Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Can You Ever Truly Rebuild Trust After Infidelity?

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

How do you move forward when trust shatters in an instant? When the person who vowed to stand by you crosses a line that feels impossible to uncross? Here we are with another Language of Love session as I connect with Chelsea, a listener navigating the aftermath of her husband's infidelity. Chelsea's husband confessed to drunkenly making out with another woman at a bachelor party a year ago. Since then, he's been attending therapy, practicing radical transparency, and working to rebuild trust. Yet Chelsea still struggles with obsessive thoughts: Will I ever truly move past this? In this session, we deep dive into: Why betrayal cuts so deep and how a single act of infidelity can trigger old wounds from past relationships or childhood How to create a level of  transparency that is crucial in rebuilding trust The "continuum of cheating" and its implications How our bodies can tell us the truth before our minds catch up If Chelsea's story resonates with you - if you're navigating the painful aftermath of betrayal or struggling to rebuild trust - we want to hear from you. Your experience could help others feel less alone.  Email me at [e-mail] to share your story for a future episode where I give you my advice. For additional support, visit my website where you'll find expert-approved resources to help heal and strengthen your relationships. And make sure to check out my newest book, Sex Magic: Take Your Body, Mind and Relationship to the Next Level with Spectacular Intimacy  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself, and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Welcome to Language of Love Sessions, where I answer your questions, your calls, your struggles,

my beautiful listeners. And you can reach out anytime. A lot of folks come on the show live, and you can even change your name. You can be on camera or off. I love hearing your stories and being able to help you one-on-one. That's so much fun for me. You can also email me questions. So in either case,

if you reach out to me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com, languageoflovepod at gmail.com, and let us know if you have questions or concerns or you want a topic tackled or you want to come on the show and talk face-to-face about what you're struggling with you let me know right now we have an email from chelsea she says about a year ago i found out that my husband cheated on me he was at a bachelor party very drunk and made out with another woman yes i consider that cheating he came clean to me right

away and begged for my forgiveness and agreed to go to therapy which we have been in now for a year we have a small child and i feel i owe it to my kid to really give this another shot but i can't stop obsessing over it will i ever be able to get over this he's done so much to help build the trust back but i just don't know if it'll ever be enough oh chelsea i'm so sorry went through this and one of the things that i do feel is important in this story is was he at a bar and there was actually another woman there like with her friends or whatever and he made out with her or was this like a stripper or somebody who professionally made out with him because those would be two different scenarios my guess is given from your reaction not that you wouldn't have had a huge

negative reaction either way and entitled to that but given the way you're feeling my guess is that this was just another woman that he met while out on this bachelor party so i get why you're anxious and it takes time to rebuild trust and there are a lot of variables involved so first and foremost and it sounds like you've accomplished a lot of these number one you need to get support check you've done that you're in therapy together number two the person who cheated needs to take responsibility for that and be able to like really explore how they got themselves into this situation why it happened and the two of you need to do the work to not only heal from the lack of trust and the way it was breached but really work on ways to support your connection and your

relationship and the depth of your intimacy and that means that both of you need to be willing to be open to that okay and he needs or whoever cheated needs to be an open book that means that you have all his passwords access to all his whatever accounts that you can do not because you're obsessively checking them but that you can do spot checks whenever you feel like it and you're not going to find anything inappropriate and that he is where he says he's going to be and does what he says he's going to do and he is steadfast in that so he's showing up and showing you he's willing and wanting and showing up to be in a trustworthy way and it sounds like you say that he's done so much in that regard so that that's another check right so that's great now

what needs to start happening at a certain point is that you chelsea if he's been doing everything right and he's been an open book and he's been willing to dive into this in therapy and really been taking it seriously and the two of you have been working on your connection and your communication you now and this is ultimately going to be up to you are going to have to decide to take a leap of faith okay now this was a cheating situation i agree with you and there's also a continuing to cheating right and this is on the lower end of the intensity of cheating if he had gone further with this person that's a little further on the continuum if he had had repetitive experiences with someone that's even further if he had years of an affair that's even further if

he fell in love that's even further right so this was on the lighter so to speak end of the continuum which is good in a way because you caught it early he confessed immediately which is also a good sign now he has to be willing like if he goes out with his friends again is he going to get drunk Like, that would be something, you know, you need to work out with him as a couple or maybe with the help of the therapist. But ultimately, this comes down to you deciding to take the leap of faith and say, okay, I'm going to jump back into this with two feet. I'm going to be willing to trust you again. And the premise of that is this, very clearly and very simply, right? And you've heard this phrase probably, you fool me or cheat on me once, shame on you, right? Cheat on me twice, shame on me, add an extra line to that if I stay or if I assume it's

not going to happen again. Because this kind of cheating that you're describing was a drunk accident of someone who got carried away and wasn't fully conscious, not just because he was drunk, but he's been working on this for a year now. So the assumption you can make is that he's more conscious, he's more responsible, he's been taking responsibility. So from what you've said, at least, it doesn't sound like he's someone you should not take this leap with. And you can also give yourself comfort knowing that if it happens again, then you know for sure, right? hey it's dr laura berman i've been a sex love and relationship therapist for over 30 years and the main question i always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship well if you want to take your love life your sex life to the next level whether you're

in a relationship or not check out my free course on quantum sex it's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level capable of full body orgasms how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the home page the quantum sex free course check it out let me know what you think so you have this little child you obviously I hope love him a lot and want this relationship to work. If that's the case, you're going to have to be brave and jump back in with both feet and be willing to take that leap of faith, knowing that if he disappoints you again, that's it. You're not going to trust him again. The

relationship will have to be over and he's going to have to really understand that, which I'm sure he will. And you'll explain that to him. There's one more piece to this, Chelsea. Now, I think any woman in your position would have a similar reaction, would feel betrayed, would feel upset, then have trouble trusting again. However, it's been a year, and he's been doing everything right from what you're saying, and you're in therapy, and you're still struggling. You're saying, I don't know if it'll ever be enough, right? And so what I'm feeling in between your words, and I haven't spoken to you, I literally only know what everybody just heard in this paragraph you wrote me but I've been doing this for 30 years and I feel in between the lines and what I feel

is that you have betrayal trauma and what that means is you have a history probably much earlier in your life of being betrayed in significant ways where people probably key caretakers who should have showed up for you and followed through on things that were what you were entitled to as a child care love protection connection was not consistently given to you or you were abandoned or you were misled the other possibility is that you were cheated a lot on in the past but you have betrayal trauma because otherwise you would not still be struggling to the extent that you are a year out so what that means to me is that not to belittle or minimize any of what's happened in this relationship or your reaction to it because i think it's totally valid what i'm

speaking to is now a year out working as hard as he has on it that you're still you know and granted if he'd had a year-long affair or been having sex with someone or and wasn't drunk and was sober and had been lying to you about it like oh yeah a year out you still would be really struggling but this kind of betrayal the fact that you're struggling like you are tells me that it has triggered past trauma. So that's the only other suggestion or piece of the puzzle that I would add to this is that you want to talk to either this therapist you're working with or maybe your own individual therapist about those past betrayal traumas if they haven't already come up because that's probably what's most standing in the way of your willingness to trust him again and take

that leap of faith and it's also what's making that leap of faith feel so unbelievably scary to you. Because if this was your first significant betrayal, it would not feel so scary. But because it's probably on top of many other much deeper, much wider, much more painful betrayals, you're having a hard time. So if you want to have an easier time with this, and also it will help so many areas of your relationship if you can heal it, work on that betrayal trauma with someone who is a trauma-informed therapist or coach, okay? I hope that gives you some guidance to follow. You have a child you have a lot of love you've been working on it hard I vote for giving him another chance for whatever it's worth because it sounds like he's been really showing up

If he weren't I would feel differently But he is showing up for the work showing up for the healing and showing up for consistently Demonstrating to you. He can be trusted keep us posted Okay, let us know how it goes And you can always call or email if you want to be on the show get some advice just reach out to me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com. I'll see you next time on the Language of Love.