Assuming you have already confessed to your boyfriend that you cheated, there is a path to overcoming this guilt.

Ask yourself why you chose to cheat.

No, don’t blame it on being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

What was the triggering motivation?

There are a multitude of reasons why people in relationships cheat, such as boredom, dissatisfaction, retribution, empowerment, reassurance, etc.

Once you figure out the underlying reason for why you cheated, ask yourself whether you did everything you could to resolve it.

Was your boyfriend aware of it?

Communication is key in a relationship.

A lack of communication leads to a compounding of a matter.

As it compounds, it gets that much harder to mentally ignore.

Before you know it, you crumble under its weight and give in to your basest instincts.

This is where you seek escape.

Rather than fixing the matter, you choose escape.

The escape of having a physical affair with someone outside of your relationship.

When you cheated on your boyfriend, you were seeking escape.

An escape from a matter that had compounded.

The guilt you feel is partly attributed to what you have been taught to think about the act of cheating.

Ever since you were a child, you were taught about the evil that is cheating.

You learned this from the family you grew up in, the media you consumed, and society at large.

You have lived your whole life in a world where cheating has been demonized.

With this much negative stimuli associated with cheating, the guilt you feel is appreciably more intense.

This being said, steer clear of getting so lost in this guilt, seeing that it blinds you from addressing the main reason why you cheated in the first place.

A desire for escape led to cheating.

The lesson gleaned is that a matter within a relationship won’t disappear when you seek escape.

Attempting to escape the matter only exacerbates it.

Although the thought of having to confront a matter in a relationship and working to resolve it doesn’t sound like much fun, it is the right approach.

Anything other than communicating the matter and conscientiously working to resolve it is the cowardly approach.

The lesson is not to run away from a matter.

In confronting it, you find out whether a resolution is possible.

If a resolution isn’t possible, you no longer have to keep carrying the burden of the matter.

You are now empowered to leave a relationship, and never have to deal with the prospect of seeking an escape in cheating.

When you cheat, the act is done.

There is no taking it back or turning back time.

You won’t overcome guilt when you keep replaying that moment in your mind.

The realistic approach to overcome the guilt is to follow the proper steps.

Acknowledge that you were fully responsible for the act of cheating.

Not alcohol or drugs.

Pinpoint the motivation behind it.

Know that ignoring a matter in a relationship compounds it, and as its weight intensifies, you are susceptible to seeking out escape.

An escape in having a physical affair.

A physical affair that overwhelms you with guilt.

Think about how much you have struggled under the burden of this guilt.

Is this suffering worth it?

Think about how much better you would feel right now if you had chosen instead to communicate the matter with your boyfriend, and worked to resolve it with him.

Taking back the act of cheating isn’t realistic.

Nonetheless, by making a conscious decision to grow from this ordeal and do better next time, you overcome this guilt.