How to Stop Overthinking After Being Cheated On

Would you like to know how to stop overthinking after being cheated on?

An important first step is to let your emotions out. After that, you’re encouraged to take steps to stop blaming yourself, become more present and swiftly move back into the dating market. By focusing on these four steps you can regain clarity of mind after such a traumatic situation. 

In this guide, we’ll explore how to take each of these steps in more detail. 

Let Your Emotions Out

What you resist persists. What you embrace dissolves. That’s certainly true of negative thoughts, anyway. 

If you keep trying to suppress painful thoughts about being cheated on, it may work in the short-term, but these thoughts will keep returning until you deal with them properly.

When you embrace your pain and let it out into the universe, perhaps by crying, screaming or letting rip on a punch-bag, you’ll usually feel a lot better afterward. That’s because you’ve released your pain, rather than trying to suppress it and letting it fester inside you.

Taking a day or so to mourn your relationship is a great first step to stop you from overthinking about it. However, it might also be worth talking with a good friend or even a certified therapist about how being cheated on makes you feel about yourself now. This will help you understand and let your emotions on a deeper level, helping you heal from the trauma of being cheated on even further.

It’s Not Your Fault If You Were Cheated On

If you think it was your fault that you were cheated on, of course you’re going to overthink.Your mind will forever be buzzing with questions surrounding what you did to cause this tragedy or what you could have done to prevent it. 

Yet, this is all so unnecessary. 

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it’s almost NEVER the victim’s fault when they’re cheated on.  

A mentally healthy person doesn’t cheat on their partner in any circumstances. If a mentally healthy person is satisfied in their relationship, they stay. If they’re unhappy, they leave. It takes an incredibly weak or messed-up person to betray someone they loved so deeply.

So, the only thing you should blame yourself for is choosing someone so weak and messed-up in the first place.  

If you were so cruel and abusive to your partner that you destroyed their mental health, that’s an exception to the rule. That’s something you need to evaluate and probably seek therapy to deal with.  

However, in every other situation, the blame lies solely at the door of the cheater. 

If they were unhappy with the relationship, they should have talked about that with you and/or ended it. That’s universally regarded as the right thing to do. Cheating is universally known to be wrong.  

It’s especially common to blame ourselves for being cheated on when we have low self-esteem. 

In this scenario, you don’t have the confidence to consider that you did everything right and the person who strayed was in the wrong, even though that’s nearly always the case. 

Maybe you’re the type of person who always beats themselves up when things go wrong. Perhaps you had a partner who gaslit you and made you feel like you can’t do anything right. In either case, the victims of cheating can start to believe the craziest narratives about why they were to blame. 

The most heartbreaking example is when people believe they were too KIND, too LOVING or too VULNERABLE with their partner and left themselves open to be heartbroken. This type of mindset can lead you to be less kind and loving in future, potentially ruining your chances of a loving relationship with someone else.

So, it’s time to let go of blaming yourself.  

Talking about your break-up with trusted friends can help you achieve this. Therapy can be a huge help as well. I’d also recommend you check out my book ’4 Weeks To Unstoppable Confidence’, which features 28 daily exercises to help you skyrocket your self-esteem to unbreachable levels. 

Mindfulness Exercises To Help You Become More Present And Stop Overthinking

If you can find the time to regularly practice mindfulness, this can do a lot to help you curb your overthinking habit, no matter what you’ve been through in the past. Here are some exercises I recommend.  

Meditation

Meditation is the practice of focusing on the present moment, rather than being stuck in your thoughts. There are many different methods to meditate, but the most simple is to sit and focus on your breathing for 10-20 minutes. At times, thoughts will pop and distract you from this practice. Don’t get frustrated or judge yourself when this happens. Simply direct your thoughts back to your breath.

There are many reported physical and mental health benefits associated with meditation, but the ability to remain present instead of constantly overthinking about the past is certainly one of the most valuable.   

Grounding Techniques

Grounding exercises can snap you back into the present moment, when you catch yourself overthinking. These can be as simple as reciting affirmations, smelling a particular scent or snapping a rubber band against your wrist. Search online for “grounding techniques” and you’ll find hundreds more. 

Journaling

By writing your thoughts into a journal, you’ll often stop them from swirling around your head. Journaling also helps you logically process your negative thoughts and realize when they’re not based in reality. 

Get Back Out There and Start Dating Again 

It might feel like the last thing you want to do after being cheated on – and you should certainly take a day or two to process your emotions first – but throwing yourself back into the dating market is likely to be one of the best things you can do to help you stop overthinking after being cheated on.

I would recommend you go out with the intention of meeting people in real life, rather than relying on dating apps. 

Here are the main reasons why:

  • It’s Easier To Meet Someone (If You’re A Guy). If you’re an average guy, the lack of attention you’ll get on dating apps from the woman you want is likely to make you overthink even more. I wrote about why average guys get no attention on dating apps in this guide
  • You’re More Likely To Find A Good Fit. When you go out to meet people in real life, you can get a good sense of whether there’s chemistry within a few minutes of meeting someone. When there is, you’re more likely to be excited about going on a date with that person (or spending more time together in that moment). When meeting someone online, you’re rolling the dice as far as whether there will be chemistry. You’re dramatically increasing your chances of going on a date with an awful fit for you and feeling even more sorry for yourself after you get home.
  • You’re Keeping Busy. When you go to meet people in real life, you’re keeping your brain stimulated with exciting activities and real-life conversations. You’re living your best life. When you try to meet people on dating apps, you’re more likely to be sat at home alone with your thoughts, even if you are sending messages to other people.   

I definitely struggled with overthinking after being cheated on. It was a toxic relationship, for sure. This woman had mental health problems and had been dragging down my confidence for almost a year before it happened.

This left me as a shell of a man after we broke up. 

For the next year, I couldn’t inspire any new women to talk with me for even five minutes because I had this dark cloud over my head. I was bitter, I was miserable and all I wanted was someone to replace this woman who cheated on me. This desperation drove every new woman away.

Thankfully, my struggles led me to dive deep into the world of dating advice for men, to the point where I’m now traveling the world, seducing women of every culture and working remotely as a freelance dating & relationships writer.

My book ‘The Thrill Of The Chase’ outlines all the steps I took to learn how to overcome heartbreak, enjoy the single life and attract the woman I really wanted.

It will really help any man trying to ‘get back out there’ and start enjoying dating again. 

Final Thoughts

It’s not easy to stop overthinking after you’ve been cheated on, but it’s certainly possible when you do the work. You’ve been given a step-by-step guide to heal yourself. Now it’s up to you to follow it. 

Please realize that healing takes time and you’re unlikely to recover immediately. However, if you keep taking the right steps, you’ll be back to your old self before you know it. 

You’ve got this!