My ex and I were in a serious relationship and at one point even lived together. Things felt really genuine and stable, and I was genuinely happy. About 4–5 months ago, she cheated on me, which completely broke my trust because loyalty is a core value for me. After it happened, we didn’t fully cut things off—we stayed in contact and have slowly been trying to rebuild. Since then, she’s been putting in consistent effort: going to therapy, working on herself, cutting back on things like drinking that were triggers, and overall showing through her actions that she wants to change. I truly don’t believe she would do it again.
The issue is on my end. I feel like I never fully processed what happened emotionally. Instead, I focused more on supporting her and making things work, and I bottled up a lot of my own hurt and anger. Now it’s catching up to me. When I’m with her, everything feels good and normal, and I can see a future with her. But when I’m alone, I get this heavy, unsettled feeling thinking about what happened, and it still triggers anger and doubt. It’s like I’ve forgiven her logically, but not emotionally.
I’m also starting to question whether I’m holding onto the version of her and the relationship from before the cheating, rather than accepting what it is now. Recently I decided to take some space (minimal contact for a couple weeks) to figure out how I actually feel without being influenced by her presence or progress. Right now I’m stuck between loving her and seeing the effort she’s making, and not knowing if I can truly get past the fact that she crossed a line that matters deeply to me. I guess my question is what would you guys do moving forward in a situation like this?