Call Her Daddy - Esther Perel: Cheating 101 (FBF)

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Father Cooper sits down with Esther Perel. Esther is a psychotherapist who is recognized as one of the leading voices in modern relationships. Her most recent book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, explores why people cheat and provides guidance on what to do in the wake of discovering this ultimate form of betrayal. Alex presents Esther with a situation…you open your boyfriends iPad to find messages that reveal he is cheating on you. Esther walks us through step by step on how to respond in the moment and how to move forward. Do you admit to reading his messages? At what point do you stop reading? Is make-up sex the ultimate mistake? Who do you tell? How do you know if you should break-up? Tune in this week Daddy Gang to hear from the expert herself – Esther Perel. To hear more from Esther, listen to her podcast Where Should We Begin? Also, check out Where Should We Begin – a game of stories, created by Esther Perel and designed to unlock the storyteller within. 

What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy. I remember it like it was yesterday, September 24th, 2017. Everyone remembers the exact place that they were when they caught their significant other cheating I opened the iPad and I wanted to fucking barf I was shocked, hurt, angry, disgusted, numb. I felt crazy. And I hate to admit, but I cried because I was the one who had spent the previous five, six, I don't even know fucking however long I had, however long I had been dating. I was the one who had spent the previous five, six, I don't even know fucking however long I had, however long I had been dating, I was the one structuring romantic relationships so that I was in control. And then this motherfucker comes and begs me to make it official. Please be my girlfriend. I love you so much. Please, please, please suck my wiener. I love

you. I want you. No. Yes. no yes okay fine and then I find the dick pics that you sent to your nutritionist who is a married mother of two that is fucking gross and I guess I wasn't in control because this motherfucker hurt me. I remember having in that moment, no idea what to do. Do I confront him? Do I stay? Do I leave? Do I tell my friends, my family? Do I keep reading these messages? Do I take screenshots? Obviously, of course, always take the screenshots proof. But I guess the point is that that type of pain is hard to forget. It is such a unique, lonely pain. Why does it sting so bad? At the time, I could have really used the guidance and advice of today's guest, someone who I consider an expert in all things relationships, the one,

the only, Esther Perel. Esther is a psychotherapist who is recognized as one of the leading voices in modern relationships. Daddy gang, she has a therapy practice in New York City, has authored two bestselling books, Mating in Captivity, and the book that we are here to talk about today, The State of Affairs. Daddy Gang, welcome to therapy with Esther Perel. Daddy Gang, if also after you listen to this episode and you are like, I need more Esther. Have no fear. Esther is fucking here. Guys, you can listen to her podcast, Where Should We Begin? Or you can also check out Where Should We Begin, which is Esther's new game of stories designed to unlock the storyteller within. I've played it over, I was going to say gonna say a glass wine a couple glasses of tequila and it was very fun enjoy

so interesting to see you alex after i've heard you at full speed talking in my ears. Oh my gosh, I feel the same way, but I'm usually reading your words. And so now it's amazing to put a face to the book. Okay, let's get started. Shall we? Esther, it is an honor. Thank you for taking the time to come on Call Her Daddy. It's my pleasure.

I am a huge fan. I've read Mating in Captivity, and now I'm reading The State of Affairs. A whole book on cheating. I posted a quote from your book, and the daddy gang cannot get enough. And I think it's because everybody has a cheating story, right? Whether you were cheated on, someone you know was cheated on, a family member, a parent, and reading your book is going to give people insight into the thing we all love to not talk about, but also love to talk about. So Esther,

let's just get into it. How do you define cheating? Cheating is an experience and an act of betrayal. It's a violation of trust. But it's for every couple to define. Some couples will define cheating as watching porn online. Some couples will define cheating as a massage with a happy ending. And some people will define cheating as reconnecting with an ex on Facebook. So it really is for every couple today to define it, especially since the definition keeps on expanding. And then there is just basically what it has been historically. It also has been very genderized. What was considered cheating for women was often considered just being a man. So the hierarchies of society have defined what cheating

was. And then it's also the privacy of each couple. That was something I really loved reading in your book about just the concept of secrecy and betrayal being the largest themes that would be considered cheating. But there are so many versions of secrecy and betrayal, like you just described. Do you know what are the top two reasons why people cheat? Like, are there statistics on it? No, there are no statistics and there are no two top reasons. I think where you started is really very good. If you ask people if they have ever been betrayed, if they themselves have had an affair, if they were the children of an illicit relationship, if they were the friend on whose shoulder somebody is weeping, you will probably get that 80% of the population has been

affected by the experience of infidelity in their lives. State of affairs is 10 years of working with infidelity and I don't think I'm at the bottom of it yet. The gamut goes from, you know, the person who can't make a commitment and cheats because they are afraid of the intimacy and they want to maintain their options to the person who is experiencing decades of loneliness in a relationship and to the person who has been unwanted and untouched for so long that to the person who is longing to reconnect with parts of themselves that have been so lost for so long. It's really not one story.

It's multilayered, this thing called infidelity. That's really the starting point. Is there a statistic of who cheats more, men or women? Well, historically, men definitely had a license to roam. You know, it was considered being a man. Nobody thought of this particularly as cheating. And the expectations of fidelity were primarily on women in order to know to whom do these children belong, you know. So it was very clearly genderized,

and you knew exactly who did it more often. On the other end, you would say, who did those men do it with? They didn't all go to other men. So there is something also about how women have also longed for connection, for sexuality, for pleasure, for passion. In the beginning of my show years ago, it was a joke, but it was a play on what you're discussing of historically the men cheat, right? Cheat on him, reclaim your power. Like all these women were

writing in always so terrified that their partner was going to cheat. And I was like, well, why don't you cheat first? And of course it was a joke. It was a joke or a strategy. It was, you know, a little bit of joke, a little bit of strategy. Take what you want from Call Her Daddy always. So Esther, you are an expert at counseling couples post cheating and you've divided the post cheating recovery into three phases. Can you list those three phases? Typically, there is, first of all, the crisis. I've just found out, you know, I found out because somebody came to tell me I found out because I got a phone call. I found out because I discovered an iPad with a whole track record. And I have been found out. That could be the other side. Somebody has just come and said to me, you've been lying to me. What's going on? You know, I've asked you more than once. So there's

this whole issue of the crisis phase. It's all come up like that, front and center. Then there is a meaning-making phase. Okay, what was this about? Not just what happened and what were the facts, but what is the meaning? Why did this happen? Why did you do this? What did you find there? What does it mean for us?

Did you hope I would find out? Did you hope I would never know? Do you want me to take you back? Do you want me to actually kick you out? What is it? You know? And then the third one for those who have it is, okay, what will we do with this? What meaning does this has for our relationship? And can we learn from this and use it to reinvigorate ourselves, to redefine the relationship? Every affair will redefine a marriage or a relationship, and every relationship will define what the meaning of the affair will redefine a marriage or a relationship and every relationship will define

what the meaning of the affair will be I I love that you put it into three phases and I do think that this book is helping almost if anyone is getting cheated on or even is cheating it almost helps to categorize it so that you have an idea of where you're at, because it can feel very debilitating when you're in the thick of it. I think we should role play. Okay. What you call role play is what I do the whole day, but that's okay. Okay. So daddy gang, again, that's what I call my listeners. I think they want an example, right? And I think it helps to role play. So let's drop ourselves into a scenario where someone, and I'm going to play the someone, finds out that they're getting cheated on.

And you are the expert. Guide me through, Esther. Okay. So I open my boyfriend of two years computer. I am madly in love with this guy. I saw myself marrying him, but I catch him cheating. I'm sitting in this room alone on the ground. I'm reading messages after messages and I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling

on this computer. What is the first thing I should do? Daddy gang, close the iPad. Close it. You're going to get more of the same it's not original there's not a thousand ways to see people do sexy talk or love talk close it because you're gonna get a death by a thousand cuts and I'm saying close it not because I'm just saying you know what you need to know yeah stop it this is about your own self protection maybe at another point you can ask for more questions but right now and then make sure that you have someone near you that you can just go and weep and scream and curse and go through the combustion of all the feelings that you're

going to get you know you're going to want to kick you're going to want to that you're going to get. You know, you're going to want to kick. You're going to want to shake. You're going to want to shut down. It's a whole, you know, series of contradictory feelings, one after the other. How could you do this to me? Why did this happen? Of course it happens to me. I don't want to talk to you ever again, but don't leave me. But get the hell out of here.

And on and on like that. And the reason I divide it in three stages is because it really takes it outside of you a little bit and says, this is how this thing plays out. It's not just you. At first, you think you go crazy. The floor is ripped underneath your feet. You wonder what world have I been living in? What is the reality here? Is anything I thought was true really true or the whole thing was fake, et cetera, et cetera. So that's my first thing for you. And, you know, I'm remembering the first season of Where Should We Begin? I had five different episodes on the podcast of stories of infidelity, and every one

of them was so completely different. So I don't know, Daddy Gang, I'm going to talk to you again as an individual in a collective. I don't know which is your reaction there is the reaction that is an explosive one there is the one that is implosive there is the one in anger there's the one in tears there is the one where you meet your partner and finally you have a conversation like you haven't had in years and you sit down till five o'clock in the morning i don't know which is going to be your version which is why i played you different plots so that you can see which one is the one that is more likely to be you. Well, Esther, thank you. Because right now in our role play, we live together and he's about to come home from work. So I just found this on the computer. He's coming home from work.

What is the first thing that I say to him when he walks in the door? You may do one out of 10 things. You may have been waiting for him to come in. And before he even takes off his coat, you're screaming at him and you're telling him, I know everything. You may not want to tell something because you want to see if he's going to tell you. And you're going to say, where did you just come from? Where were you yesterday? You may want to see if he's going to tell you and you're going to say, where did you just come from? Where were you yesterday? You may want to trap him.

You may want to say, you know, I think this is the end of us. This is not the first time. You may want to say, you know, I know that this is going on. Shall we talk about this? And be super calm and kind of look at yourself from the outside and be incredulous that you're so composed. I don't know which version of you and neither do you. It's just the beginning. The beginning can start off in tears and then it can

go into a deep conversation. The beginning can start off with kicking and then it can go into tears. This is a series of things. The first moment isn't the definitive moment. What if he starts gaslighting me saying I shouldn't have gone through the computer? Like, how do I handle that? That is absolutely the case that I did enter into your private space because you have introduced a foreign person into my private space as well. You know, this thing of let's deflect it and talk about how you shouldn't have entered my phone or my iPad when in fact we're talking about something else. I did so because I felt something or I did so because I stumbled upon it because I was looking for the receipt of something. And here I was. I wasn't looking for that. But nevertheless, you know, there is an you may be very upset about the fact that I stayed there in your computer. But let's be clear. You

also have introduced someone in our world that I did not ask you for. Yeah. So can we go back to what we're really talking about? What do I do if he denies cheating? So if you have you know, what is it that you need? Do you need him to say, yes, I did? He may begin to not deny, but he may say, but it wasn't really that, but it wasn't really sex because, you know, I didn't really come and it wasn't really sex because I kept my clothes on and it wasn't really that. And, you know, it was just that. That's the other version. It was just this. It's not really cheating. It's, you know, I never saw the person again. I mean, are you trying to minimize it? What are you trying to say? Yeah. The fact is, we have an agreement or we don't have an agreement,

but we have an assumption about an agreement. And you are lying to me or you are betraying me and you are going behind my trust. And I'm actually not so interested in your agreeing or not agreeing. I'm clear about what I saw. Yeah. See, this is where you ask yourself, Daddy Gang, what is it that you need to know in order to know? And do you want to be talked out of it?

Do you actually want someone who says, come, come, it wasn't anything we can get over this? You know, do you want someone who helps you brush it over? Do you want someone who says, that's true. I've been really lonely. I've been pissed. You've not been interested in me. You've been only working. You haven't had, we haven't made love in God knows how long. And I couldn't get your attention. Or do you want somebody who says, I fell in love with somebody. It's not about cheating. I fell in love with someone and I want to leave you. You don't know where you start the conversation and where it takes you. We're in the crisis phase right now, right? And in this role play, my life has been turned upside down. I wanted to marry this man. And moments ago, I find out that he's fucking his coworker

and my emotions are all over the place. I have no idea what I want right now. I'm trying to process. I'm terrified. What if he then comes at me and asks me, okay, well, what do you want? Do you want to break up? What if he gives me almost the ultimatum question of, okay, great. You found out what do you want? I don't even know. You are flooded. Your brain can't process this. You don't make a decision. Close the doors for a moment. Take your time. And if he asks you, what do you want? You just say, at this moment, I just want to find a way to take my next breath. I am buckling inside. I am in such tremendous pain. At this moment, what I want is for you to acknowledge the minimum. The minimum is that you hurt me, that you put us at risk.

You know, you lose your predictable future. You thought you were going to marry him, but so did he. So at that moment, it's a loss of identity for both. It's a loss of the predictable future for both. It's a loss of trust for both. And that's really enough to deal with at that moment there's no decision to be made right that's great to know like getting into the weeds of the dynamics in the crisis phase is not going to be productive i also would want all you need to know is what you're going to do tonight yeah where you're going to sleep tonight can you be in the same house should you be on a separate bed on couch should you go and stay for a night or two or whatever at somebody else's place so that you can kind of gather your

thoughts again just in the moment response don't make a plan for life what if my immediate reaction is i want to leave but i'm nervous to leave because what if i leave and then he actually doesn't even want to take me back and how do I deal with that conflicting feeling of wanting to leave, but being scared if I walk out, then it's actually over. But that fear is not the result of the infidelity. This is if you have this feeling, this has been there for you. And if you are in living with fear of that sort, you better revisit your relationship, really. Great answer. Then on the other spectrum, in my case, in my role play, I'm nervous that I might do something that night that I'll regret in the morning. And in the book, you write that it is common to have sex in the

wake of the discovery of the cheating. What do I say in the morning if I slept with him, but then I wake up feeling angry and betrayed and no longer sexually turned on and he misinterpreted my initial response as forgiveness? You basically say I needed to connect and now I'm not. This is part of this combustion of contradictory feelings that we have. One minute is hold me and one minute is don't touch me. It's not an uncommon story. And it is one that is often not talked about out loud because people feel very embarrassed about it, that actually there is something about the reconnection at that moment that is also sexual for some people. Sometimes it's the conversation till four o'clock in the morning. Sometimes it's the goodbye fuck. Sometimes it's the want me still, you know, I want to know that

you still have those feelings for me. Then you wake up in the morning and you're dealing with another another facet of your feelings. And, you know, you just say last night, this is what I felt. And right now I'm feeling a host of other things. and they're all part of this experience. It's helpful for you to explain that. Normalize the amount of different emotions you're going to have and don't even try to suppress them. Like just let them all happen. Because again, this is the crisis phase. You have no choice. They will just pour out of you.

I love you. I hate you. I want to leave you. Don't leave me. Touch me. Hold me. Let me weep on you. Don't touch me. How can you? I feel you. I hate you. I want to leave you. Don't leave me. Touch me. Hold me. Let me weep on you. Don't touch me. How can you? I feel terrible when you touch me. I feel terrible when you don't touch me. I want you. I'm embarrassed about wanting you. I still love you. And I hate you. And all of this, sometimes in three minutes or less. So the concept of getting embarrassed,

I want to ask, like, who should I tell about the cheating? Let's say I can't go to therapy. Who should I lean on? Because is there a chance confiding in friends or family could complicate things? Like, I don't want to tell to each find one or two people, both of them, both of them, you know. So and you find sometimes not the closest person to you. You find the one who will know to let you go through this whole sequence that I just described without inserting themselves, without wanting you to do something to make it stop. It's really the person who can let you emote freely and just create a container for you and hold you and soothe you and just say, this sucks, this is so painful, this is so hard. Oh God, I love you. You're more than what just happened to you

and continues to value you as a whole person rather than just that gets cheated on goes to how to navigate being supportive and not giving opinion? It really is. So friend number one, I say to you, just tell her or him or them. I'm here for you. Come spend the night. Let me cook for you. Let's take a walk. You know, let's just do a yoga together. Let's go for a run. Just get it out of the body. Let's not even think. Let's be in the body and let's move. And that's all we need to do. You want to cry,

cry. You want to talk, talk. You want to write, write. I have, you know, I'm just, I'm just a holding person for you. Friend number two, which is more important, he says, this is the fourth time this is happening. Because there's different scenarios. If you come to me for the fourth time, I'm going to say, daddy gang, this is enough. Right. So if it's the first time you think being consoling, and then if this has been repetitive, you can start to give your not even opinion just state the facts for them because they may not be able to fully see it

clearly but again if they don't want to see it just go back to that consoling supportive friend yeah I mean between advice and consoling there is also simply the person who holds the mirror and says you know I have heard that story a number of times. I'm so sorry. It will never happen again. You know, I love you. You're the most important person. You know, that's redemption cycle that goes on. You know, first I put you down. First, I ignore you. I cheat on you. And then I come and I tell you that you're the most important person in my life. And only you can forgive me. The friend holds the mirror too. And it's one friend too. What you don't want to do is and almost completely excluding the partner that cheated

because you don't want to alienate your friend that got cheated on and feeling like, oh my God, my friend hates my boyfriend. Like I can't go back now. It's more about focus on your friend that got cheated and her feelings and not what happened with the actual partner and what they are doing. Yes, and two more. Accept that the person can be both angry and still love the person. Yeah. Don't shame them for that. Number three, understand that they may have a complex life,

that they may have kids, that they may have kids with more difficulties that need two parents, that they may have an economic situation, that there's a lot of things that that person may have cheated on them, but it still is the same person who has been taking care of their alcoholic brother. Yeah, that's a great point. What is the sign that I am out of the crisis stage? Sometimes it's because you had a few very, very good talks and you're feeling a little bit calmer. You're not spending every minute of the day asking the next question and ruminating and going over the last months and the last years and revisiting and trying to figure it out. You can actually have a breath. That's one way you know.

You know because you begin to feel like, you know, you're asking a different set of questions. Oh, great. That's a good point. So that is stage two, is meaning making meaning making. And what does meaning making mean? It means that you are going to be an investigator and not a detective. You're not going to go for all the sordid details that are going to keep you up at night. You're going to really ask, what does this mean for you, for me, and for us? That's helpful. So now going back into the role play, I would say full disclosure, Esther, our sex life isn't what it used to be. We have obligatory sex once a month and he's sleeping

with a coworker. What are some follow-up questions you would have for me and my partner? Did you ever talk about the miserable sex life that was happening? Do you think that's one? Number two, do you think that you were not available for him and that he reached out multiple times and every time you basically found a way of saying I've got more important things to do, be it sleep or email or whatever? Do you think that he had reasons to feel rejected? Do you take any responsibility in what happened? And I say responsibility and not blame. I just say a dynamic, you know, one person is responsible for the affair, but two people are responsible for the relationship. I would say that my answer as my role play would be

we definitely weren't having sex as much as we did in the beginning of the relationship but the past year was just very stressful and the pandemic made me feel like I gained weight I wasn't feeling great about myself and I was trying to find other ways to connect whether it was movie nights and dinners and spending quality time together. But yes, our sex life wasn't at its best. But I also was not. Yeah, we weren't communicating really about our sex life. I'm so heartbroken about this coworker and I just envision him going into work every single day and seeing this woman. I want his passwords on everything. Does providing passwords and granting full transparency on social media and devices work to rebuild trust? And if not, what does? I've never thought that surveillance meant trust.

Yeah. Trust is a leap of faith. Trust is basically engaging with the unknown. That's why you trust, because you don't know and you believe that even though you don't know and the person is not next to you, they're not going to do something behind your back. If you need to have surveillance, you're not trusting, you're controlling. I want to ask my partner questions about why he cheated. Everyone's going to think my boyfriend cheated on me. We're role playing daddy gang. So my question is, what are productive questions to ask in order to feel better? And then what are questions that are petty and

counterproductive? So what you want to ask is, you know, what did you find there? Did you think that you would leave us? Did you hope that I would find out? Did you ever try to tell me but couldn't? Did you think about our kids? Did you think about our life? Did you think about our friends? How was it when you would come home afterwards?

How would you feel when you saw me and when we then would go and go to bed and still made love the two of us? These kinds of questions, you know? Do you think that you could ever feel like that with me? We used to be like that. Do you think you could come back? Do you think we could ever overcome something like this? So what you don't want to ask are questions about

how did you do it? How long did it last? How many orgasms? Was it better than me? Et cetera, et cetera. So no asking about how many times a day did you have sex and more so what did you feel when you came home after that sex? Was there, what feeling did you have inside of you? The hurt is there. you don't need to know the details you already know what happened now if you want to move forward and get close any type of closure like it's the the productive questions that are going to give you some type of relief plus

sometimes it's not all about the sex it's about the fact that the other person paid attention to me, laughed at my joke, was interested in what I have to say, looked at me, took the time to talk to me, wasn't scrolling on their phone while I was talking. It's the entire other dimension of, you know, so it depends. Are we talking about a one night stand? Are we talking about a massage? Are we talking about a two year affair? Different affairs blend to different sets of questions. But what I do say is don't ask for sordid details that are going to keep you awake at night, make you feel like you are lesser, you are inferior, you are uglier, you are dumber, You are whatever less. It's going to crush you and it's not going to help you in what you want. It's not going to help you feel okay with leaving and it's not going to help you feel okay with staying. Yeah, that's a great point.

What are the similarities between feelings following a trauma and feelings following being cheated on. Let me go with the cheated on for a moment because there is another thing in the meaning making that I think is really, really important. You're driving with him and you're passing a neighborhood and you're passing in front of a restaurant. And your face goes like this. Now, he can go like oh again or he as in you know you you know or he can simply say no this is not where i came i didn't bring that person to our favorite place or yes i did come here too i think that what you want is for the person who hurt to also be the one who now becomes the vigilante of the relationship, the one who protects the relationship so that it's I promise you, she, he, they are not doing that because they want to annoy you. They're asking because their freaking brain is trying to find a way to

put the pieces back together because all of it feels so fractured. And the best thing you can do is just answer simply so that you help calm her down. And even better is if you can preempt the question and say to her, I know you may be asking yourself, let me tell you right away. Because if you bring up the question, it frees her up of having to do that kind of asking and she can talk about something else. That is so helpful to anyone that is going through getting cheated on or having cheated. I have felt that before where I want my partner to understand that I need to hear it one more time and then I'm going to need to hear it again and again. And it's just my world was shattered. My reality has been cracked and now I'm trying to put it back together that's

really helpful to know that the person that cheated giving a very not petty but very just straight answer no I didn't bring her here or no we never had sex here it it eases that person's mind and it's comforting instead of someone yelling at you and being like are you really gonna bring this up again you had to mess up our dinner. We're finally going out. You had to talk about this now. Yes. Yes, I do.

Because suddenly in the middle of us talking about something and having a nice time, I suddenly see something and it brings it back. You think I want to ruin my own evening? You think I want this to come back into my head? No, I don't. So you really normalize this and you say, just reassure the other person and then move on. Because if you do

that, then the other person can let it go. I agree with you where the person that has cheated know that when you're having a happy moment, sometimes the person that got cheated on in that moment wakes up for a minute and it's like, oh God, here I am. I'm starting to feel happy again. Now it's bringing back the moment of I was happy and he cheated. So don't get too comfortable. So it's hard when you're experiencing happy moments to not lean into it. It's hard to not revert. So well said. So well said. Last time I believed you, here is what happened. How do I allow myself to believe you again? Now I should, you know, I should resist it. I should resist it. And then this is where over time you, the partner, can constantly say, I know, I know that that's what would happen. There's no reason you should believe me right now. But I'm

here and I just can repeat to you again and again, I want to be here. Yes, I said to the other person, I love you. Yes, I say to you, I love you. And you wonder what what's the difference? The difference is that I am here with you saying it now. And yes, I have said it to somebody else as well. And, you know, I at that moment, that's what I thought and felt. It's very, very complicated. Because why would I, you know, why would I believe you? Yeah, that is, I think, what's keeping me up at night, right? I keep feeling the old cliche of, I'm not sure if he's sorry, he did it, or he's sorry, he just got caught. How do you differentiate between the two?

I think that when you have a person who is sorry that they got caught, they're often in the, you know, do you have to bring this up again? Can't we just let it go already? And just they're impatient. They're impatient. And the more impatient they are, and of course, the more that it sends the alert to the other person to not let it go. When you really are there, and you're sorry for what happened. You have empathy, you're able to say it hurts me so much to see how much it hurts you. And I caused it. And I have to own that. I'll do whatever I need to do till we rebuild. That is such a huge component of trying to move forward and that final phase of envisioning how are we going to move forward? If I decide to stay,

I want to ask you, Esther, is there a statute of limitations for bringing up this incident? What if I can't let it go? And how long is too long to bring it up? But it depends how you bring it up. I had a couple, you know, every year on the anniversary, you know, it would come up. And then he would say, shall we go call her? And they would make a joke around it. And they realized, wow, we are on the other side of this.

We can talk about it without it ruining the entire day, without it bringing back all the bitter, hurtful feelings. You know, it's part of our history. But in fact, when we look at it, sometimes people say this was one of the worst times of our life, but it also became the time

that changed our entire relationship. And our relationship is better today for it. When you talk about cheating and then the aftermath, there's one of two things. You're going to stay or you're going to leave. So there are three ways to stay together. It're going to stay or you're going to leave. So there are three ways to stay together. It's not you stay or you leave. It's that you can stay and just continue to know at the bone the whole time. And every time one person is five minutes late, the whole thing comes back up.

So you can be in a marital cell together or a relational cell together and just you can't leave but can't stay and can't let go. That's one way of staying together. Terrible. Part two of staying together, version two, is people who basically put the whole thing away and say this was a horrible time. This was a crisis. This was an insane moment. We never talk about it again. We don't want to know it even happened. And we are embarrassed to admit that it happened on some level. It has that piece in it too, right? Part three, version three, is the people who say, this was the most painful time

and we decided to use this with the full meaning of the word crisis, danger and opportunity. And we decided to have this become a moment when we were going to revisit our entire relationship, our contract, our boundaries, our sexual scripts, our emotional intimacy, our relationship to our friends, our financial, our power dynamic, the whole thing. Most people are going to have two or three relationships in their adult life today. And some of us are going to do it with the same person.

So the affair is often the end of the first relationship. Oh, interesting. What are the outcomes you mostly see with couples that do the second option where they sort of push the cheating to the side and pretend it never happened? It's exactly that. We try to go back to what it was. We want the stability. We want it was. We want the stability. We want the family. We want the continuity.

We don't want anything that's going to completely frazzle us. And we basically decide that we have a set of values that are more important than our individual needs. And we often will stay together because we value family. We value not to divorce. We value to have the children have parents around. We value the economic interdependence that we have or the business we created together, whatever. But basically, it's my happiness and our conversation about our personal needs and wishes goes underground. Say anyone that tries to stay, right right after infidelity, after cheating,

what are some tangible ways to rebuild trust? Like when you're sitting with that person and you just are like, oh my God, why did you do this? How can I ever trust something you said? How can we come back from this? The ways to rebuild the trust have to do with how much the other person is able to really express remorse, how much they're able to express their guilt, how much they're able to really show their commitment to the relationship and the value of that person. I know I'd hurt you every morning, ask the partner, do we need to talk about it yeah and then you know if you ask me 90% of the time I will say no it's fine I have nothing that I need to talk about and one more thing it's I'm accountable I'm owning it I'm protective and I'm

showing your value I'm elevating you again but in addition it's also an erotic recovery you also want the couple to re-engage with each other not just around the breach and the betrayal and the violation and the lying, but also around their connection, their intimacy, their joy, their pleasure, their joint exploration. So you want them to do new things together. It's not just about going back to what we used to do. Go and have new experiences so that you can graft some new cells you know into this point so you can almost have new memories that are created you got it that you got it my question is to someone that literally cannot stop in their head just replaying certain things and almost

like envisioning their partner having sex with that person. What is your advice? Sometimes it's enough to be held and to just be reassured and to be given the permission. Sometimes if it goes on too long, you recommend to do EMDR, eye movement reprocessing desensitization. So, you know, it's a technique that deals with post-traumatic stress like that. Sometimes it's the actual engagement with new experiences, which you asked me about trauma before, is part of what we call post-traumatic growth. So that you can have new experiences of yourself with your partner that sit on top of this thing that keeps coming back all the time. There's the classic saying, it's not that he cheated, it's that he lied about it. Yeah, look at us. Why is the act of lying sometimes more hurtful than the act of cheating?

That line is far more cultural than it initially seems because there are, you know, because you live in a society here that sees honesty and transparency as moral virtue and laying it all out and leaving is it that I can say that you can live with so that you can walk on the streets and not be all embarrassed and all ashamed that, you know, because you don't want anybody to see your face. So it's a very important thing to in some cultures, the lying is, you know, people don't consider it necessarily lying. They consider it also being protective. You know, if you want to say something to someone, the question always has to be, is this for you or is this for them? That's what I was going to ask you. Is there ever an instance where you tell someone not to disclose that they cheated? Well, I wouldn't put it in that language.

OK. It's not don't disclose that you cheated it's going to be you know i remember one of the first time this really stood out it was a bit of an older couple you know but the guy came to me and says to me is it cheating when she no longer recognizes my face wow and i just thought oh my god this is a range of experiences that I didn't even think about. You know, if your partner is ill, if your partner can't, why are you going to, you know, what are they going to do with this? Do you want them, you know, do you want them to be walking around with an open wound like this? Is it is it caring? Is it benevolent? Is it kind? Not this is it is it caring is it benevolent is it kind not just is it true

there are other questions are you dumping yeah is it you dumping your guilt onto someone or is it you actually genuinely knowing in order to move forward and start anew I need to share this with my partner there's such a difference. What advice do you have for someone who has cheated and is overcome with guilt? Yeah. Then you ask that guilt is a sign of your conscience. That guilt is a sign of health. That guilt says that you acted against your values. And that is a conflict that you may have to live with. And especially if you don't necessarily share it with your partner, you're going to have to need to come to terms with it. You're going to have to own that. You are a flawed individual and you still have to find a way to

hold yourself in high regard. Great. One last question I would ask you with regard. Daddy gang. I'm going to call you daddy gang. I love it. One thing, the guilt, you want to understand it. Is it because you ended up doing the same thing as your dad or your mom and you had promised yourself you would never do this? Is there an intergenerational story here? Is it because you knew that your partner was vulnerable and couldn't do anything about it and so you you know what is the guilt it is not just enough to say i feel

guilty what about what does it link itself to and from there you then talk about you know how can you come to terms with behaviors actions things that you have done that really you feel like I can't. It's hard for me to see myself in the mirror and to accept that this could come from me. And that is from there you start. Then you start to think, what can you do? Can I ask you, what do you say to someone who keeps finding themselves being in the position of the other? The third person, you mean? Yeah.

Yep. Sometimes that is, you know, tell me about why this is a position that you find yourself in. Right. You know, and is there something there that do you what does it give you? Sometimes you feel that you're the special person. Sometimes you feel on the other side, not only does the person have a secret, but you are the secret. What's it like for you to be a secret? What's it like for you to never be able to be the official person that cannot be in public with this person?

But you feel like that person gives you the side of that cannot be in public with this person. But you feel like that person gives you the side of them that nobody in public sees. So you want to find out, you know, is it because you are you think you cannot do better? Is it because you think that the love story is more important than the institution? Is it because I mean, you know, I've seen people who were lovers for 30, 40 years. Okay, and last question, because I know everyone's telling us we're out of time. Last question is, Esther, when do you advise people to walk away? There are many reasons to say to people, you know, this is not a good situation.

The cheating in there is sometimes, or the infidelity is only a portion of it. If there is there are many ways people lie. There are many all kinds of relational betrayals when people are indifferent to each other, when people are contemptuous of each other, when there is all kinds of power dynamics and violations and violence of all sorts, when people literally have zero care for the person that they are with, when there is such a level of either fusion, where everything becomes a reason for an argument, or such a space in between that they can't come close, at some point you say, is this how you want to live? Yeah. come close at some point you say is this how you want to live yeah you don't have to live like this

you are allowed to want more and better i don't know if you can do better because some of it is you're going to go away with yourself you know wherever you go there you are but it it isn't you know there's a session in the where should Should We Begin podcast where literally they started out as an affair. They leave their partners, they marry each other, and then they start to cheat on each other. And at one point, and she is just tenacious, you know, she will not let go of him. And at one point I just said to them, I think you should be friends. As lovers, you are a disaster. I love the honesty. Esther, I wish I could sit and talk to

you for hours the daddy gang is going to love you we must do another episode soon thank you so much for giving us your wisdom and helping us navigate if we're ever cheated on or if we cheat thank you so much you're so sharp oh my Coming from you. I am so happy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're amazing. Incredible. Have the best day. Thank you. Thank you. No, I mean, it's like you, you, you held the line, you knew it, you, you know, and I, it's, it's very challenging to really tell people there isn't a one way, but know what you're doing and why you're doing it kind of thing. Yeah. And stay true to yourself and stay true to what you want.

And don't let yourself stay in something if it doesn't feel authentic to yourself, but also know your bandwidth of how much you're willing to fight for something. Because there is an ability to stay with something, someone after there is infidelity. You just have to really be willing to put in the work. The majority of couples stay together, the way really yeah do you believe this saying cheater um the once a cheater always a cheater no no because the vast majority of people that come to my office are not chronic philanderers they are people who have had 10, 15, 20, 25 years of relationship. On what basis do we call them a cheater? Yes.

Boom. Esther, you're incredible. Oh, love. Is this included? Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. My pleasure.

Bye-bye. My pleasure. We'll do it again