Once a cheater always a cheater?

I think it really depends and I only say that now after being the cheater. In my situation, I was with one guy and he was incredibly abusive. I stayed with him for way longer than I should've. Then one day, we broke up and both of us were willing to take the steps necessary to make it a real break up and not just one of our fighting break ups.

Awhile later, after he had already started seeing other people, I started seeing The Boyfriend. The ex did not like this one little bit and so making my life miserable became a daily thing. To keep from fighting or the drama that would ensue if I didn't say yes, I continued to have sex with him for 4 months while The Boyfriend and I started our relationship.

When I told The Boyfriend about it, he wasn't very upset and instead wasn't surprised at all. He took it in stride. The second I told him about it, things between the ex and I completely stopped - it wasn't like I "wanted" to do it anyways, I just really wanted to avoid a fight. And The Boyfriend understood that reasoning because he had seen the ex and I fight and he had stepped in multiple times on our fights. He was very understanding of the whole thing, which really shocked me.

But to this day, four years later, The Boyfriend and I are still happily together - more than happily. And the ex moved away, got sent to jail, got put on probation, breached probation and isn't doing very good and we don't see him except at Christmas.

I also think that it would depend on how you found out about it. If the person was honest and felt guilt about it and came to you essentially begging for forgiveness, I think that I would be more willing to give a second chance, than if say, I had stumbled across them cheating. I think, for me, my big issue would be getting over it and leaving it in the past where it should be and instead bringing it up in every single fight that we'd ever have.

Definitely an interesting conversation and no one can ever know what they'd do for sure until it happens.