Looking for stories where the couple reconcile after one of them cheats (or otherwise destroys a romantic relationship), but (unlike typical RAAC) the reconciliation comes at a GREAT cost/sacrifice to the cheater (especially compared to severity of their offense - e.g. 6 months long affair requires greater sacrifice than a drunken one-night stand). Basically, something where even a convinced BTB person would go "OK, this person earned the reconciliation". Ideally, protagonist actually meaningfully benefits from the cost/sacrifice.
Since this may be a bit subjective, a couple of examples so people get my idea of "great sacrifice":
- Cheater literally tries to sacrifice their life for the victim (obviously, they survive to actually get the reconciliation part, but they legit risk their life)
- Cheater takes the blame for a crime protagonist committed and goes to jail instead of them
Things that do NOT count in my opinion:
- Cheater "sacrifices" something that they shouldn't have had in the first place, like a second "spouse"; or out of wedlock cheating child, or a family member/friend who got them to cheat.
- Cheater "sacrifices" things that they got as a benefit of their cheating, e.g. custody of kids (or assets) they would have gotten in the divorce.
- Cheater "sacrifices" something that isn't of legitimately great value to them. For example "well, you get to have sex with someone other than me in revenge" move doesn't count - after their cheating, the victim legit can have sex with whoever they want anyway. Generally, quitting a job doesn't count unless the author established that this job is literally emotionally the most important thing to the ex, but even so that's iffy.