Infidelity: Can Your Relationship Survive?

So you've been really instrumental in my marriage. Every relationship has a scorecard, and when distinct happens, the scorecard gets revisited and the circumstances where I was the cheater, I was always looking for something. Yes, Plus our Urtt family opens up. Sometimes you just don't know what's wrong with you. Alright, girl, girl, girl, our girl A stair ye prel. Yeah, today to talk about infidelity, and it's gonna be a good one. It

is gonna be a good one. Once you start engaging in relationships, in romantic relationships, you either at some point in time are gonna cheat or have been cheated on. You'll be in either one of those positions or both. Yes, and I've been on both sides, and so have I. I had a really interesting experience. When I was younger, I had to relationships before will that were kind of serious to me where I got cheated on, which really broke my heart. And then I cheated on somebody that

I really cared about. And I have to tell you, me cheating on someone was more devastating than me being cheated on. Really, yes, it actually taught me to forgive when I got cheated on because I understood, and what I understood most is that it didn't have anything to do with me. Because when I had to look at myself and understand why I did it right, I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with my partners at all.

When I look over my history of relationships, I would always say, oh, I'm a one man woman, and then I would look over and be like, wait, my hold relationships. Like, particularly when I took my fourth step in my recovery process, I was like, uh, no, you're not missing, No you're not you know. So, like I said, I've been on both sides of it. But what I also recognized too was like, even when my relationships failed, typically it was

not over that. Like I never got cheated on and felt like I'm out, I'm not tolerating that, you know, which is what what I constantly tell myself in my head or if he ever write all of that. But at the end of the day, until you get there, you really don't know. You don't know what you're gonna do.

I found that, you know, in the circumstances where I was the cheater, I was always looking for something, something else, that there was something lacking in the relationship, and not that it was not that I'm blaming the other partner, I'm not doing that, but yeah, I just don't feel like I was just out here, you know, trying to hurt people and just being messy. So we got somebody here today that I am so excited yes to be

talking to. And we've been trying to get this woman to the table forever since the beginning of our show. Her insights are just powerful and um deep and progressive, king poking, and she's been really instrumental in my marriage to Will. Will he introduced meeting in captivity to me, and then I introduced the state of affairs to him. Yeah, and we are her big guest fans, and you are

now her big fans too. I am a stair parrel is a world renowned psychotherapist who specializes in marriage and infidelity. She's the author of two best selling books we have read them cover to cover, a groundbreaking podcasts and making headlines, and as a couple's counselor for over thirty years, her unconventional insight has helped thousands of couples. Oh my goodness, so wonderful to see you. We're so excited to have you.

I actually think you've had conversations with Will, haven't you. Yes, yes, yes, yes, but I didn't know if you knew yes, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, definitely he shared that with me for sure. That's right, because you are. Yes. So, the latest stats that I've heard is that fifties seven percent of men and fifty four percent of women have cheated on their partners. Can you tell us why the typical view has always been well,

because there's something listening in the relationship. Because they're unhappy, they're miserable, they're lonely, they're depressed, they're wants a cheater, always a cheatter. They have no morals because they feel neglected, because there is indifference in the relationship. There is a myriad of discontent within relationships that may propel people to respond to the kindness of strangers. What are the alternatives of divorce? Everybody thinks that as soon as you find

out there's an affair, you gotta get a divorce. I am not of that persuasion because I think that there are many relational betrayals, contempt and neglect and violence and indifference, and nobody tells people get the hell out, get the hell out, And especially on women, it's the real new pressure. God forbid, you still would love the person who actually, you know, cheated on you. Maybe that person is a lot of things and cheated. That's like the shame of staying.

You know, now that you can go, you gotta get out, right. I so relate to that, because you know, I'm asked a lot about their infidelity in your relationship with Will, and it's like, no, But there have been other portrayals of the heart that have been far bigger then I could even think in regards to an infidelity situation. When you talk about contempt or resentment or what have you, neglect,

it can just tear your world apart. So many of the people that I see have been faithful for decades and then one day they crossed the line that they never thought they would cross, right, you know, why would they risk losing everything that they built for what? You know? The idea is that if you have everything that you wanted them, there should be no reason to go looking elsewhere. Hence,

if you go looking elsewhere, there is something missing. Either it's in you, there is in your partner, but there must be a deficiency somewhere. One person whould treats on another a perpetrator and a victim, a good person and a bad person. And it's a lot more more than less. And if you wear more, whatever, smarter, toller, gender, richer, more powerful, it wouldn't have happened. It's not the case, right.

You might be married to someone who is just a innate adventurer, like there's just certain kinds of desires within of that that had nothing to do with you per se. But there are personal desires that need to be um explored in some manner. And even if it's not necessary an exploration that lasts forever, it's an exploration that needs to happen to get through a passage of some kind.

That is an important idea because, specifically for me, in regards to creating now, redefining my marriage as a life partnership was the necessity of autonomy for myself and for will you know, and finding the core of us that wanted to be together outside of the constraints of the traditional ideas of marriage because they weren't working for us. We went on that journey of of that life partnership to find that autonomy and to find the true authentic

bond outside of obligation. I don't want you to be obligated. What part of this is the part that you actually want and the part that you want to be devoted to? And what part of it do I want and want to be devoted to outside of what we've been told we're supposed to be obligated to. What were you're told you have to do? You know, you have to be a perfect wife. You have to be that source that supports his dreams no matter what it is, whatever he

wants to build, you're there to support that. Our whole life looked like his dream and the title for that your go to us and his muse his Yeah, basically, you know I'm his energy source. That's great, but but I've got to create part of this life that is designed and looks like me. And when you said that, did he was he receptive or he felt abandoned. He felt abandoned at first. He felt really abandoned, because if you take a little bit of autonomy, you may leave

alto exactly. And that's one of the reasons why I stayed in it the way I did for so long, because I was so terrified. First of all, you never want to hurt the person that you love. I never want to create instability in that way. So I stayed in that position for so long because I just didn't I didn't know how to say it. It was one of those truths when I say that the truths get deeper. That was that was a core truth that took years for me to just go can't. But you just made

a fantastic distinction. It's not the same staying in the marriage versus in a role, right, Yes, yes, you know. I have this way. I always think of relationships. For me, relationships are stories, right, So I think you pick a partner, you pick a story, right, But then sometimes you find yourself recruited for a play that you didn't audition for exactly, And it's the rule that you want to change, and people confuse changing the role with wanting to change the

whole relationship and leave right. Not only did I want to change the role, but I wanted to change the play. And once you change the life story, you can create a new lost exactly exactly. And that's exactly what has occurred. And it's been beautiful, but when I tell you, it has been one of the most excruciating processes of my life. I wanted to personally break out of will needing to be something for me because I felt like it was so unfair and a lot of it had to do

with my father issues. I just realized one day, I was like, this man is not your father. He's not stop it or he's not meant to be everything your father was exactly, and that was the thing, and I was like, you gotta grow up, you gotta be a woman, that little girl. Trauma does not work here, and that

was the work I had, he must have. I mean, usually it takes two to tango, So if you know that's what is that, That's where we connected was our childhood traumas exactly, And in my codependency, I was like, don't you worry. I'll take all your feeling and emotion. You don't have to deal with that. I'll deal with that for you. And that was the secret contract that I had made with him. And then I had to make the decision, one of the most painful decisions, was

I gotta give that back to you. I can't do that for you any longer, and I can't ask you to do it for me. We're gonna have to be in this thing together as individuals, and we're gonna have to be real grown and this because they ain't working like this. We got to do our own work. It's interestingly, when people do their own work, they're able to be

more there for the other. Yes, I can be there for you because I'm not busy doing it from the place that says I'll be the custodian of everything that you don't want to deal with and then be upset about it and then ask you to reward me for it. That was that. That was the cycle right there. That was my cycle. And then I went into market and his will then be, look what I've done for you?

You know, every relationship has a scorecard. Yes, right, what you've done, what you gave up, what I gave up, you know, And when this thing happens, the scorecard gets revisited, and it's a lot of things that I was willing to do for us just because that I know I'm not. You know, they never said now we are going to redistribute, you know, the need. It's assessment in our relationship. Who

gets what? When? What attention? No, I'm not okay anymore with your being out in ten o'clock at night every night and me taking care of everything that took the house looks so beautiful, So you can be really proud of me and do absolutely not so if you need they're saying French, that's you know, because I think people don't really I think, and you talk about it in the book that people are afraid to even sit down and have a discussion, you know, but same after they

have a crisis. Yes, not before, and even like that. It wasn't my case. It was after the fact that I had the discussion. I'm glad I did, but and what was your discussion? We went into a relationship with the automatic expectation that sexual exclusivity was expected, like this is how, this is how it is. You're supposed to be getting married, you you're sexually exclusive. You're not going to be having sex with other people, you know, And I don't think people really talk about what what is needed?

What does it mean? What is being exclusive or not? You know? I think it's important to understand why is that conversation so difficult? Because I meet you and I fall in love with you, and I think I have found the one and the one means especially since I'm not eighteen these days in the West and eight so I've had I've been around. Now you are the one for whom I'm going to delete my apps and you are going to fulfill every one of my needs. And how can I then say to you in the same

breath I found the one. Let's talk about what would happen if we had desires for others? What do we do with our sexuality? Can we have a sexual health conversations about boundaries, about desire, about fantasies, about plastics, parents, is about trauma, but a lot of things now we don't because the minute I tell you I want to talk about anything that isn't you, You're gonna say what's wrong with me? You know, monogamy used to be one person for life. Today monogamy is one person at that time.

You know, so I come to you. It's not like I have been exclusive. It's that that for you, I will stop being with anybody else. That's your importance. Now, you know, we live with the model. The romantic ideal is a tenacious model, and that model today is that, you know, I'm going to have with you everything that I was supposed to get in traditional marriage. You're gonna be my co parents, and I'm going to have economic support,

and we're gonna be partners. But on top of it, you're gonna be my best friend, and you're gonna be my confident, and you're gonna be my person, and you're gonna help me become the best version of myself. You know, I'm going to climb the Olympus with you. You know, so when this happens, it becomes the ultimate betrayal. It's always been painful, but today it has become the ultimate betrayal. It's the first time that we divorce because there is infidelity.

At the time people talked about exclusivity or monogamy, it pretty much was an economic imposition on women. It had nothing to do with love. It was in order to know which are the children that I need to feed and who's going to get the cows when I die. Once we brought love into marriage, and once we brought sex to love, and we combined all of that with happiness. Now, when you cheat on me, it becomes a romantic crisis. It becomes an emotional betrayal. It's not just an economic betrayal.

And now I start to think this whole thing that we created was a lie. You know, it's a fraud. The fifteen years we had together were just one big lie. As if everything you've therefore said is not true, and the whole thing comes crumbling down. R Wow. Infidelity is a subject that comes up a lot with our viewers. Most of you want advice, So we're bringing our viewers into today's conversation. So first up is Whitney and Dennis

from Nashville. Hey, welcome, Thank you for having us. So me and my husband, I've been together going on nine years. Been about six years ago. I found out that he had had an affair. At first, I didn't forgive him because I felt really broken, But I decided that I was going to work really hard because of how good we are as a family. I mean, he is a very good teammate. We have worked really hard. He's shaking

his head, yes, next to you. Definitely worked hard. Yeah, but there are still times that he'll go out and I'll start to get anxiety and I'll get a little angry, and it kind of obsessed me. But you know, I brought upon myself, So I guess, like she is, We've done all this work, but what else could we do to regain like a hundred percent trust. The voice that you want him to be for you also exists inside of you, and it is a voice that says normal

that you get triggered, that's not unusual. But you also can you can breathe, you can reassure yourself, you can remember what just happened two hours before. That lets you know that you are in a completely different place from where you were, and you bring yourself on the solid ground so that you can also calm your nervous system and deal with the trigger and not feel completely at the mercy of him. Hey, Dennis, do you have any clarity or understanding on why you might have cheated? I don't.

I think it's more do I still have it at my age by other women? That yeah, got it? That makes sense. The more you tell her that she's inside of you in this beautiful way when you're not with her, and the less that she will only reach out to you when she's triggered, because it will be replaced by a caring connection versus a fear based connection. Carings fear based You really want to know if you still have it, show what real talk. Thank you so much that I

really appreciate you being here for us today. What would you say are the key elements in the healing and forgiveness process? Okay, the first thing I do need to know is that you care about the fact that you hurt me, and that you can show me the appropriate guilt anymost. And now that you've already apologized, so what

now you want to bring it up again? You know how many times we're gonna have to talk about this, No, how many times many many many times, because you have just fractured my reality and everything that I thought was is no more and I'm trying to piece it back together. And you need to do me the courtesy of answering the question, even if I'm asking it you ten times. And that's part of the healing process. That's you know, the old saying is that men are meant to be

monogamous and that women are meant to be monogamous. Oh yeah, you hear that all times, that all the time, this idea that men want sex and women want love. We could look at it like that, but we could also see this. Men have historically and all over the world being given the permission to want sex and true sex. They have to access every other emotional need that is usually denied to them. It's the gate yes, love, connection, intimacy, attention, tenderness, surrender,

you name it. Sex is the only way that they can legitimately receive any of those things. So of course it looks like all he wants is sex, but it's a code for everything else that is usually forbidden. And women have we received the language of love and intimacy, so that's what she needs to use in order to access her desires, her sensuality, her sexuality. Got it. Next on Skype is Jennifer from the Bay Area, and she

has a question, Hey, Jennifer, what's on your mind? So me and my husband have been together for twelve years. Got it about four years ago we moved from the Bay Area to Las Vegas after he got laid off a couple of months later, I became depressed and I met a man at a bar and engaged in a one month affair with him. I don't really understand why I did it. It really rocked our relationship, right, so I need help understanding what he might be feeling so

I can regain his trust. Tell me something. Did he find work again? Yes, because this happened at a moment when he felt particularly vulnerable and he felt that he had lost a lot of his value. What am I worth that I'm so easily replaceable that you can go and rock everything that we have with some dudes? Like who is this guy? You know? For that you would destroy everything that we have built? Is that all I mean for you? It's a real crisis of meaning. Oh wow,

well there it is, Jennifer, I got it. Yea. Thank you so much for sharing story. Welcome, thank you. What have been found is the reason that women cheat? What they tell you all the time is it's not that I wanted to find another person. Is that I wanted to find another self. It's not that I wanted to leave the person that I'm with. I have a great husband, he's a fantastic father, etcetera, etcetera. But I wanted to leave who I had become calm and relationships, committed relationships, marriage,

family life. However beautiful it is, also sometimes can feel deadening, numbing, constraining, flattening, you know, and I think we hear women talk about that all the time. Should you talk about how you lost yourself? That's what I was a mother, I was a wife. I was taking care of his mother. I was taking care of my parents. This is the first time, and I don't know how long that I did something that was just for me. Okay, Renee is next on Skype. Hey, Hi,

welcome to the table. Hello, Hello, hi Data, thanks for having me on the show. I've been involved with a younger man for about three years and he was separated from his wife, started dating and never did I ever imagine that I was gonna be the other woman, but that's what That's what happened. And then he decided that he was gonna go back to his wife. My heart,

but like somebody just ripped it out my chest. Yeah, we stop dating, and I'm a love with thing right and I was just wondering what should I do because people want to stay in touch with me. He and called me all the time. They so will be different. If you ask his wife, Yeah, I don't think she would welcome you to stay as close to him when

they are just trying to rebuild. It's gonna be hard for you because you probably had hopes for more with him, and so the idea that we're going to just stay friends you can't not yet you're still you know, a month ago, you were still hoping that maybe you would have a life with him and for him. You know, if she finds out that he stays in touch with you, it's going to be a mess. At this moment. You need clear boundaries and that means you need a lot

of support. You need other people. You reach out to other friends who are there for you because it's a loss. It's a big loss. Yeah, thank you, appreciate all your advice. Wow, how would you define infidelity? I think that's the heart of infidelity is the secrecy. The secrecy because you could have the same behavior in a negotiated, consensual way and at this a different story. The center of infidelity is

the fact that there is a secret. Is the secrecy the aspect that creates the feeling of betrayals and the violation of trust and the line and the duplicity and the crazy making and the gas lighting. There's a secret. When you have a secret, it's like a mushroom. So if you won't tell me where you've been between six and eight, then you stop telling me where you've been between four and six, and distinct grows and it takes on a life of its own, and it lives there

in the center of our life. And later that's why you start to retell the whole story. And when this was happening, and this was was this at the same time, and where we at the table and you were looking with your phone underneath while you were singing like me happy Birthday? And what the secret? The fact that there's a whole other story going on in the midst of a place where I think I know what's going on. It's one thing to not know the future. It's another

thing to question your entire past. Yeah, that's real talk our right now, we have Victoria's on Skype with a question, Hey Victoria, how are you? I'm so good, Thank you for joining us today. What's on your mind? I was dating someone for three or four years. They were like my high school sweetheart. I thought we were gonna get married everything, but I was actually waiting to get married to be with someone. So I had like a promise ring and everything. H it got rocky after two years

because I, like I said, I wanted to wait. I went out of town and apparently he didn't want to wait. Yeah, so he tells me that he had sex with this girl. I never understood why I was cheated on because I felt like I was like the best version of myself to this person. Even now, it makes me emotional, not bad, because sometimes you just don't know, like what's wrong with you, and you're like, why I'm not good enough for this person? But then about two months three months, I started seeing

someone else. But you still have that memory in your head. Part of me just still feels like at any moment you could just cheat on me. I just want to feel okay and stop feeling so like and secure. Yeah. And the question is what do you do when you've left a relationship and you meet somebody by you and you carry the legacy of the previous wound into your relationship. I think it's very very common. I mean, we carry

so many legacies and wounds from prior relationships. I think the most important thing is really to make a distinction between I can't trust you versus my trust was broken, and I bring a vulnerability about that with me, right, I carry this and you need to know that I'm not and it's going to take some time for me to really let go of that and feel calm again, be in your arms and not start thinking. And it's really about holding a lot of it, and it's it's one thing is to own it and one thing is

to project it onto the other person. Thank you. That's real talk right there. The conversation about what are we gonna do when we have these infidelities, how do we deal with lies, how do we deal with deception, how do we deal with roaming deserves, how do we deal with sexual secrets, etcetera has to become a part of a conversation. Conversation and that's the challenge to our ur TT community to sit down and have these conversations now with your partner because it could be life changing to

your relationship. Yes, thank you, thank you so glad. This has been really fantastic. You have no idea. This has been a true blessing to all out of us. Here. On the next Red Table Talk comment, what was that moment that made you decide I gotta talk to somebody like I was going through a pain. I had to get in the back seat to talk in private to the therapist, but I needed it right then and there. You've accomplished everything, but you're not a husband. I would

like to be a husband. What's your ideal? Woman comments ladies. Let'sten up. Yes, we have a speria needed to talk about in facility. Wipe up. Thank you so much. Hey, ur t T family joined our Red Table Talk group on Facebook become part of the conversation. To join the red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk.

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