How can you tell if you’ve moved on from a past love? Ask yourself these three things.

1. The number one test is forgiveness. Particularly if the break up was not your idea, have you forgiven your ex, not only for ending the relationship, but have you also forgiven him for all his annoying traits? If he cheated, have you forgiven him for that? If your answer is no, try it now. Are you willing to forgive your ex? That doesn’t mean what he did was acceptable, and I’m not asking you to forget it. Forgiveness means that you’re unwilling to let your anger over a situation rule your life. It’s a powerful tool.
2. Have you learned the lessons? What gifts did you get out of the relationship? It may take some time to extract the gifts of a painful break-up, but I guarantee they’re in there. What might these lessons be? You could have learned about setting strong boundaries, so you can get your needs met without struggle. You may have learned to stay in better touch with your friends. You could have learned the value of being selfish. If you can’t easily recall the lessons, spend some time journaling about this.
3. Did you take time off before jumping into another relationship after your break up? Time to and for yourself between relationships is critical to healing and learning. If you just jumped into a new relationship before the ink was dry on your divorce decree, chances are good (sorry to be the bearer of bad news) that you’ll just repeat the same mistakes.

If you did jump into a new relationship, take heart. It’s not too late to do the work required to improve your new relationship, or to keep it from going south like your previous one. Take some time, perhaps with the help of a trained professional like a therapist or coach, and work on forgiveness. Even if you were the one who initiated the break-up, you may have some work to do on forgiving yourself if not your Ex. Work on learning the lessons. Pay attention to how your patterns repeat in your current relationship. If they don’t serve you, change them. Journaling can be a great help with this process. If you’re going through a break-up, be sure to go all the way through.

I think the number one reason people cheat is because we are not intended to be monogamous.  In cultures where monogamy is not mandatory, infidelity doesn’t destroy marriages.  Having said that, I don’t condone cheating.  I prefer open, honest communication and parameters within a relationship that allow for the possibility of non-monogamy.

Having said that, I also don’t think people who cheat are monsters.  I don’t believe they’re deviants (although a very small number may be sex addicts), and I don’t believe there’s necessarily something wrong with them.  What I do believe is that we don’t offer a good role model for being anything in between monogamous and a cheater.  We don’t offer a socially acceptable alternative.

There are a number of acceptable alternatives; the more people embrace these alternatives, the more socially acceptable they’ll become.  For example, twenty years ago it was considered taboo for a heterosexual woman to experiment with another woman.  Today, many women experiment (I’ve heard numbers as high as 80% of women are at least bi-curious) and that particular taboo has lost some of its edge.  The same principle applies to relationships.  The more couples experiment with alternatives to monogamy– from polyamory to expanded monogamy to swinging– the less of a stigma will be attached.

But before you experiment with alternatives to monogamy, we’ll return to Dr. Goodstone’s coping skills and long term expectations.  Let’s look at coping skills first.  How do you deal with loss?  How do you deal with success? How do you deal with disappointment and unmet expectations?  How does your partner handle these things?  It’s critical to develop healthy coping skills if you are to successfully navigate changes in your relationship.  I am assuming with these questions that you want to shift the dynamics of your current, long term relationship.  However, having good coping skills is also important when you’re in a new non-monogamous relationship and you have to deal with your partner having other partners.

Long term expectations are another key dynamic in relationships.  What we want in our 20’s is not what we want in our 40’s or 50’s.  As you grow, it would be helpful to examine your long term expectations on occasion (I’d recommend every five to ten years). Examine your own expectations as well as your partner’s expectations.  It’s not uncommon for expectations to be implied and assumed, and that’s what causes a lot of problems in relationships.  It goes back to having clear and open communication.  If you expect your partner to do your laundry and he doesn’t, you’ll harbor resentment.  But if you don’t explicitly request that he do your laundry, how is he supposed to know about that expectation?  The same goes for sexual expectations and expectations about intimacy and romantic gestures.

An affair, whether it’s a one night stand or a longer affair, doesn’t have to mean the end of the relationship.  You will likely need professional help together to move past the hurt, anger, betrayal, and the underlying reasons for the affair.  And you may decide after working through all those things that it’s time to separate.  I’m just suggesting that you don’t end the relationship in a knee-jerk reaction.  Take the time to explore the underlying dynamics which led to the affair, and make an empowered decision about how you want to move forward.