Last week, I published the post “What Does The Law of Attraction Say About Coincidences?“, which included a metaphor on how we create our reality. One of my awesome readers, Kamal, replied in the comments with a powerful question. You can read that comment in its entirety here. The core of her question had to do with infidelity; specifically, she wanted to know if she had attracted her cheating husband. She wanted to know what she had done wrong.

Note: I’ll tailor my answer to the question (I’ll be talking about a cheating husband), but as always, these principles apply equally to a cheating wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, and in fact, many other situations. The law is the law, y’all.

Getting cheated on is not a punishment

We have this belief that getting cheated on must be our just reward for something we’ve done wrong. “If only I’d been a better wife…”, or “How could I not see this coming? How could I have been so blind?”, or “Why do I have such terrible taste in men?”, are all statements that say essentially the same thing: There’s something wrong with me and that’s why my husband cheated on me.

There’s only one problem with that (ok, there’s totally more than one, but I’m making a point here). Your husband didn’t cheat on you to punish you, or because he felt that you weren’t enough. He cheated because he felt that HE wasn’t enough. Let me explain.

Looking at yourself through the eyes of another

We can blame other people for our actions and feelings all we want, but in the end, we feel the way we do because of how WE are looking at the situation and generally, ourselves. When we first fall in love, we feel amazing. We feel invincible, confident and super sexy. We think it’s because of how this other person is looking at us – they adore us and so therefore, we adore ourselves. Except that’s not true. We see them adoring us, and so we look at ourselves from their perspective. We look at ourselves through their adoring eyes and it feels good. We consider ourselves good enough, worthy enough for them. This amazing person approves of us, and so therefore, we suddenly approve of ourselves. We attribute all of these feelings to our partner, however, and give them all the credit.

When something happens that severs that connection – our partner leaves, cheats, becomes distant – the adoring eyes are taken away. We no longer look at ourselves through those eyes, but rather, through harsh, judgmental ones. We must no longer be good enough, or our partner would’ve stayed. Looking at ourselves this way feels horrible, but we once again, assign all the credit to the other person. They get all the blame. If they hadn’t stopped adoring us, we wouldn’t feel un-adored. If they hadn’t stopped approving of us, we wouldn’t now feel unworthy.

But we’re not feeling unworthy or unattractive because of how our partner is looking at us, or no longer looking at us. Our negative emotions are a direct result of how we’re looking at ourselves. Always. Even if we’re not consciously aware of this.

We just want to feel better

Everything we do, we do only because we think it will make us feel better. And yes, this includes heinous acts like murder and wearing a mullet. People have to be in a very dark place to be in a state where killing another human being would seem like relief. I can only imagine the hell one must be in to think a mullet looks good. But I digress. No matter what excuses we may offer for our actions, the underlying reason is always that we thought it would make us feel better (not necessarily good, just better) in some way.

So, when someone cheats, it’s not because their partner did this or didn’t do that. It’s not because they wanted to punish their partner. It’s always because for some reason, they were feeling bad and cheating (or something associated with it) brought relief (or they at least thought it would). The reasons for these initial negative feelings can be pretty much infinite in number, but at their core, these feelings are generally about the cheater not feeling like they’re complete or enough in some way. You, their partner, couldn’t provide that missing piece (newsflash: no one could), and so they go looking for it elsewhere. And they will fail. Every time. Because no one can really change the way you feel about yourself. Oh sure, they can distract you and temporarily make you feel differently (like when you first fall in love, or when someone leaves you), but if you think you’re broken, you will always return to that feeling no matter what anyone else does. The good news is that if you feel complete, you will also return to that feeling, no matter what anyone else does.

The real question then isn’t “Why did he cheat on me?”, but rather “Why did his cheating make me feel the way it did?”.

You did attract a cheater, but you didn’t make him cheat

If you’ve been cheated on, then yes, something in your vibration brought you together with that person. But you didn’t take a neutral person and make them cheat. You simply attracted someone who was already a cheater. Why the hell would you do that?!

Well, obviously, you didn’t do it consciously. And this didn’t happen because you secretly want to be cheated on. The cheater was simply a catalyst. This situation happened to be the perfect way to evoke a certain feeling in you, one that matched something that’s been festering underneath for quite some time. Whenever you manifest a situation so ugly that it rocks you to your core, it means that the belief that caused it has been there for a long, long time.

Let the feeling lead the way, no matter how freaking scary

When something like this happens, an event that makes you question everything about yourself, you can use it as another excuse to feel horrible and unworthy, or you can see it as an opportunity to release something that’s been dragging you down for years (probably all your life).

It’s time to go digging. How did his cheating make you feel? Obviously, it didn’t feel good, but we need to determine specifically how it felt. What kinds of memories did this event bring up? There’s bound to be an element of “Here we go again…” On some level, you were just proven “right”.

For example, if a young girl was treated with great disrespect by her father or even by both parents, she may well have come to the conclusion that she is not worthy of respect or completely worthless. This belief, if left unreleased, would have created situation after situation that “proved” that the girl and later woman was worthless. She would’ve attracted people into her life that treated her badly – overbearing bosses, friends who took advantage of her, and yes, cheating boyfriends and husbands. In that case, the cheating would’ve felt just like all of those other events. It would’ve made her feel discarded, overlooked, like her opinion and feelings didn’t matter at all. On some level, she’d always be expecting this feeling; she’d always be expecting the other shoe to drop, and for men (or people in general) to disrespect her.

Another woman might feel quite differently about the cheating. It might’ve made her feel abandoned, or perhaps it would’ve triggered feelings of never being good enough for anything, or always making mistakes/getting everything wrong. Do you see the subtle but distinct differences between these feelings?

Look at me!!

When we manifest these kinds of events in our lives, it’s not because we made a mistake or because there’s something wrong with us. It’s because we have a belief that isn’t serving us and it basically just smacked us in the back of the head to get our attention. With a frying pan. And a rubber hose. It’s screaming “Look at me!!”, so that you can finally release it. You’re not being punished, you’re being called to attention. Yes, in a horrible way, but some of us need a pretty big push to finally deal with the monsters in our own closets.

Those “monsters” are our limiting beliefs, and the irony is that they only seem scary until we actually take a peek at them. Once we realize what was at the core of our feelings, the scariness subsides. Not only that, but we gain back a sense of control. Things aren’t happening to us because we’re bad or because we have no control. It’s cause and effect. And when we figure out the cause, we can change the effect.

But…what do you do about the cheater?

So, you understand that you’re feeling bad, not because he cheated on you, but of how that action caused you to look at yourself. Great. What do you do now? Do you kick the cheating bastard out? Do you forgive him? Well, I can’t pack a whole coaching session into one blog post, and I won’t tell you what to do, but I can give you a little bit of guidance, so that hopefully, you’ll figure it out on your own:

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. What feels better to you: Staying with him and trying to work it out, or leaving (even for a while)? Be honest. This isn’t about what society thinks or what your mother will say. What feels better to you?
2. Go do that.
3. Start evaluating what was at the core of how the cheating made you feel. Your feelings are your clues.
4. Release that belief. (Also, check out the Limiting Beliefs Category for tons of posts on this subject).
5. Once you’re stable in that new vibration and you feel better, you can decide if you want to work it out with your husband, or want to start over and attract someone new. Again, go with how YOU feel.

Have you ever cheated or been cheated on? Do you have any advice for Kamal? Share your thoughts in the comments!