When it comes to love these days, sometimes people aren’t faithful to their significant others. It’s a sad truth and what some people don’t understand when they cheat is that it doesn’t just temporarily affect the victim. It affects us for the rest of our days as we enter and leave relationships, romantic and platonic. The girl that’s been cheated on isn’t “un-dateable,” she’s just hurt and trying to recover from that, be patient and don’t rule her out.

1. Break down her walls.

The girl that’s been cheated on is a gem, a diamond in the rough, if you will. She will love you like no other, but you need to break down the walls she’s built up. She feels the need to put up walls, to make it harder to love her because she’s afraid to get hurt again. It takes time but it will be so worth it. To break down her walls, just be yourself, don’t lie to her, make her feel comfortable and loved. Over time, her walls will come down and you will meet a whole new, wonderful side of her.

2. Trust is everything.

She may not completely trust you right away. This is not your fault. She’s been lied to and betrayed so much and on such a deep level that it’s nearly impossible for her to trust anyone 100 percent for the time being. Don’t throw it in her face if you fight. Odds are she’s already heard the “Oh you don’t trust me” argument and was proven to have a good reason not to trust. No one has proved her wrong when it comes to trusting that a man isn’t cheating, so she’s going to be skeptical until you prove to her that she’s your one and only.

3. Listen to her.

Odds are if she brings up a certain problem or topic up more than once, she wants to talk about it. This is good, she’s learning to trust you and confide in you. LISTEN TO HER. This is how you gain her trust and connect with her on a level that will make her comfortable around you. I can guarantee you that if you listen to her, she will listen to anything you want to talk about in the future as well.

4. It’s the little things that count.

When you surprise her, you don’t always need to go all out. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a girl feel appreciated. Buy her her favorite candy and rent a movie she likes and watch it together for the thousandth time. Get her a nice card just to let her know you’re thinking of her, anything that lets her know that she is on your mind makes her feel like she finally matters to someone.

5. Talk it out.

If you disagree on something, talk it out. A lot of times when a girl gets cheated on, the previous boyfriend and she both kept a lot of feelings bottled up. Bottling things up leads to becoming distant and becoming distant again may worry her and make her concerned about the possibility of being cheated on again. Just because you disagree doesn’t mean you need to fight. Talk it out, don’t yell or get super defensive, just have a calm conversation.

Loving the girl who has been cheated on may be a little harder at first, but, in the end, she’s worth it. She will love you like you thought no one ever could, she will listen to you, respect you, and eventually she will trust you. It’s up to you to not break that trust. And take it from a girl that has been cheated on: if you just plan to put her through that again, don’t.