I often hear from husbands or wives who want to know if their spouse will ever regret cheating on them. Many times, the cheating spouse has been able to justify her actions or is making all sorts of excuses for them. Many cheating spouses don’t seem to have an ounce of remorse, so it’s natural to wonder if they’ll ever feel any sort of remorse.

Common comments are things like, “My husband ended up leaving me for the woman he cheated on me with. Our marriage was having some problems, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved. When I found out, he didn’t even seem to be around. Sorry about that. Neither he didn’t even want to try to save our marriage. He left me and our kids for this other woman. He said he was going to marry her, but they broke up before they could get to the altar. My husband now says she’s a scheming and conniving woman. selfish and misjudged her. Yet he has never once expressed regret for his actions. My family is torn apart. I struggle to make ends meet and keep my house. But he never once admitted that the cheating was a mistake. I wonder if people ever regret it when they cheat or have an affair, right?

The short answer is a resounding yes. On an extremely regular basis, I hear people deeply regret not only cheating, but also the fact that sometimes it’s too late to go back in time or do anything about it. Often they are too embarrassed to show this regret to their spouse. But believe me when I tell you that many people feel some regret.

The kind of regret many people feel for cheating: Many people tell me that they suspect their partner only regrets it when the relationship between them and the person they cheated with doesn’t work out. Others will tell you that there is only regret after the affair has been discovered and the cheating spouse must now face what she has done. We’ve all heard the phrase “he’s not sorry he cheated. He’s sorry he got caught.”

But I have to tell you, it’s obvious from the correspondence I receive that there are a variety of genuine reasons people have regrets that have nothing to do with getting caught. They often feel very sorry for not having taken another path. Sure, their marriage may have been rocky or they may have been struggling, but often they realize there were probably better options than cheating. Many lament the effect their infidelity has had on their family. And many are very disappointed in themselves. This is not how they envisioned their marriage or their personal level of integrity. However, often these feelings come long after the cheating or affair is over, which brings me to my next point.

Why do people take so long to regret cheating?: Many faithful husbands complain that they do not see pain and are tired of waiting for it. I know from my own experience that this can be very frustrating. But it might be useful to know that he will come often. It may be later than you would like. The reason for this is that when an affair or infidelity is recent, people seem to spend a lot of time and emotional energy trying to justify it. This becomes important to them because if they cannot justify their actions, then they cannot continue to carry them out due to guilt or mixed feelings. So you must push down on any guilt, sorrow, or regret that you feel. But once the deception or affair has ended for a while, they no longer have this need. And that’s when there’s finally room for genuine feelings of regret to surface. It can help to know that, almost without fail, there is often at least some regret present. Because at the end of the day, there’s never really any justification for cheating. Unhappy marriages can end before someone needs to start another relationship. So when things don’t happen this way, most people regret that their actions weren’t the most honorable.

And, some people really take this a step further and may look back one day to realize that they jeopardized a perfectly good marriage with the love of their life because they made a mistake. Sometimes such errors cannot be corrected. But just as often, they can, although there’s usually a lot of pain and hard work that needs to be addressed. So yeah, most people can’t help but feel some regret about these things.