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" \n Bring up the topic of cheating these days and the conversation will rage for hours. But there&amp;#039;s one aspect nobody ever seems to talk about: What if the person a guy betrayed his wife or girlfriend with isn&amp;#039;t some skanky ho. What if she&amp;#039;s an otherwise levelheaded, normal chick like, say, you? Because let&amp;#039;s face it, not everyone is 100 percent single when they meet the love of their life. The big question: If a guy cheated on someone with you, can you really trust him not to do the same to you? The Ring Factor &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not a good sign if a man is willing to cheat, but these things happen,&amp;quot; says clinical psychologist David Wexler, PhD, author of When Good Men Behave Badly. &amp;quot;Sometimes an affair can be a wake-up call that leads to a better, happier relationship than the person was previously in.&amp;quot; Most men don&amp;#039;t cheat because they&amp;#039;re creepy womanizers. It often boils down to a lack of confidence when it comes to their love lives. &amp;quot;Anybody who stays in a relationship that isn&amp;#039;t working feels like they&amp;#039;re stuck and may not have the courage to break things off or be alone,&amp;quot; says Lorie Teagno, PhD, coauthor of Intimacy After Infidelity. That is obviously a red flag but doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily mean a man&amp;#039;s next relationship is doomed. Whatever the reason he got some on the side, your odds of having a lasting relationship with a man who cheated improve if he wasn&amp;#039;t married or engaged at the time, says psychotherapist M. Gary Neuman, author of The Truth About Cheating. &amp;quot;One of the reasons we don&amp;#039;t marry someone is because we&amp;#039;re not sure we want to be with this person for the rest of our lives,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It shows he had doubts before you ever came along.&amp;quot; But it&amp;#039;s entirely different \u2014 and emotionally dangerous \u2014 if a man cheats on his wife, Neuman says, because he&amp;#039;s proved he can&amp;#039;t honor a serious commitment. Moving Forward If you&amp;#039;re concerned about the future of this new relationship, you should be, says couples therapist Mira Kirshenbaum, author of When Good People Have Affairs. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not automatically true that if he cheated with you, he&amp;#039;ll cheat on you, but you have to be very, very careful,&amp;quot; she cautions. And the faster he makes a clean break from his previous relationship, the better, Kirshenbaum says. Only then can the two of you begin to work on building a healthy new one.  After that, everything in your romance should move slowly. To make sure you don&amp;#039;t fall in love as recklessly as you fell into bed, Teagno recommends that you wait one or two months before starting over as two single people who are just beginning to get to know each other. &amp;quot;If you take time off, the chances of this working out are far greater,&amp;quot; she says. Of course, you have to talk about the importance of honesty. Given his history, your guy needs to be prepared to be extremely open about his feelings \u2014 both positive and negative \u2014 and do whatever it takes to reassure you when he&amp;#039;s away on a trip or out late with the boys. &amp;quot;In the long run, actions speak louder than words,&amp;quot; Wexler says. &amp;quot;But if he can show that he&amp;#039;s learned from his mistakes, this new relationship has the potential to last.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a3242/he-cheated-with-me/>