Learning to forgive an affair is important because it's so hard to do. Few things in life are as distressing as finding out that your partner has been cheating. Also difficult is the decision to make the relationship work rather than just break up, but you can deeply strengthen your relationship and will help both of you to become better people.
Remember, You're Not the One Who Cheated.
It may be that something you did contributed to your partner's decision to cheat, but in the final analysis remember that it was your partner, and not you, who undertook such hazardous behavior, and it can't be blamed on you. It's not the case that you're somehow a failure at relationships because this happened. Before you even consider forgiving your partner for the affair, you must first forgive yourself.
Don't Keep Hurling this in Your Partner's Face!
You're not at fault, but if you think you're going to hurl the affair in your partner's face every time you too have a disagreement, then you'll actually be more responsible for the death of the relationship than the affair was. Count on it - at this point, your partner feels terrible about the affair. What good do you think it will do to keep bringing it up?
Explore Your Heart
If you can't get past those initial feelings of pain and betrayal, it's going to be impossible to forgive your partner. How do you feel? Do you feel angry? Betrayed? Humiliated? Everything? This is the best time to express all your emotions and understand them all.
Don't let this degenerate into an exercise in figuring out what a terrible person your partner is, or how you're always being mistreated. The point here is to examine what you feel. You pretty much know why you feel like that, and continually blaming your partner isn't going to help anything. If it's necessary, go ahead and scream or cry or whatever. Sooner or later, you really will get past that initial reaction.
Obviously, reacting to the affair with mostly negative emotions doesn't do anyone any good; hopefully, you're now at a point where you can focus clearly and concentrate on growing together and moving forward.
Have a Heart-to-Heart Talk
You need to do it, and it's going to be among the more difficult things you've ever done, but you've still got to do it. With your partner - and only your partner - have an honest conversation about the cause of the affair. Such things that cause so much pain are difficult to discuss, but you won't be able to grow as a couple unless you've done so and started the process of healing infidelity.
Discuss - calmly - what caused the affair. Your feelings are very important, and you and your partner need to explore thoroughly how you each felt during and after the affair, and especially when you found out about it. There's no doubt that it's hard to hear the truth. Reconciling after an affair is a very mature, adult course of action to take. Don't ruin it with immature behavior like name-calling and finger-pointing.
Would you prefer to be acknowledged as being right, or would you prefer to be in a happy relationship? It's much harder to admit that you may have been at fault and contributed to the problem than it is to insist that you were wronged. These are some to the elements of good communication - not just raising your voice louder and louder until you're certain your partner heard you.
Take Your Relationship to the Next Level Where Neither Partner Cheats
Moving forward is the next step of your planning, but only after you and your partner have thoroughly discussed the issue. If you understand what led to the affair in the first place, you can agree on how to avoid such situations in the future. Likewise, you need to agree on ways to improve your communications. You can't just commit now to the relationship; you've got to commit to improving it.
Few challenges jeopardize a relationship as much as cheating, and learning to forgive it is also a challenge. It depends on your commitment, but if you're both willing, you can work to build a new future - and a new past - together. Sure it'll take some time and there'll be some painful moments along the way, but your faith in each other can be restored and you can work on creating tomorrow's memories.
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