovery of your infidelity.
I am beginning to see the horrific nature and implications of my betrayal and its aftermath.
I apologize for how I have treated you since your discovery of the betrayal. I have isolated and devastated you by refusing to accept responsibility sooner and for treating you with contempt. I am sorry for twisting our conversations in an attempt to control and bully you into burying your feelings. I have tried to blame you and make this your fault, when it is my fault. I apologize for caring more about not having to feel sorrow and pain for the problems I have created, than opening myself to see and take responsibility for the sorrow and pain you are experiencing. My lack of empathy has been appalling and has caused more and more injury to you. I apologize. There is no excuse for the coldness, harshness, and impatience with which I have treated you.
6. Gushing Apologies - This is where you give a cascade of apologies that are specific to your actions and to what those actions have caused.
I apologize for not telling you the truth and providing the details you requested after you discovered my betrayal.
I apologize that because I have not been transparent, you are continually learning new details about the betrayal that I should have been forthcoming with. I apologize for the way in which you learnt about my betrayal, and the indignity and humiliation I have caused you by colluding with an outsider. I apologize for your sleepless nights, for the sadness you feel when you open your eyes on a morning, for the nightmares that invade your sleep, for the embarrassment when you encounter others who might know about my infidelity. I apologize for the mockery I made of you by living a lie, and for injecting insecurity into your life. I apologize for pressuring you in various ways to just forget about it and move on, as though the pain and wounds are superficial and simple. I apologize for not sitting with you in your pain, for not allowing you to sort through the deep hurt, injustice, fear, and frustration in my presence and with me. I apologize for how this has ruptured our family and impacted our children.
I apologize for you having to wrestle through whether you should stay in our marriage or go and for you having to wrestle through if you are unforgiving for thinking about leaving or weak for thinking about staying. I apologize for how, through my betrayal, I have assaulted your confidence, your hopes, your happiness, your time, your energy, your productivity, your focus, your faith, your beliefs, your health, your sleep, your trust, your dreams, your peace.
7. Yes, I Am Committed - This is where you underscore your commitment to rebuild and you reinforce that your spouse is your priority.
I know that I cannot go back in time and change what I have done. If I could, I would. But in the present and for the future, my desire is to be the husband and man you need me to be, to be a healer for you, to repair the damage by the grace of God, to rebuild your trust, and to bring security and safety to you. My desire is to love you in such a way that you know you are beyond compare and that you are confident that you have no rivals for my love and fidelity.
I apologize for what I have stolen from you and what I have allowed to be stolen from you and from our family. My prayer is to do the daily work of rebuilding and for you to see that tending to the health of my wife, our marriage, and our family is my joy and priority.
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A letter to … my cheating, lying husband | Family
It's been about 12 weeks since I saw the awful texts that confirmed my suspicions that you were being unfaithful. For two years I had been questioning whether you loved me as I felt so unloved – so much so that I occasionally asked if you were having an affair. And I felt you were avoiding me. You assured me every time that you did love me and were not having an affair, which made me feel happy that things were fine again, for a while.
However, I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right but because you were reassuring me, I began to question my own sanity. I became ill, had panic attacks and anxiety. Our children wondered why you were going out so much and not spending much time with me or with us as a family.
But you carried on being selfish.
Originally, when I confronted you about the texts on that awful day, you were adamant it had only been a one-night stand. Although the familiarity in the tone of those texts did not ring true for just a one-night stand, when I asked you, yet again you reassured me.
You arranged for me to go to a Relate appointment with you the very next day, to which I'd agreed. Five minutes before we were due to go in for our session, you broke the devastating news that you had indeed been having an affair – for 18 months.
My world fell apart. I was utterly distraught. You were my world – my friend, my only lover – and you had completely betrayed and hurt me to a degree beyond my comprehension.
After a week or so, you twisted the knife yet again and admitted the affair had really been going on for two years.
You had also spent some of our family money on this woman and taken her away for weekends. You said you had purchased several bottles of wine every time you met her, as you put it, to help you "do the deed" as it was "just drunken sex".
You bought her flowers, a photographic memory book with pictures of you together and a necklace for her birthday. You took her away to several concerts, including the V festival. You took her for a night in a hotel the day after Valentine's day, which was also a couple of days before her birthday. And all that time you were lying to me about who you were seeing and what you were doing. I was so trusting.
The woman is a work colleague and you obviously still see her every day, even though you have said you are no longer "seeing" her. I am not sure that I believe you after so many lies for so long. Unfortunately, I will never know whether you are still seeing her, as you can just do as you please now because you are no longer with me. You fooled me so well.
You continue to treat me despicably. You do not show any remorse or regret for what you have done, nor do you show any emotions or feelings towards me or my wellbeing – you act as if nothing has happened and not once have you cried.
You have told me that you hadn't loved me properly for quite some time, which I am extremely upset about as you never brought up the problems in our relationship so that we could have tried to work them out. We had been together 28 years and that's a lot of memories to throw away.
Everything is so hurtful. I am devastated that you decided that our relationship was over and was going to end in such a horrible way, and that you made that awful, emotionless woman part of our marriage.
You do say you are sorry, but that really is an empty word for the immense pain that you have caused me and our children. I have lost my husband and my best friend and I am not sure I will ever fully recover from the heartache you have caused me.
Your heartbroken wife
An example of a letter to a husband from a wife after infidelity
Many women ask how to write a letter that could express what they feel in words. It is better to be careful here, because this often leads to a lot of hurt feelings or misunderstandings.
In addition, it is important to remember that your feelings can change a lot in the coming days, months, or even years.
Content
- 1 Beginning
- 2 Middle
- 3 Divorce
- 4 About feelings
- 5 About revenge
- 6 Conclusion
Beginning
Here is an example of a letter that can be written:
“You had a family. There was a wife with whom you lived most of your life. There were relationships in which you returned after working troubles and knew that you would be accepted there always and in any condition, no matter where you came from and where you would not go afterwards. You were forgiven a lot, you were tolerated, loved, reassured, supported. But you went to someone else. And then just came back and asked for forgiveness.
Even if your wife accepted you, did you really not think for a minute about how she lived during the time when you were gone. What did she think about her husband, who rejoiced at new sensations at a time when she could not find a place for herself in despair.
You came back determined that to ask for forgiveness and receive it means to continue to live together, continuing from the same point where you left. And when she told you that she forgives, you breathed a sigh of relief and forgot.
And the woman who sees you every day after what you have done - how does she feel? How to trust you, daily, in every new situation. What to really hear when you confess your love to her. How to forget that you were with the other one just recently. And in general - how long ago, recently, but you were with her when I, your woman, was counting on you. I hoped. I felt loved and desired and didn’t even suspect that at that time someone else was like that for you, not me.
Middle
Phrases about going to the left strengthen marriage and that a healthy man cannot live without buns instead of bread is a guide for impudent and irresponsible people. You can't have a strong marriage without investing yourself in it. How can you judge marriage if you have never been in it, but called your attempts to live together, often mutually beneficial and nothing more.
You always knew cheating was devastating to a relationship. But he didn't hold back. You are honest, because you did not hide the relationship on the side, you acted openly and left your wife . Then he was honest with the other one, and left her for his wife. I could not live without her more than without the other one.
At work, playing on two fronts is considered a betrayal. In friendship, it is also impossible to betray and apologize, pretending that nothing happened. Was.
Imagine my feelings. At the time when I believed you. How long do you think it will take me to trust you again. How many different things you will need to do in order for me to understand that I am the only woman in your life. If you did it once and say that you don’t know how it happened, where is the guarantee that the second time you won’t understand how it happened again now, albeit with a different one. If you are not the master of your words, your feelings, your body - how can I trust you with my life, the life of my (our) children.
Divorce
One woman did not forgive her husband for infidelity and filed for divorce. She never learned to live with this pain, with these memories, the idea of how he was with another the same as with her. And how long will he stay with her now before the next time. It hurt her to imagine this every day, and she decided to cut the knot once and for all.
The other woman did not file for divorce. Marriage was dearer to her, children were important, who should have a father. Let him be so unreliable for her, but the children received care and help, because this is the main thing. It was important for her to stay married - both in front of her friends, and because it was necessary, and because it was so customary. She doesn't know how to live otherwise. She cried, shouted at her husband, periodically reproached him - he endured. Because marriage was important to him too. It was with this woman whom he once offended. Offended once, and paid off all his life. I could not say a word to her, because I loved her.
He lived every day so that she could believe him. He endured that she learned to trust him and open up the way it was BEFORE. He was ready for anything, and the family survived.
Feelings
What you did meant much less to you than to me. He destroyed the subtle that was between us. You are sorry, because I am still dear to you, and only now you understand that after the betrayal you need to live in a completely different way. Both you and me. And the family needs to be built anew, as if after the bombing to restore the house. This is much more difficult than building for the first time - and the ashes get in the way, and you need to choose the extra bricks. First clean the collapsed, then only build a new one. So it is in relationships. Often it hurts, often it takes a long time to come back again and again.
I need to stop seeing someone else behind you. To believe that your betrayal was an accident, not our entire marriage. That my husband after this betrayal, I can still trust.
You need to earn my trust every day. Every day to convince me that I can rely on you, that you can return the relationship and make it much stronger than it was before you cheated on me.
And you began to suffer from what I suffered. Emotional, bright, touchy. When I could not stand it and reproached you for your betrayal, reminded you of it in your hearts, you attacked me: as long as you can remember, I'm back! You are back, but there is no relationship. And it was your fault, not mine, for not being able to forget it. Perhaps it would be much easier for me to take revenge on you - in your opinion, your coin, and calm down. But I couldn't do it, because I would cease to respect myself.
About revenge
If I cheated on you, I would betray myself, and such a betrayal is much more difficult, it is irreparable. I would cease to be the one with whom you once began to live, with which you fell so deeply and completely in love. You could change me, but I couldn't change you.
Maybe that's why you're angry that I turned out to be cleaner than you, that I didn't allow myself what you allowed yourself. When I rebuke you, you flare up because it's easier that way.
But just as it is impossible to say “I love you” once in a lifetime, it will not work to apologize once for this. You need to apologize again and again, every time I remember. Really, honestly, sinking into that guilt every time. Of course you don't want that, so you're mad at me.
If you cheated because there was nothing serious, just a simple joke, then you value our relationship cheaply. If you had deep feelings for another, how quickly you change objects. In any case, the picture is not very good. It would be much easier, even if you did not confess to me, did not leave me. I would pretend that nothing happened, even knowing the details down to the time and place. And we would each keep our secret, we would live together. Perhaps until the next time, or perhaps it would not have happened - now we will not know.
Conclusion
I would be ready to do it, I loved you so much and believed that it would pass. But your departure cannot be ignored. This means that the rules of the game are completely different - you need to forget, also together. Covering up with new exploits, new memories, joint events is a stain. And you should be ready to do it, and not to force me to be silent. If I shut up, it does not mean that I will forget. I just understand that there is no point in telling you, believing, being real with you. You will lose your wife forever - instead of her, a completely different person will be next to you, you won’t even understand which one. It's easier to be strangers at first than to become strangers after complete intimacy.
Someday you may read my letter to you, which was never sent. Well, if by this time you have already done more than you could, and our relationship is now strong and reliable. So we've made it."
Farewell letter to your beloved man “Farewell, I tell you!
Your boyfriend cheated on you.
You won’t be able to forgive him (you know for sure). soul on wet lines.0003
Write him a farewell letter. Write! In it you can reflect all your condition. Write what is in your soul, in your heart, in your inner world.
Contents
- 1 Farewell! – I tell you in my farewell letter
- 1.1 The text of the letter is now yours!
- 2 Farewell letter to a loved one (spiritual sample)
- 2.1 I love you. Goodbye!
- 2.2 I gave you the most precious thing - You became my first man!
- 2.3 Thank you for the memories!
- 2.4 I forgive you!
- 3 You will be the most beloved and most desired!
Goodbye! – I tell you in my farewell letter
Get yourself together, because it will be hard to write too. You don't need to embellish anything. Write everything as it is. If you are afraid to write something wrong, a sample letter will be waiting for you a little lower.
You can do whatever you want with the sample:
- You can ignore it and write your own and unique.
- You may not notice him, imagining that he was not there at all.
- You can take a few lines from it or the whole idea. You will not be punished for plagiarism.
- You can correct this letter.
The text of the letter is now yours!
You have the fullest right to dispose of it. Before you decide what to do with it, think it over very, very well.
The letter begins….
Farewell letter to a loved one (spiritual sample)
“Hello, my beloved traitor! I never thought that I would write these words to you .... But you deserve it, sorry. Our love is a past that will not become present or future.
No need to look for the culprits of separation, no need to try to fix anything. We parted, my dear, because our destinies needed it. Explanations are useless.
When you first came to me, it was a wonderful evening. And when I saw you on the threshold with a huge plush toy, the evening became even more wonderful.
I can't imagine how you got her to the fifth floor without an elevator.... You shocked all the stairs leading to my floor!
We had fun, laughed, talked. I couldn't believe that I've known you for over ten years. We didn’t communicate before, but I remember how you ran after me, how you blushed and became shy when you met. But I was so inaccessible that the sky and the stars seemed much more accessible to you.
You asked my parents for marriage. That evening, when we ran to warm our hands in the kitchen. We were afraid to wake them up, but they woke up on their own. Apparently, because our love was incredibly strong. Parents came to us, but did not shout. They silently smiled and said that we would talk in the morning.
No…. I won't remember it. There is no more meaning! I love every drop of my past that is connected with you. But this is no reason to turn the past into the present.
You changed. You cheated on me even though you swore you would never do that.
And I believed. Believed, loved, adored. And I didn’t even suspect that you could or would want to be with another woman.
I love you. Goodbye!
And do not try to return, because I will not succumb to your persuasion. I sincerely wish you great happiness. I won't hate you. I won't blame. I just want you to disappear from my life forever! Don't say it's going to be more difficult to do. Because it doesn't concern me.
I know how rough I am right now. What did you expect? That I will jump into your arms and we will all forget? I'm not vindictive, but I'm not the one who forgives absolutely everything. Don't give me toys, rings and flowers: it won't help! Completely forgot about women's pride? I remind you!
I gave you the most precious thing - You became my first man!
How I hoped that you would be a support and support for me. How I dreamed of a strong, real shoulder. But you didn't set him up for me. You betrayed me! How could you apologize after something like that? Even funny, though not funny at all.
I won't be banal. I won’t ask about what exactly she “hooked” you with. I have enough of the very fact of treason. The pain you caused me is incurable. I was not ready for such tests. But I can handle them! Not to prove to you how strong I am. In order to learn how to live somehow in a new way, in a different way, in a different way. And I will learn! How is my personal business.
Thank you for the memories!
Believe me: there were wonderful moments in my life that appeared only thanks to you.
I love you…. I love, but I will hate. Quietly hate, without revenge and scandals. You feel good: you can easily continue your betrayals. But without me in your life.
I so wanted to forgive you. I dreamed of being with you. But I can't fight myself anymore. Feelings won, but earlier. Now I'm trying to defeat them. Beloved, forgive me and goodbye! Be always happy, but not next to me.
I forgive you!
Girl, don't be upset, please.
