Episode #5: Bounce Back From Cheating
Hello everybody, it's Dr. Lurve. Welcome to another episode. I was thinking this is getting easier and easier every single time I do it and I just love it. I thought today I would jump on and... well, first of all, I actually have been a bit serious the last few episodes. I'm not normally that serious. For anyone that actually knows me I'm a little bit of a joker and I quite like to take the piss out of people and a bit of a prankster.
I'm the chick that you normally find hiding under the table to grab you at the ankles to scare the shit out of you. I feel like you just haven't got that from me from my last podcast, so I am going to chop it up a bit and show up a little bit more and show a bit of my funny side, I guess, a bit of my humor. If you get it or not is another thing but I'm going to put it out there anyway. For today, we are actually not talking about anything that's humorous at all.
Today we are talking about relationships and cheating. What I thought I'd talk about today is can we actually bounce back from a cheating scandal? Cheating is not fun by any means on any relationship. It is totally heartbreaking, not easy. It's an extreme violation of trust, and it can actually make - I don't like to use the word victim but the cheated partner of the relationship feel a bit worthless or not good enough or even sometimes like it's their fault.
If you've ever been cheated on or you've cheated on a partner, you know the damage that it causes to the relationship. You know what I'm talking about, because even if you stay in that relationship, the cracks are there, and it's a bit traumatic. It's like even though you think you've put it past you or you've gone beyond it, that a few things can trigger you and they come up and, again, bam, you're feeling all those feelings again. There's a lot more ways then just one way to cheat in a relationship. There's plenty of ways.
I guess it depends on your relationship boundaries. Cheating comes in all different forms. If your relationship boundaries are when you're in a relationship you don't have anything to do with anyone from the opposite sex. Or you can speak to people of the opposite sex, but it needs to be around your partner, or you have an open relationship and the physical connection or having sex is not considered cheating but the emotional connection and the emotional affair you end up having with them is crossing boundaries.
For some infidelity is purely just being physical with another person, kissing someone else or having one of those one night stands or a full blown affair, it just depends where you are in the relationship. But cheating emotionally is also something that is very hard to get over. Some people will say, "Well, you know what? I didn't really cheat. I didn't touch her. I didn't touch him," but becoming emotionally invested and attached to somebody else that isn't your partner can really have a detrimental effect on the relationship.
Even things like flirting and opening yourself up emotionally to someone else, if you have to hide it from your partner or your significant other, this is considered cheating by your partner. If you are in a position that you are either hiding something or you feel like you'll probably got an emotional connection with someone outside of your relationship that your partner doesn't know, I would probably check yourself to see ,"Hang on a minute, is this within our relationship boundaries?"
While the guilt of the cheater isn't always essential, the essential ingredient to infidelity, they're not always guilty. They don't feel guilty because they may be doing the act of infidelity without realizing that it's going to hurt their partner, or they are doing it while they still love their partner. It sounds ludicrous. How the hell can you love your partner as well as be with someone else? Sometimes, I will say selfish. Sometimes they're selfish needs and they think about their own needs rather than their partner at this time when they're cheating.
They may be looking for more affection or attention than what is being offered at home but it could be quite the opposite. They could be getting a lot of attention and affection and they're being unrealistic with what they're wanting from their partner. This is still no way an excuse for cheating. It indirectly places blame on the cheated partner like it's their fault. Like, "You didn't do enough for me. That's why I went out and found someone. Or you didn't make me feel loved enough so I decided to find it in someone else's arms."
I call bullshit. There is no excuse. If you're in a relationship, you respect relationship boundaries. Otherwise don't be in one. It's pretty simple because you're hurting not only the person you're supposed to be in love with but with the person that loves you. At the end of the day, you're also hurting yourself. I would say respecting your relationship boundaries is a non negotiable, but trying to understand why people cheat can give us some insight into the mind of why someone would want to cheat.
It could be for many reasons. It can be narrowed down probably to three broad categories. There's plenty of reasons. I can't stay here all day talking about the reasons why people cheat but let's talk about the three probably categories that it can fit into. It's the individual themselves, the actual relationship dynamic and it could be situational. Have a think about it. Essentially, there's an individual. It's someone who has a personality, the person's personality that is prone to cheating.
They're actually not built for monogamy. They're not built to stay with one person. A lot of people have this idea that we're probably not. That's really up to you and probably your philosophy around relationships and whether we should be in a monogamous relationship but individuals find it very hard to hold onto a relationship with one person. Sometimes, they tend to have higher levels of testosterone. This is for both men and women.
It brings that sexual interaction more to the forefront of their mind so they're thinking about it more often than the average person. They also could fall into a category around a personality disorder or type. We hear this word thrown around quite a lot especially lately in the media around narcissism and men and women that totally don't show any empathy and have no consideration for the people around them as to the act that they're doing. That's another indicator around the individual.
Whoever they are in a relationship they are likely to cheat. Now, they don't do this to hurt you. They don't do this to hurt the person they're with. It's simply a part of who they are. There's an issue here because the women or the men that find themselves with one of these people or one of these individuals continually find themselves trying to change them, influence them. They compromise who they are to be with them. Unfortunately at the end of the day, the hurt partner stays hurt because it is a continuous part of their personality and they will continually do the same things that hurt their partner unfortunately.
That is the individual. The next category is the relationship category. We've moved from the individual, and we're now going into the two individuals together in a relationship. This is where most cheaters fall into place around the unhappy relationship. Their current relationship is not satisfying them and they're seeking affection or attention from somewhere else. If the relationship consists of fighting, poor communication, a lack of intimacy, they generally think, "You know what, that's my last resort."
Sometimes, they feel like it's their ticket to cheat. Like, "I wasn't given this so I'm going to get it elsewhere, or I'm not..." Sometimes it's not that. Sometimes, it's not a conscious decision. Sometimes, it's they fall into somebody's arms without even realizing because they've just not realized how much they've been missing out on in the lack of affection and attention. Now, women just as men are prone to cheating but women more so are prone to cheating emotionally first.
They emotionally cheat before being physically intimate with someone. Whereas for the men, they are more likely to cheat via sex and a physical interaction so that they can physically get that energy out of their body. This doesn't mean that they can't do either either. Some men are looking for the emotional connection and while women are just looking for sex, and that's okay. The roles can be reversed, but generally, the women are looking for a conversation with someone that's going to feel them.
Some cheaters in a relationship, the difference between being in a relationship and the individual is that the individual has almost like no hope. They are prone to cheating and will continually cheat. They may have that psychological personality disorder or something, so it's going to put them in a prime position to keep doing those behaviors. However, when they're in a relationship, those people that are in relationship that are cheating have the ability to stay faithful.
It may just be the interaction of the relationship that's the problem. Some cheaters, it's situational, and that is it got nothing to do with the individual, and it's got nothing to do with the relationship they're in. It's just depending on the situation they're in. There's a lot of variables in their life that could contribute to opportunities of cheating. It could be things like how populated their location is at work or their social settings.
If they're around the opposite sex more at work, and they've got more interaction with someone of the opposite sex. Alot of the time if their work is more creative like photographers and models and artists they tend to be around a lot more attractive people. So the likelihood of them having that initial attraction is higher than that of someone just in your nine-to-five average job or the housewife or the she mom or the he mom or whatever it is.
What they do if they spend a lot of personal time with another individual they could definitely end up growing a connection with them, but that doesn't mean that all creatives are like that. I mean, you could grow a connection with your pool guy or your gardening woman or your cleaner at home. It's just the amount of time that you're spending with someone who's going to make a difference with the type of connection you have with them.
There are the three categories, so with the individual, the relationship and the situation. Now, at no time am I saying that cheating is okay, but we're just talking about how does it come about, what happens in general. I get a lot of questions. "My partner has cheated. Do I try and mend the relationship or do I get out of there?" I find it quite interesting because a lot of women and men that I speak to have said prior to being in a relationship that their non negotiable is cheating, that when their partner cheats on them, they're out of here.
But if they do experience a scenario around infidelity or cheating, a lot of them don't go. There's a process around that. A lot of stories around, "I thought I would leave. I think in my head it's the right thing to go because he or she has cheated." That's not always the case. A lot of the time, people actually want to try and make it work and work out what happened, what went wrong for the cheating to happen in the relationship.
A lot of people actually work at it with a lot of success, while others, yes, no, they don't, and especially those that have experienced constant cheating through their relationship where they've thought, "You know what, we'll work it out and get through it," and then bang, it happens again. That serial cheating is probably not very good for the individual in the relationship, but those that have cheated once and are quite remorseful and work at it, the relationship can come back.
There are many success stories of couples reuniting after one of them has cheated in the relationship. Some may say that their relationship is even stronger because for most of it, the couple try that a little bit harder than they did before the relationship broke up or someone cheated. I will say this isn't the case for everyone. Cheating breaks the trust between two people. Usually, the one person has cheated, which leaves one feeling betrayed, lied to and deceived by the other going behind their back.
I've seen the pain that's happened to people going through this and the doubt around themselves and about the answers they're looking for as to why this happened, "Why me? Why did he do that? Why did she do that? What did I do wrong?" Ideally when you're in a relationship, you aren't just lovers or a couple. You're also friends, so you've got each other's backs. When you break that trust, it not only means that you've interfered with your romantic connection that's been jeopardized, but you really shuttered a really good friendship, and friendship's really deep.
We hold onto a friendship and a connection very deeply. When you cheat, you've jeopardized not only a lover but a friend, and rebuilding the connection that may have been lost probably well before the cheating happened. These are the red flags that we've mentioned along this podcast and a lot of other podcasts that I've been a guest on is noticing the red flags. Sometimes, what happens is that we choose not to notice the red flags because we're actually scared when we probably know deep down that this is not going to work, but we don't want to believe it, and we hold onto hope.
I've mentioned before is hope being something that can be quite dangerous in relationships because we hold onto hope. We hope they'll change. We hope it doesn't happen again. We hope that they'll be different, we hope the relationship can be exactly how we use to have it. It keeps us sometimes in relationships for far longer than we need to be. Rebuilding the connection that may have been lost well before the cheating has happened is one of the hardest but most important things to get right during a time of infidelity.
The person that's been cheated on not only feels that they are probably at their most vulnerable that they've ever felt in their lives. These new feelings arise that they never may have even dealt with before. How can someone cheat on an individual and that individual that was cheated on turn around and then start to have self-talk around, "I might be worthless or I'm ashamed that someone cheated on me. Is it my fault?" A lot of them feel like a fool.
"Everyone else knew but me." It's not fun for anyone to look like a fool in front of everyone that they know. There's a sense of somehow, "How was it my fault? How did I contribute to the cheating?" I get that because if there was a communication breakdown or if you weren't communicating, there's a lot of conflict. I can understand that you've had fights and you probably haven't repaired the relationship along the way but the individual who cheated still chose to cheat and break the boundaries of the relationship.
Is it your fault? You may not have had sex for a couple of weeks but does that give them the green light to go and have sex with someone else? It's respecting those boundaries. When you go through a time of infidelity it's like you've got to take the time to get to know each other again, quality time together, away from kids, away from family, away from commitments, time that's going to help bring you back together so that you guys remember the connection that you once had.
Whether it means that you need to be taking a weekend road trip away together or booking in private date nights once a week or once a fortnight, but trying to get back to being a couple is really going to help at this time. Obviously to get to the stage to go on a road trip and spend some time together, there's got to be a whole heap of forgiveness that happens and remorse around the relationship because the individual, the hurt partner, the one that was cheated on will never be able to move forward without knowing there's a genuine apology, reason without knowing this remorse.
Sometimes, the cheating partner says sorry but that's just not good enough. The hurt individual wants to know details and wants to know why, how? Unfortunately, the person that has cheated has to be available to answer those questions. It may be hurtful even for them that they did the cheating, but to know that they hurt their partners so severely and deeply, it actually also hurts them to talk about the act that hurt the person that they love. Unfortunately, they need to be sitting in that space and be available to answer those questions so that the hurt individual can start to feel a little better and grow trust for the person again.
Once that's done, then you start to work on the connection again. Look, you can definitely, I would suggest, is seek some professional help around how to do this because it's not an easy treck. A lot of people try and do this on their own. You don't have to. You really don't. It's hard to do this on your own because there's so many emotions flying. Sometimes there's blame. There's guilt. There's sadness, depression, anxiety. There's a lot of these emotions.
Getting help from an expert is really going to help you navigate through this individually, but also help you navigate as a couple, so even some couple therapy. The hardest thing after someone has cheated on you is trusting them. Obviously, the question I get is, "I can't trust them anymore. What can I do?" Sometimes, it's not the cheating that makes some walk out the door. It's the fact that they can't trust them anymore, and it kills them on a daily basis to think, "Where are they? What are they doing? Who are they with? Why aren't they answering?"
That lack of trust is driving them to the ground and that's enough for them to call it quits. Before you call it quits because of trust, probably, it's something that can be built. If you are going to get some help around this, the therapist or the coach around this can help you. Obviously, I'm available to do this through some of my coaching packages if that's something that you're interested in doing. Have a hard think about your partner, and how likely do you think they are to do this again, how remorseful they are?
What are they doing at the moment that's making you feel insecure? Are they doing probably nothing but because the trust is broken we've become a little bit overly paranoid and rightfully so. Your partner might be feeling really bad about what's happened and what he or she has done to you, and they're going through a hard time as well. That's why I'm saying a third party here is going to be very helpful but the hurt individual has absolutely no blame in this for their actions.
Their actions stem from their failure to discuss how they're feeling and be the open in their communications to say, "Hey, I'm not feeling it in this relationship." If it got that bad, they felt like they needed to get out of the relationship or they felt like they needed to break the boundaries around the relationships, that's on them. They didn't make an attempt to make things better or voice their concerns. They went and put a bandaid on it, because it didn't actually hide any pain at all.
It didn't put any protection over the sore. If anything, it was an illusion. It was a bandaid for them because they were feeling a little bit unsettled in their relationship, but that bandaid doesn't cover the hurt that's just happened. Mending a relationship after cheating isn't easy. Some couples won't be able to come back from infidelity. Not every one can. Not everyone has the personality to do it. Not everyone has the ability to trust again in the same way.
That's because individuals come to relationships with their own past baggages. If they've struggled to trust from a very young age and then someone does this, well, are they likely to trust again, and is the relationship going to become so toxic that it's not worth being in it? Sometimes, the trust is too broken to rebuild, and the hurt individual may not ever be able to forgive their partner.
This isn't always a bad thing. Maybe breaking up maybe for the best. Sometimes simply put, couples are just not meant to last forever, and things like this, the cheating or the scandal, whatever you want to call it, provides us with a lesson in life that we probably needed to experience at some point. Albeit it's a painful experience, and it sucks. It hurts like hell and it can hurt for a long time, but in the end, it may have been a blessing in disguise.
When we get through the hurt and if we've decided to either stay in the relationship or move away from it, that blessing can come in many different forms. It could be in the form of a better relationship. It could be in the form of a better relationship away from this relationship with someone else. I am going to say be honest with yourself and how you feel when you now think of your partner after the cheating scandal, whether it's you that cheated or them.
It can be very difficult to look past your feelings of hurt and anger right now if it's happened in the immediate times we're talking about now, but I will try to tell you to remember why you are together in the first place. Think about all the reasons why you're together and why you want to stay together before you make a decision to leave. Let your partner know how you feel. If there's things you can do to make it better, try and do them. Give it a go, but if you feel like this is the end of the road, well then, either getting some help for either option or getting some professional help to help you stay in the relationship but also to leave the relationship.
They're unbiased, and they'll help you in a new situation, whether it's the one you want to stay in or the one you want to leave. If you feel like you're on the brink of cheating or you've been cheated on and need some help or maybe you feel like you want to reconnect with your partner again because of some of the fears around, well, if you're not being satisfied in your relationship, where are you going to be satisfied? Maybe it might be worth contacting me and getting in touch so that we can have a chat around your relationship and see if we can get it back on track, or if we can help you through an infidelity scandal or maybe it's time for you to leave the relationship,and you need some help to navigate your way out.
Whatever it is, I'm available. Now I did say it's not going to be a very humorous episode today but I do feel like it's something that we need to talk about. It happens quite often more than we think, and a lot of the time, it happens to a lot of people that we don't expect. We look at relationships. They're great, but unfortunately behind closed doors, there's a lot of things happening in relationships that we don't know of. I would say water your own garden. Plant your own seeds and plow your crop because the garden on the other side of the fence might look greener, but sometimes the roots are already dying.
Maybe start with your own backyard first and see how you go with making that work. If it's not for you and it's time for you to grow a garden somewhere else, that's okay as well. If you need some help, shout out. I think that's the end of this episode. I hope you liked it. If you've got any comments, questions, suggestions even for other topics on our podcast, please feel free to message me and let me know because your feedback really helps.
It actually determines what we do on the podcast, what sort of information I'm getting. If there's anyone in particular you want on the podcast or any particular expert you want to hear from, just give me a shout out. I look forward to our next episode. This is Dr. Lurve See ya!