How do you own up to your failures?

You need and see if there is anything recurring in your past relationships, what caused you too cheat/be unfaithful? If it's you - you should take a break from relationships to truly help understand yourself, be selfish for a while without emotionally hurting others.Owning up to your failures.. it's a harsh word - ''failures''. Call them mistakes and learn from them, life is an adventure and mistakes are meant to be made!Apologize to those you've hurt and in future remove yourself from any situations you feel will lead into being unfaithful, put a stop to it early!

You say that you have been unfaithful in all of your romantic endeavors, maybe you feel you are lacking something? Have you tried losing yourself in something that makes you happy? If you are having a hard time trying to own up to anything you find unsuccessful, maybe start by writing it down on paper. You don't have to tell anyone about it, but at least you will be answering to yourself. Once you get comfortable with that (when I started to do this it took several months for me to really get used to it) then try writing it down for your significant other to see. Don't force anything, just nudge it. The only way to get comfortable with taking the heat for something you did, is to start with baby steps into it.

I think that it is very admirable that you want to own up to your mistakes and make up for them. However, it is very clear that it's all in the past--you can't go back to prevent that mistake, or make it so that you made another choice instead. So what's left to do? Well, you can choose to wallow in the negative consequences of your mistakes and just label yourself as a bad person who will never get better and be done with it OR you can learn from those mistakes and apply that wisdom to future events. What behaviors led to your cheating ordeal? Were there anything that you said? How about the manner of how you said things or acted towards the person you cheated on your SO with? Did you not draw a clear boundary between fidelity and infidelity to your partner? Or did you just avoid the obvious boding of bad consequences and jump into bed with another person just because you wanted to? Do you love your SO? Truly? Could it be that you feel like you're not "good enough" and cheating makes you feel that you're worth something? (being attractive, for example?) If you REALLY want to make up for what you have done, AND you appreciate your SO and your relationship to ensure that it survives, then the mature decision to make would be NOT to repeat the behavior that put a huge crack in your SO's heart, right? S/he has made the decision to STAY with you, despite your betrayal. Which is very generous and loving of your SO, because most people do not give others second chances, especially if that person has betrayed and hurt them. Please recognize this. In the meantime, I think you really need to talk to your SO. If you haven't apologized properly, then I think it will be in both of your interest to do so. TALK to him/her and be honest. Your SO's here to help you and s/he obviously loves you very much. S/he wants the best for you, and should be willing to listen and help out in any way s/he can. Now, I want you to understand that you have the same duty to your SO, because you are his/her partner and you love and care for him/her. So help your SO out as well. I'm sure that s/he's very hurt right now. Show him/her that you care about him/her and love him/her, sincerely. As for not having understood your partners' views while in relationships, that's a fatal flaw, don't you think? For example, ask yourself how you would feel if your SO had cheated and lied to you? How about betrayed you? How would you feel? That's a good first step in trying to put yourself in another person's shoes, so to speak. Also on a final note, you need to be able to DO the things that you say that you want to do. (such as reflecting on your mistakes and making things right from now on) You can say that you want to do a or b all you want, but if you don't act on it, then those are just empty words, don't you think? Something to keep in mind as this progresses. I hope things will work out. Have a great day! -Ravvi

First off, you deserve a great deal of praise for stepping up and admitting your wrongs openly. With an avoidant personality, you could have easily gone on displacing the blame onto others, but you have taken the textbook first logical step to admitting your wrongs; by standing before yourself and posing the critical question "How can I determine if I am at fault?" Congratulations, you figured out the first step of your own faculties.

By the strictest letter, talking to you about how to hold yourself accountable for your own actions qualifies as therapy, because it would be the combined practices of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Rational-Emotive Therapy, and Emotional Disclosure Therapy that are the keys to helping you re-train your associative thinking, and we're legally prevented from doing that on blahtherapy, and I am NOT a professional, so I'll keep it brief.

The difficulty you're having in holding yourself accountable is as much habit as it is impulsive. You've displaced blame for so long that you are used to it. It comes as second-nature to you. In order to re-train yourself to accept your own accountability, you have to discern the difference between emotions and reactions that are stimulated within yourself and those that come from outside sources.

As you become more accustomed to differentiating internal and external influences, you'll find that recognizing the source of your reactions becomes easier.

For example: A habitual Avoidant is in a coffee shop and is used to watching their cup to keep it from spilling. The Avoidant bumps into someone who was texting and walking, spilling his coffee. The Avoidant attributes the blame onto the texter, because his bias is that he was "just doing what he always does", and he dismisses the fact that he was not paying attention to his surroundings. He displaced blame.

I hope this gives you suitable perspective to help you continue to define accountability for yourself. You're welcome to message me privately any time.

Never forget that you matter, and you are not alone.

Hey af,

It's great that you want to make up for your mistakes and this starts with admitting them to the people you have hurt.
What you shouldn't forget is that you are the one who made the mistake, so the 'hurt ones' are free to decide how they react to this news. Or at least that's the way they are going to feel.
So be prepared for the fact that people might choose to break off their relationship with you.

On the other hand, they might have you work to re-gain their trust in you and it's in their right to ask so. Wether you think that person is worth it is up to you.

The best advice i can give you about what to do after you've admitted to your faults, is to stay humble towards the people you've hurt, even if they decide to cut you of from their lives afterwards.
And of course, make sure you don't repeat the same mistakes all over again. People that give you their trust don't deserve to have it hurt every time again and making sure you don't will make you feel better at the end of the day.

Don't give up and be prepared for what the future will bring. If they don't give you the chance after you've admitted your mistakes, you won't be able to change how those people will think about you. And you won't be able to change that. But do know that it's more noble to be honest to the people you love and lose them, than to stick with them while abusing their trust.

If you need any advice or someone to talk, feel free to pm or reply. Good luck and have faith!

What do you think is preventing you from empathizing with other people? Have you ever been hurt before, betrayed by another person? Do you know how that feels? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. I'm not sure. Some people have to experience that kind of pain before they can actually understand what it's like to be hurt on that level. But if you do know what it's like to be hurt in such a way by someone you trusted and loved, then surely you can understand what you keep putting your SO's through. Empathy is what allows us to put ourselves in the other's shoes. You just use your imagination. Can you do that with characters when you read a book or watch a movie or show? Try it with that. It is no different. Anyways, a lot of the issues we carry also stem from our childhood so try to get in touch with the habits you developed back then and what caused you to feel like you always had to be so defensive? Maybe you grew up around that sort of behavior where you were always being blamed or shamed for something you did or didn't do. Anything done without love can be damaging. That doesn't mean discipline doesn't have it's place, but love is key. In addition, maybe you are not ready to be in a relationship at this point in your life. It's also possible that you have abandonment issues if you find being committed to one person hard. Maybe someone abandoned you in your life before and that's what is causing you to cheat? You said it was an emotional thing so try to get in touch with your emotions better. Owning up to your failures just means acknowledging that you hurt the other person and you're truly sorry and are going to work on being a better person. Perhaps you acknowledge this on a head level and can clearly see that you did something wrong, but it's not going down to your heart - where you can truly feel it? I'm not sure. Well, hope some of this helps. Best of luck to you.