Why is My Partner Still Punishing Me for Cheating?

You stepped out of your relationship. You recognize you made a mistake. You genuinely feel bad about your affair, and you’ve been trying to make things right. You’ve made a lot of progress – but sometimes it feels like you’ll never get out of this hole.

Recovering from infidelity is not easy, but it’s possible. If you feel stuck in the process, that’s totally normal; there are a lot of pitfalls in this difficult journey (which is why it is generally a good idea to get some professional support along the way). 

Let’s take a look at one of the uncomfortable dynamics people often get caught up in and misunderstand, which sounds like this: “I’ve apologized for what I did - multiple times. And I really meant it. I thought they forgave me. I thought we were working on moving forward. Why do they keep going back to issues we’ve discussed already and asking me questions they already know the answer to? Why are they still punishing me for cheating by dragging me through this again and again?”

The answer is, they’re not punishing you; they’re addressing their own needs in a way that actually makes sense (but maybe not to you - yet). Let’s explain.

The Lifespan of Anger

For starters, let’s acknowledge that your partner has a lot to be angry about.

You crossed a line in your relationship. You betrayed their trust, you lied to them, and there may be a host of other offenses that happened through your infidelity. Perhaps you involved other people in the deceit; perhaps you did sexual things with your affair partner that you never did with your significant other; the list of potential issues can go on for quite a while.

To be clear, there is no judgment here for what you did or did not do; it’s simply necessary to be real about what those things are so that we can look them squarely in the eyes and deal with them.

Because of these actions, your significant other is going to have feelings of anger for a good chunk of time. They will fade as time goes on, and eventually disappear, but it’s not going to happen in one fell swoop. Nor will it be a straight shot to the end of the tunnel; they might feel better today, then awful again tomorrow. Things might be quiet for a week, then regress towards more friction again.

This is the normal process of growth and recovery.

So the first thing you need to recognize is that this process is going to take much longer than you want it to, even if you are doing everything right. Your partner is going to bounce back and forth in how they feel towards you, and it’s not indicative of a deliberate attempt to make you miserable. 

I hope it’s obvious, by the way, that your partner needs to be able to express their anger. You may be sick of it, but if your reactions indicate to them that they can’t express how they’re feeling – for example, by getting angry right back at them, or by rolling your eyes and huffing – then their feelings will go underground and will definitely cause more problems later on. 

Make sure they know that you are willing to hear them out over and over again (and make sure that is trye). It’s hard and it’s frustrating, but if you understand that this is what they need as part of their recovery, it should taste less bitter.

The Other Set of Betrayal Feelings

Besides anger, your partner is feeling a host of fearful emotions as well: doubt, insecurity, mistrust. These too are perfectly normal. That is how human beings should feel when someone has betrayed and lied to them. If your partner had zero worries about your trustworthiness after finding out about your affair, I would be concerned about their mental and emotional well-being.

Your actions have brought about these feelings in your partner. Even in the best-case scenario, where they truly want to rebuild their trust in you, it’s not a quick process. Trust is only built over time. There’s no fast track.

Therefore, even if they believe you that you’re sorry and want to repair the damage, that you won’t do it again, that you will overcome this together – their whole investment of trust and security has been lost. It is inevitable that they will question their own judgment and your reliability. That’s part of the damage you did to them and to the relationship.

Today they will believe you 100%. Tomorrow they won’t be so sure. Next week they’ll be certain they’re feeling better. The week after they’ll wonder whether they’re being a fool.

Again, this is all normal. Your job here is just to stay the course, and continue to express your sincerity and remorse without expecting them to accept or believe it for now. I know that’s hard to do, especially if you really do mean it and are desperate for them to know that.

Please understand that this is the penance you have to pay in order to fix your mistake. (If the repair were easy, it would mean that the mistake wasn’t that bad to begin with.)

What About All the Questions?

Besides the experience of getting dragged back through the mud repeatedly, you may find yourself saddled with questions about the affair. That much you might have expected; what you might find crazymaking is that you’re it with the same questions – questions you’ve already answered – over and over.

This more than anything can drive a person nuts when they are doing their best to repair the damage of an affair. It seems to make no sense, and it’s understandable that you might interpret this “grilling” as deliberate punishment. But in truth, this behavior too is actually quite sensible.

As we noted, part of the damage done when a person cheats is that it breeds tremendous uncertainty and insecurity in their partner. Trust goes out the window, and getting it back is a long process. It takes repeated instances of reliability to build trust. If you show up on time for a date once, that doesn’t mean I’ll feel confident that you will always be timely with me. It’s only after you show up on time a bunch of times consistently that I start to begin to feel trusting.

This is how it works even when I intellectually know something to be true. Have you ever carried a large sum of money in your pocket? Did you keep patting your pocket from time to time to make sure it was still there? There’s a lot at stake, and even if you know it was there 30 seconds ago, there’s an urge to check again. 

It’s a similar thing here. Your partner may have intellectually decided that they believe your explanations and apologies, but they may feel the need to “check their pocket” from time to time until the emotional reality sets in.

It’s normal for their feelings of doubt to creep in repeatedly, no matter how sincere you are. That’s the nature of doubt. Asking you the questions again, even though they know the answer, allows them to manage that doubt effectively. Moreover, hearing the same answer over and over is a further reassurance: it feels consistent and real, and helps them slowly accept your answers as true.

Look at it this way: what do you think it would be like if they got a different answer every time they asked a question? “How long have you been seeing this other person?” “3 months” – “a year” – “a few weeks.” Obviously, this would be incredibly destabilizing and unhelpful. So the opposite is stabilizing and helpful.

Every time you answer the question with the same answer – “3 months” – you strengthen that part of your significant other that wants to believe you. It’s like showing up on time again and again. It’s an easy win.

So when your partner hits you with a question you’ve answered before, just answer it again. Drop the frustration and the eye-roll, leave out the “I told you already…” and just give them the same, true answer you gave before. If you look at this as a simple, no-cost way to build back your partner’s trust in you, it will hopefully cause you a lot less distress.

The Bottom Line: Is My Partner Still Punishing Me for Cheating?

Look, I can’t promise you that your partner isn’t just trying to rake you over the coals again and again. It makes sense they would be mad, and maybe they’re the vindictive type. I don’t know.

But it also makes sense that they have the need to express their anger, to assuage their doubt, and to seek out consistency. These are normal parts of recovery from the trauma of betrayal in a relationship. If you can accept them as such, you will likely find it less painful (although facing your partner’s anger and mistrust probably won’t be a good time any way you look at it). That will put you in a better position to continue helping along the recovery process.

It’s not quick. It’s not easy. But it’s doable.

Let us know if you need help with it.