Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Why People Cheat: Beyond the Myths and Excuses

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Why do people cheat? In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we unzip the messy realities of infidelity. From unmet needs and boredom to revenge, immaturity, or even unresolved trauma, we unpack the many reasons someone might stray — including situations where cheating happens despite a seemingly “happy” relationship.We also distinguish between cheating and consensual non-monogamy, explore the lasting impact on relationships, and ask what it really takes to heal if a couple chooses to stay together. Because at the end of the day, working through the “why” and the “what now” of infidelity comes down to communication, honesty, and self-awareness.Whether you’ve been cheated on, have cheated yourself, or just want to better understand the psychology behind it, this candid conversation shines a light on one of the most painful and misunderstood experiences in relationships.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We are here to explore the questions you've always been curious about, but the ones we don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. No judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversation. And today's topic, I think is going to be a, I don't know, chewy one, maybe? Possibly. We're

going to talk about some of the whys of cheating. We did an episode of, you know, what is cheating? And as in true Dr. Sue and Charlie fashion, our answer

was, depends. It depends. There's more to it, though, and you should check out that episode. So we've done the what, today we're going to do the why, but before we do, hey Dr. Sue. Hey Charlie. How's it going? It's going well. How are you?

I'm doing all right. All right. Not bad. Before we unzip our topic, today's topic, would you like to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we get started? Sure. I guess. If I must.

um and because someone someone asked me like why do you keep doing this i'm like because you know while we would love people to start with us on episode one and i definitely know we have people who've done that thank you thank you yes um some folks appreciate you some folks are just jumping in on topics that that they find interesting and we want to make sure that they know who they're talking listening to not talking to listening to um so i have a phd in human sexuality education and while i primarily work in academia i think it's also really important to work outside of academia because it's very easy to forget what the rest of the world looks like um so i you know from the academic side i've published articles i've

done the research i've co-written a textbook um but i also do a lot of work in the community uh actually it's building back up you know everyone got hit by covid no one was getting together so i'm doing a lot of work in the community before covid then not so much during um now getting back out and doing more live events um but i also answer people's anonymous questions about sex so people can submit an anonymous sex question you can too and you can also submit i know you're i know you're gonna do me even me not no but i know you're gonna do this part at the end um you can submit an anonymous show ideas to us um so every week every sunday night at 9 p.m eastern i pick one question and answer it and post it all over social media so

kind of do like the academic side of sex and then i also do like the human side that's a horrible way of putting it that academics isn't human but the study of sex yes because i find that talking to humans in a non-classroom setting is a very different experience but also very similar because so many of the questions are the same so and yes you can answer questions too um but that's me so that's a little background on me i'm always happy to not talk about myself and just pass on the baton to charlie if if legitimately though if anyone who's watching or listening to this um has questions about like the field or like they're interested in maybe getting into it reach out let me know we can do a whole like thing i guess maybe not a whole thing anyway we're always

here to answer your questions um but without any further ado i'd like to turn it over to charlie so for those i know so for those of you who've been with us before you know charlie and for those of you who don't here's charlie uh charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to of get into the ins and outs and unzip those taboos of all those topics we don't always talk about so openly in this country yeah but tell us more tell us about you charlie um i am charlie i have always seemed to question um what expectations um of me of certain roles in society and why they're told they need to be moving about in a certain way. And certainly sex and the lack of shame around my curiosity about sex and sex play and stuff like

that, um, is something that Dr. Sue and I kind of connected on, or when we first met, when we first became friends, it was, um, Dr. Sue shared with me what she, what she does for a living and I didn't flinch. And, and then we just started having open, honest conversations. Um, and then she was exploring um doing a podcast and and so here we find ourselves i also am i i've also just kind of has a hobby i suppose enjoy enjoy psychology i wasn't sure that was going um but yeah the psychology and the what and why we human the way we human individually and collectively and this uh especially in in today's climate um it seems our show i would argue our show is more important than ever being able to have these conversations

that in conversations as you said the questions almost everybody has around sex and sexual health and so here here we are here we are yeah how did we come up with this episode i don't know you said can we do an episode on why people cheat is what i remember i want to be really careful right now and because usually we do we do like this is where this came from um especially doing a shout out when it comes to someone who like submitted an idea because we're getting more and more of those i have some friends from the middle of dealing with this this was not because of you i want to be very clear um yeah because i think you and i come up with this idea a couple weeks ago and then since then i have i have discovered some things about some friends

and their partners so um please don't if you're in my life know that this wasn't directed at you um but maybe you'll get something out of it yeah okay just all right i feel like i was like how did we get this idea because when i was talking to some of them and they were telling me what they've discovered in their relationships i was like oh crap this is like exactly what we were about to talk about awkward timing i know yeah so dr sue yeah why do people cheat so many reasons the air that escaped your body right now well and because i think people might be tuning into this episode if this is the one they're choosing because they do know you know you look through titles and if they're choosing this one it's either they this has happened to them that they

were cheated on or maybe they're thinking about cheating and they want to know some like why might i be doing this i i'm we're not going to be able to answer the question for your relationship because there's so many different reasons why people cheat um so i think that's really important to say up front like we may not solve we may not answer your question um but there's a ton of reasons. So I don't know if I have a particular order I'd like to start in. I guess there's one that always pops to my head. And it's interesting because I've written about this a few times and I always kind of change. People always want like that headline, like six reasons why people cheat. I'm like, could be 10, could be four. So I don't know if this is one reason or three.

Could be a combination of. Yeah, I don't know if I would list this separately as one reason or just they're not happy in their relationship. And whether that's they're not happy because the sex is bad, which happens. And so they're trying to fill that sexual need. Sometimes they're not happy emotionally. and so they cheat to feel better about themselves and sometimes people cheat to try to like be like hey look this is how unhappy i am i i don't think i'm gonna own this statement i don't think cheating is the best way of telling of demonstrating to your partner how unhappy you are because your relationship may not survive that um some people do it because they're sexually frustrated some people do it because they're emotionally frustrated some people do it because their partner is not physically there for whatever reason you're separated by distance and that

that makes you unsatisfied um so i feel like i would put dissatisfaction as a heading but then there's like subheadings yeah um i there there was a lot you said there and it um the qualifier there that i heard was happiness yeah because of happiness but i i'm not i'm sure that is a lot of of situations but i would also argue cheating does not always equal lack of happiness yes absolutely not always there's other reasons i had other reasons i'm just starting with the one i feel like i talk about the most because i think that's also really important because one of the things that i hear from people that i'm either friendly with or who are just spilling their lives to me

as has happened on some recent plane trips um someone can be really happy in a relationship and still make the decision to cheat so so there again we started with this with the caveat we we may not have the answer for you but but yeah that that dissatisfaction is often a reason yeah and i think that's important that the dissatisfaction this there there are sub topics to dissatisfaction you're not satisfied because you have a need for variety variety you could otherwise be very emotionally happy with uh the situation that you're in um just physically you you just want variety and and that conversation was never had perhaps at the beginning of the relationship so now there's an expectation of monogamy and you

know and domino effect right or you don't feel like you can approach your partner to talk about it be like hey like i'm bored i'm bored we see that happen in long-term relationships people will very often get bored in so many aspects of the relationship but also sexually um or you've and i know i've talked about this in many many a classroom an episode that we've done it's like you fall into the script right i touch you here you say oh baby i you do this i do that we're done. Like that's boring just thinking about. An order of buttons. Yeah and it's like there's no spark. Oh I hate to use that word. There's no excitement. There's no variety. There's no it's just it's routine. I also want to say that for some folks especially who've been through

trauma sometimes their routine is like they know what's going to happen and feel safe. So I don't want to downplay routine and for some people who have some mental conditions like that idea of knowing what's going to happen next is really important. So I do I do want to make sure that we're not judging the routine is but for some people that could be really boring yeah do you think um so again going off of this idea of dissatisfaction is like is like the main route and then the offshoots yeah yeah i um i had a college student once he was we were talking about cheating in class it's amazing how much students will say out loud um in front of i mean at this point in the semester we maybe we don't feel like strangers but

um it was basically like my boyfriend isn't paying me enough attention and i'm gonna show him how upset i am by having a by by by sleeping i think it was like with his teammate or some or like his roommate or something look at the attention i can get right and i was just like okay can we can we play that tape through to the end and you know some of the people like oh yeah like that's a great way to show them like how unhappy they are and other people were like why the fuck do you think they're gonna stay with you so i think sometimes people they just again we've talked about this before this idea that we don't really know how to talk about sex we don't know how to talk about being unhappy we've never learned

how to do these skills and so people are feeling like i don't know what to do i'm not happy and so gonna do this extreme thing and then it's gonna be like i see in the movies and tv where you know somehow we're all gonna magically wind up happy ever after yeah someone's gonna fight yeah i'm gonna be able i'm gonna be able to see how important we are for how hard they fight after this i do this thing right which is fascinating to me that is fascinating um not a way my brain understands to be some people some people so honestly she was telling the story and some people like yeah yeah do that and my brain is like i don't i don't understand how two plus two equal 22 okay yeah yeah um and then the thing with the the distance because i have worked with folks

who are separated by a variety of reasons by distance um and sometimes what they'll do is they'll come up with an agreement of like okay if we're going to be apart this long and you find someone that you think you might be sexually interested in but not emotionally like we can set up rules i'm like but that's no longer cheating the whole thing around cheating and i don't want to get too much from that last episode and i want to drive people to that episode but the whole thing about cheating is it's not consensual so if you're like hey like we're going to be apart for this one year for work or military or school or whatever and we've agreed that we can see other people then that's not cheating you've made the agreement like that's

monogamish yes that's monogamish or it's put just put you know opening up your relationship yeah yeah and so it's it's interesting that people like oh that's cheating i'm like but you had rule and as long as the rules are followed that's that's okay as long as it's really as long as doing it consensually um but for some folks that say yeah i can totally do this distance apart and then you're like i don't think i can and instead of saying to your partner hey i'm struggling i'm struggling i thought i could do this and i can't it it just turns into something that happens yeah all right well there's your episode i'm just kidding so that's that's one of the there there are other reasons why people cheat i have a long list see

whole oh you can't see with the new background well so to me that that situation that story that you shared with um with someone saying well i'm gonna cheat on my boyfriend with my with his teammate that was the other thing that there's Someone so close to them. Being the amateur psychologist that I is, yeah, is anger. Like that's a cause. I'm angry because, and I'm not getting the attention that I either used to get or that I feel I deserve.

And so I'm going to go do something about it to prove a point. and to me the proving a point in that way is almost always rooted in anger a level of anger and resentment yeah and and tying into that because i do like i have a textbook chapter on this so i'd like looked at it to see what we wrote and i'm like okay this is like what you see in the academics and in the research one of the reasons that we actually list separately is revenge so revenge for i think you had an affair or revenge for i don't think you treated me right or revenge for whatever it may be a fight right yeah you forgot our anniversary you know whatever it may be um so that i would argue that that would also fall into the anger

category 100 yeah revenge is an action out of anger you think hurt right a little bit Um, yeah, that's, uh, revenge. That's an episode. Yeah, that actually is. We should put that on our list. Other reasons or do we want to keep going with anger? Well, is there, do you have more to unpack with anger unzip yes please remember the name of our show yeah um i don't i mean i don't again i i hate to put judgment on it because when you're in the middle of it when you're angry at your partner or you're doing it out of revenge it's hard to be like okay let's talk to the rational side of your brain right now right right you know like what do you think this is going to accomplish you know are you going to break up with the person anyway but you want to hurt them as you

walk out the door or do you really think you're going to manage to get back together and some couples do and i think we're going to talk about this later on some couples do manage to stay together after infidelity um but for me like i understand you're acting out of that part of your brain that's not really thinking about the long-term consequences but when you're doing it out of anger you're doing out of revenge you're still not really even addressing the thing that caused the anger in the first place and so if i'm pissed at you and so i cheat on you and then we manage to make up you know maybe we break up first and then we make up or whatever it may however that happens if i still haven't addressed the anger part i'm just gonna do it again or i'm just

gonna be in a place where i feel like i want to lash out again so cheating is not going to solve the underlying problem right right and and there's that piece the piece of it as well is and you're not going to be able to do it in the moment but understanding why your anger was triggered yeah yeah you know is this is this something that feels similar to a situation where you got hurt so you're going to hurt first yeah and that takes a sorry that takes a lot of work a lot of practice and a lot of awareness that a lot of people really necessarily willing to do like that was that was the thing that always got me about i was trying to bring this up before but um i think one of us was having tech issues by the way i have to go back and look at that

that's just more note for me than for you um so a little behind the scenes folks a little behind the scenes um but one of the things that with that situation with that student one of the things that that that drove me a bit crazy about it was it wasn't just i'm gonna cheat it's i'm going to cheat with someone close to that person yeah to hurt them in a deeper way than cheating on its own might and then also destroy possibly destroy that relationship that they have with the person like that to me was yeah there were so many levels to it and you know traditional college-age student i'm guessing she was like 19 20 21 like at that point your brain's still still developing. You're not always thinking things through the way you might 10, 20 years

down the line. But with that said... Sorry, go ahead. No, sorry. I was interrupting. Well, what I was going to say is I also know 40-year-olds who would do the same damn thing if they felt like they were angry. So I don't think necessarily it's age, but there's something that might be able to tie into a maturity or an experience of being able to be like, whoa, why am I so angry? And is this the best way of handling it? But that's a hard check-in when you're in the throes of, of, of anger. Yeah. I'm trying to get someone's attention that you're pissed off at. Well, and then there's that age piece, um, or that maturity piece. And I would, I would say maybe life experience at that point, because I think at college age versus 20 years

later, 20 years later, if you, if that's still your go-to, if that continues to be your go-to, that's a different story but you know when you're in your late teens early 20s you still have this sense of invincibility and and this thought that things are going to work out in the way that you that you've maybe romanticized or calculated without really understanding and taking into account the other person's calculus and how they're gonna um you know experience the situation yeah and i would also argue and you're you're more the consumer of this than i am but i would argue that there's like reality shows where this kind of cheating happens and it's this big drama piece but sometimes you know thing like you don't see the full consequences of what's happening and of

those decisions so i think i feel like we see some of that in some of the stuff when it's gamified when relationships are gamified yeah oh that's a whole that's another episode there you go right that time um okay other reasons all right other reasons what you got i'm trying to decide if i want to put these in an order or not i don't think so i don't think so either i think that makes it easier let them whichever one jumps out at you next yeah like quick word association i i know for some people that it's sometimes about an orientation piece for them like they got into a relationship they were a guy they got into a relationship with a girl because that's what they were supposed to do

but they're trying to suppress we're still trying to suppress or just trying to cover because it felt safer and more socially acceptable right and the cheating may not happen so if a guy gets involved in a girl the cheating may happen with a guy because he's starting to explore that part of who he is um and the same could be said for women cheating like I don't want this to just be a gay man thing like it'd also be women who are identifying as lesbian or bi or bisexual whatever it may be um but for some folks it's this I've been in this relationship and I don't know how to explore it because I don't feel safe or I hate that side of me, which I'd love to get everyone past that. But yes, there's actually quite a bit of research to say that there's people who do that

because they're not ready to come out of that relationship and that identity, but they're also not happy and they want to explore these other pieces of themselves. Would you put under that orientation umbrella um poly people who feel now that there's more of that language in the mainstream um who who feel maybe drawn to that so maybe it's not an orientation but um but they're more drawn to that kind of relationship construct because they've always felt like i can love i have i can love and be intimate with multiple people i've just always been kind of expected to be in this monogamy framework so i'm going to say this with absolutely no research backing me okay which i do all the time anyway i did kind of put you on the spot with this yeah

no i'm trying to think through the thing like i i there's some stuff i've actually you know read and seen people present their research on and um not that i think those studies are always really reflective of what happens I don't think it usually starts as cheating though I think what happens is it's more of a hey I kind of like to explore something different with a current partner then I'm going to go cheat and then somehow I'm going to have this poly situation happening so from the folks I know who are poly and from again some of the research I've read and seen I don't think that that's why they're I don't see that as much as cheating as so much as trying to get relationships to open up I feel like maybe the relationships trying to open and have

conversations happen first and then if that doesn't go anywhere maybe sometimes they cheat but I don't think it's the same way I don't I don't think it presents the same way as for folks who are trying to discover like who am I attracted to kind of thing and can I live with that identity does that make sense that does make sense yeah yeah yeah i think they i think that they are two different things um two different situations but i do think not to take away from the orientation piece we'll get back there um but i do think that there are people who have always felt that monogamy isn't for them but maybe they're in a community society culture they're in a culture where you need to be monogamous otherwise you're looked at as like this freak or whatever yeah or

you're just yeah yeah yeah i just i so for the so i i know folks who are open you know in poly relationships right now i know folks who've tried to navigate that and taking a relationship that was monogamous into that and you know and then i know people who tried that and came back to monogamy because um so i do know folks who kind of play in those different i don't want to use play i apologize explore explore yeah play makes it sound like it's just frivolous yeah um but usually it doesn't start with the cheating usually it starts with uh i feel let me own that statement i feel like people who are in poly relationships who are exploring it are actually way better communication it you know about we're open to learning yeah it is it is a learning experience

if you're coming from monogamy into poly or open relationship constructs yeah which is an episode we've done yes check that out I feel like this is just a flashback to all our other yeah so I don't think it's the same and if you know between now and some other one I do some more homework and I find something different I will absolutely get on and or maybe we'll tack it on to the end if I have those editing skills um so I don't I think it's different and I don't I don't think that people who are exploring that kind of open or poly relationship think that like I'm going to cheat on my partner and explain that i'm interested in poly and they're going to be like oh yeah i'm totally down to that you know even though you cheated on me and didn't have a conversation so

i do think it's a different experience i'm sure i'm sure it's happened i'm sure there are people who've cheated and blamed it on well i've always been poly i don't know you know whether that's true or not uh but i think that's different from the like i am a man and i've always been interested in men but i got married to a woman because my religion supposed to culture yeah told me to but i'm not happy and yeah yeah and again sorry god nope i i don't know i've been hearing a lot more about lavender marriages which is where straight women marry gay men um i know it's coming up a lot more now in some of the feeds that i read and even that situation if she's having sex with someone else and he's having sex with someone else it's not cheating

because they've agreed to it and that's yeah the basis for their relationship is is this open in communication about okay like socially even maybe legally this is what we present to the outside world but we're going to have an understanding yeah and and that means it's not cheating so um do you have any more because i kind of derailed us from the orientation i do not is there more thoughts do you have more thoughts around that i mean so a lot of the research was looking at sexual orientation i would probably argue that if we keep doing the research and include other populations like trans folks non-binary folks you know the people we unfortunately leave out of research um i think we may see some of that as well like

i don't feel like i am who i you know my body doesn't represent who i am and one of the ways i explore my identity is to maybe explore outside the boundaries of a relationship but there's we don't have a ton of research to support that the same way we do folks kind of coming to terms with their identity or accepting who they are and being proud of that as i think people should yeah not that i should on people but what's next what you got i got like three more things um part of it and i think this came up with our back to our other episode i feel like this is like a montage we need like montage video um and montage music gonna need a montage um we talked about this when we did the episode

with annette on sex addiction that for some people they may engage in behavior because there's no i let me make sure i'm saying that there's no such thing as sex addiction from a clinical perspective um but when there are some folks who because of trauma or because of their own their own what's going on in their lives i don't want to diagnose anyone um they may feel the need to be with someone to feel loved um so one of the things we've seen with people who've been sexually assaulted and or traumatized as a child is they learn that if someone is not physically loving me i am not lovable which is not true absolutely not true um and if this is If I just rang a bell for you, please go find someone who can help you get to the root of you are a lovable human being for who you are and not what you provide others.

But for some folks, if they're in that place where they haven't really started their healing journey and they don't understand that if I'm not physically being intimate with someone, then nobody loves me and nobody wants me, I may be cheating on my partner to fulfill that need. Is there a reason why they're doing it? yes does that make it okay to cheat in my mind no um but there that there may be that or other things that are happening that they're feeling this need to have this physical intimacy because of something in their past or present yeah so so throwing that out there so so the need to feel loved and the attention right getting the attention yeah if you're not feeling seen or appreciated you're gonna find you're gonna find ways that you've learned how how you got that attention um from an early age which kind of shapes shapes our attention seeking behavior

or lack thereof wanting to shrink um yeah i i think they're the lack of love peace on the other side um outside of trauma is um i just really didn't love my partner and and you know society teaches us that if we really love somebody we won't do xyz and so that that can be a reason that is thrown out there which hurts and sucks for the other person who might have been in it in a different way they were experiencing the relationship in a different way yep man humans i know the way we fuck each other up not always in good way i got two more yeah yeah one is kind of the opportunity the opportunistic kind of cheating like situational yeah that's situational and the opportunity arose and i had a colleague at one was

drunk yes but it's funny because i i had a call not funny i had a colleague um at a place where i used to work and she'd been in a long-term marriage like at the point i think she'd been married for 20 25 years and she always said that if her husband cheated on her and it was one of these things like he went to a conference they got drunk you know he had sex with someone else and then came home he's like holy shit I did this there's no interest there's no nothing like it just it just happened she's like I'm not sure I could get over it but I would be less hurt than if it was like a long-term ongoing relationship because of that emotional side of it you know a lot of times when when you when or when an opportunity presents itself and maybe you were

maybe you were lusting over the person and maybe you weren't but you're in a place maybe there's drugs maybe there's alcohol maybe there's not you're just super horny or you know one thing leads to another you kiss them and their clothes fall off and for some people that feels less threatening than the i've been having an ongoing affair for like seven years um i've fallen in love with someone else yes yes and i have a whole separate life that doesn't involve you and um So for some folks, they actually see that as more acceptable is not the term I want. No, I don't think I don't think that's the term. It's less threatening.

It's easier to navigate to the other side. Yeah. If I think I think in those situations, there would be more of a chance of at least her relationship surviving if that was the case. I still think that there'd probably be a body being buried somewhere. You know, I don't really think he'd survive that process. but um yeah but yeah sometimes it just happens and i i'm not excusing it i want to i want to be really clear with that because i don't think we've said it from the top so one we're probably not going to be able to answer all your questions and for your specific situation of why you got cheated

on or why you cheated first of all don't use us to explain why you cheated on someone don't be like dr sue and charlie said this and this is why it's okay but if you got cheated on a i'm really sorry that happened and b i may never give you the answers you're looking for we may never give give you the answers we're looking for um but what i what i don't want people doing is being like oh well i just did that thing where i got you know drunk or i was away on business and it happened and so i'm hearing that's less severe and the answer is it's not cheating is cheating for some people and so i don't want anyone walking away with that idea yeah yeah because it it it really is how you and your partner navigate the situation and and giving your giving space

to each other to have the reactions and the feels and if you find a path that you can navigate together to get to the other side great if not sucks but but you'll you'll each move on yeah um and then like if you if you cheat or if you're a habitual cheater um try to find a way to get the awareness for it for some of the motivations that trigger you to seek that extra experience um because while we do say no judgment we totally judge but sometimes but honestly honestly like if if you are someone who cheats habitually when you're in a monogamous relationship maybe take a break from monogamy yeah number one um and try and figure out if you if you have the resources find work with a therapist um if you have the resources

to do so and if you don't like do you know try try to unpack what what triggers you to do that when you're in a relationship is it is it the moment you feel lack of love or lack of attention or um are you putting yourself in situations to tempt yourself um to see if you really care about this person um and i and i say that because the wake that that cheating leaves if you if you stay together it's always going to just kind of be hanging out there and nothing there's nothing that can speed up the distance of time between when it happened and where you get to the other side and then if you don't stay together the person that got cheated on that sticks with them for a long long time if not for the rest of their lives especially depending on the severity that

the relationship dynamic and what it triggered for them um so you know if you if you are a habitual cheater um and it's because you need more attention find the words find the words have the conversation um just because because it's the the thing that i want to stand on is the impact that you have on somebody else's life experience yeah yeah and I think we do better to each other I think we do want to get into like can you survive as a couple and do you want to survive but there's one really big reason we forgot to talk about for why people cheat do it some people are just assholes and don't give a shit it's very true and I think that's the thing we overlook like oh why did they cheat oh well you know this stress was happening or that person is a

temptress or we're oh i have thoughts on that is temptress i i was just thinking of temptress a gender is that a gender term like did everyone just assume i was talking about a woman probably what would be the male version of temptress tempter oh just like slut man there's no like male version of it yeah whatever the male version is i i think a lot of times we we try to make excuses and some of you may have like tuned into this thinking like oh i'm gonna hear why they did what they did you know they were stressed they were angry they were whatever there was a fear they were going to lose their job and so they were lashing out sometimes people are just assholes and don't give a shit about their partners and i think that gets left out of

conversations a lot yeah the number of people i've heard in my life be like well yeah i'm going to commit a relationship but of course i'm cheating and of course i've been cheating the duration of the relationship that's i they make it part of their personality right and i think that that's really important to acknowledge that those folks are out there. Could your partner have cheated on you for other reasons? Yeah, absolutely. And again, we've said this throughout now, we don't know what happened in your relationship. But I feel like a lot of times it's like trying to assign a reason outside of they just don't care enough about the relationship to respect it. Or they're just an asshole. Right. A lot of the conversation is centered around this assumption that they,

well, they're in the relationship, they must want to be there. So why are they trying to sabotage it well maybe they just don't give a shit right and i think that's and i'm not saying that that's what happened to you dear listener watcher um but but i think sometimes we always forget that sometimes people just do things they want to do and they don't care what you were just saying about the wake about the effect that they're going to leave and behind them so i did just want to make sure we own that and that has more to do with them than anything you could have ever done or engage them in right it's so which is not going to make me feel any better by the way It's not going to make you feel any better, but if you can find a way to anchor like this

that wasn't centered around you in those situations, then that can help your healing. I do also want to just real quick on the temptress, the person that the committed person engaged with outside of their relationship, that person didn't promise fidelity to your relationship so and you don't know what kind of information your partner gave them about their situation so they may not have even known they were the other so i i kind of i work to combat that that trope of well if all these people weren't out there tempting them blah blah blah Well, no, he knows, he, there's, there's my assumption. They know, they know the promises that they made to you and they are willing to break

them. And they're the one that has all the information about their situation. And they're the ones that make decisions on how they filter that information and what they leave out and what they include. so in my mind the the um oh what am i trying to say the responsibility for the cheating the responsibility for the cheating does not lie on the the other extra the extra the extra so i just want to put that out there yeah because they didn't again they didn't they didn't engage with your fidelity.

They didn't agree to your fidelity. They probably don't even know about the fidelity. Or they're hearing the like, oh, we're breaking up any second. Oh, my partner cheated on me. Oh, they're awful. Yeah. We're separated. Yeah.

All those things. So I just wanted to throw that out there. All right. So can you get through it? Can you get over it? Can you heal from it? What can you do? well those are all the questions those are the questions you kind of have to ask yourself because

when people are like what do i do now my answer is always what do you want to do right what do you want to do do you want to try to put in the time and effort to heal because this is going to take a lot of time and effort on their part your part and your part and you together as a couple does a lot of effort and if you think this person was already half out the door i can almost guarantee you they're not going to be willing to put in the effort you want them to right so the question really comes back to and this drives people nuts especially when i'm working with friends who are like this just happened what do i do and they never like my response of what do you want to do can you get over this if you that's the thing yeah if you cannot get over this if this is going to be

a weapon that you use in a conversation for the next 10 years then no this relationship cannot stay healthy and survive and he will probably do this like sorry about that gender i know we catch ourselves they will probably do it again and you will probably do something else out of anger at some point whether it's cheating or just being you know distant or whatever it may be so i think the questions you want to ask are what do you want to do and i understand sometimes it's complicated there are kids um sometimes it's a money issue you may not be able to leave the relationship and be able to stand on your own two feet and support like the power that exists in a relationship can sometimes have a huge sway on what happens here. But what do you want? If you

can't get over this, if you will never be able to get over this, I don't see how the relationship survives in a healthy manner. And something else is going to happen, whether it's this or something else that makes the relationship explode. So if you can't get over it, that's going to be a problem. It's going to take some work. And you may say, I want to try to work through this. And then either they're not putting in the effort or you're not putting in the effort or you just realize you don't want to anymore it's okay to be like i thought i wanted to try to save this and i can't it's just not it's just not what i want anymore because people feel like they have to make that binding reaction instantly so it's like i just found out i got cheated on i have to decide do

i want to go or do i want to stay you can't possibly make that i mean some people like i'm out and they know it and that's great. But for staying until you have a conversation of, well, what are you going to do to come to terms with what you did? What am I going to do individually to come to terms with what happened? And then what are we going to do to try to move past this? You may not be able to make the decision right there that you can commit to that effort. Or you may start with the effort and be like, this isn't worth it. You know, I'm never going to get past it or I don't think they're putting in the effort or I just don't feel like I want to anymore. Do some couples make it through and survive in fidelity? Sure. Sure. And if that's what you want

to find, if that's the answer you want, go ahead and Google that. How do I stay with my partner who cheated? And you'll find lots of things about how to make that happen. I will warn you right now, a lot of them are going to be based in religion. So if that is not your jam, just kind to keep that in mind if you don't want to stay with them google that like to me it's always interesting of like how you're phrasing that question is really about what you want to hear so do some couples survive it yeah some couples survive it and they put in the work and maybe they're still miserable and we just don't know it or maybe they truly make it through to a point where they are back in a trusting loving relationship some couples don't it's whatever

feels best for you and anyone else who's involved in that situation i'm thinking like children who don't have a say like i know some people like they cheated i hate them i'm going to stay with them until the kids are out of the house and safely into their own lives i get that um so it really there's no one i feel like this whole episode is basically you should just be called we don't have answers for you it depends it depends yeah dr sue and charlie and charlie answer it depends it really does like what do you want and i knew i i have friends who were cheated on and they're like we're going to make this work and then they decide after a month or two they're like what am I doing like why am I working harder than they ever did um I had a

student who came to me after they were in my class and said that they've been cheated on they were all committed to like trying to stay with it and then they went and got tested an STI testing fair that we did and um yeah they couldn't stay after that because I think that brought home the reality of like this person put my physical health at risk like outside of my emotional health outside of my social my social safety like i just tested positive for a bacterial sti and that drove home to them how that there was no change how that there was but but also like how much this person was willing to risk of my safety like it wasn't just like that's throwing away our relationship but also he put her he didn't put her at risk he gave her an SDI right uninformed consent right

and so I think that you know there may be the thing that gets you it may be that you're like yes I want to stay in this relationship and then you find out some teeny tiny little fact like maybe he did it again sorry maybe they I'm gonna own it most of the most of my friends where there's been a cheating issue it's been it's been a woman who's been cheating on by a man. So I am absolutely drawing for my friends and family relationships. And sorry, I am trying to catch myself doing it. It could be like, yes, I've decided to stay. And then you find out one fact. And the one fact I'm specifically thinking was it was one of the kids' birthdays that partner found. The interlude happened. Yeah. So the partner found time to go and cheat. And

and that that was it that was it for that was it was her that was it for her like that little fact was enough to derail all the work they'd been doing because they had they were going to therapy he was supposedly going to a therapist she was supposedly going to therapist they had couples therapy which is expensive for that much therapy yeah um but they were working it through and she found that out and she's like that was it like done there was no turning back for her yeah and so i think it's i think it's important to keep in mind that you you may be at that moment be like i'm done this is it this was a deal breaker for me maybe you'd had a conversation about that that fidelity was really important to you especially because of past relationships so you may in that

moment be like no no thoughts no questions pack your shit get out but it's also okay to change your mind and it's also okay not to know what to do in the moment and if someone is being like hey i cheated because they've been building up to telling you right if you if you found out by accident, that's one thing. But if they disclose to you, they have been building up in their own mind how they're going to do it, why they're going to do it. There's a whole thing for them. They've known for a while they're going to tell you. It's being sprung on you. It is okay to say, I need some time. I need to think about this. And I try not to tell people what to do. But if the person's like, no, I need you to make a decision right now, that is an absolute red flag.

And my advice would be to get out. If someone is telling you, you have to make a decision right now was I totally upended your life and our relationship, but I want a decision in a split second, that's incredibly manipulative and to me not emotionally healthy or safe. That's it. That's all I have to say. So I want to add several things to that or expand on some of what you said. Are you going to give us answers? I might. I might give you information to find your answer so it still depends consider to consider as you're trying to figure out what you want to do on either side of this cheater or person who was cheated on um if you decide to stay and or and you both agree as dr sue said that you're going to put in the work then put in the

work and as you're trying to make this decision or figure out what decision you want to make you need to honestly ask yourself this question am I going to be able to forgive them am I going to hold this over them and or yeah am I going to be able to forgive them or am I going to hold on to this and punish them for until i feel better even if we're doing the work and and the punishment is going could be withdrawing emotionally withdrawing from the relationship um getting mad at them starting fights over other things um weaponizing it yeah really and and not saying and not necessarily being explicit with it either you know they didn't do the dishes that they said they were going to do so it's a nuclear explosion of a fight um and you're saying no this is about

the dishes when really it's still your hurt your anger you're upset about the cheating yeah so so that's going to take a lot of work and then the other thing i want to say real quick um before i lose it is um is that i can't imagine when for parents i can't imagine the the calculus that you have to do to to balance all the things your children's well-being your um your housing security or financial security all of those that's that's a lot to balance but the other thing to consider is if you are if you choose if if your choice is to stay till they are out of the house there's some work to be done there too because what your children are watching is how what is okay as far as emotional and physical treatment in a relationship

yeah whether you like it or not and you may think you're high you may think you're effectively hiding some of these things, but children are incredibly empathetic and absorb and observe, even when you don't think that they know what they're observing. That lands somewhere in there, and we all have it. We all have some kind of experience that has shaped us to who we are. And that could be a part of why you cheated. There's some unresolved trauma or generational trauma or something that molded this behavior so so not to add to the pile for parents who are trying to figure out whether they stay in in that family unit but just be mindful of that yeah because you're what you're doing is essentially modeling what's acceptable behavior exactly and

i had a friend who in who's in that situation who had a daughter and she kept saying i'm staying together for my daughter and I'm like but what are you teaching your daughter right what are you teaching what are you teaching her because if she doesn't know something happened now she was very young when it happened she's gonna pick up on at some point because like you said they're incredibly they're what was the words you used sorry empathetic yeah serve and they're very perceptive yeah they're I mean this is we know that kids learn by by modeling what we do they ate they ape behavior like oh you know parent did this I'm gonna walk around doing this which I just realized doesn't really work with my background um my parent is a muppet so they yes for those

of you who are not who are listening and not watching going what is going on there so yeah I think that modeling is a really important perspective and I remember for my friend when I was like but what are you teaching her about staying like that was a I had a very powerful impact no I don't want to take it was an aha moment I imagine It was because everything she had been hearing was to stay together for her daughter. But I want to go back to the whole weaponizing it. Because one of the things that I've also seen, and it's actually I've seen this in couples that I did not know there had been cheating. But like we would be out in a social event and something would happen and someone would be like, all right, well, I'm going to do that.

Well, how can I trust you? You know what you did. Like that phrase, you know what you did. And I just remember everyone at the table being like, what's going on? What did you do? like you you can't you can't do that like if you can't if you can't learn to let it go and aren't willing to not weaponize it there's a lot of negatives in that statement um then you're probably not ready to heal yeah so and i would say that there there are situations where the

the cheater would weaponize it too you know what you drove me to do yeah this is all your fault and I'm like yeah I wasn't this is exactly why I did what I did yeah yeah those are red flags too yeah so you you really do have to analyze and ask yourself and it's hard because you're processing a lot of information like I just I just came clean and I confessed or I just received this information like that is a big um a big lift emotionally and mentally and so as as you can do do what you can to really figure out am I going to be able to forgive them and and get through this um or am I is this something that I'm just going to hold on to and internalize and punish them for in different ways yeah that will always be obvious that this is why i'm punishing them

yeah on either side of the situation yeah so we actually did give people answers at the end maybe i just feel like this whole episode we gave them information to find their answers oh there we go oh i like that okay very well done they can tailor their answer based on information they cared in case you're wondering this is why we keep charlie around because she does that very well That and so many reasons, actually. Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Sue. All right. Any other final thoughts there? I think I just want to remind people that I don't actually know if you even did this. Like, if your partner cheated on you, there's a large part of it that's not about you. Right.

And I mean, I feel like we were talking to that point, but I don't want to say don't take it personally because you absolutely should take it personally because it's your relationship. But don't immediately start assigning reasons why it happened to you and it's your flaw. This is that person's decision, not yours. And I think the last thing would just be if you can, I would recommend taking time before making a decision. Because once you say I'm done with this relationship and I'm out, you're probably done with this relationship. Some bells can't be unrung. I guess technically all bells can't be unrung. But anyway, you get the idea. But when you hear this information, if it happened to you and this person is telling you they cheated or someone saw them cheating, which is also another thing we didn't get into,

it is absolutely okay to say, I need to think about what I need to do that's best for me and any children that may be involved. It's okay to take your time. They did the behavior and had time to process, you also are allowed time to process. Um, and then if you're on the flip side, if you're the one who's admitting to what you did, you need to also respect that that person may want some time. So just the time factor, um, yeah, the time factor and just not trying to take responsibility. If you're the one who cheated on, don't, don't try to figure out the 10 reasons it was your fault. Could you have been a better partner? Maybe. Could you have been a perfect partner and this still happened? Maybe. So. Yeah. That's, I feel like that's the whole

part we missed uh how you received the information yeah did you can did you confess because you got caught by someone else and they said confess or else or are you confessing because you felt compelled to confess on your own this may have to be the follow-up episode that might have to be the follow-up episode this is the so we've done the what the why and maybe the follow-up is the now what yeah um yeah all right well everyone well i want to thank you for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos we hope today's episode uh sparked some new ideas gave you a different or maybe even fresh perspective and we'll maybe open up a conversation or two in your own in your own life that's worth having um if you enjoyed the show

please subscribe leave a review comment on this episode or any other episode that you've listened to we want to hear from you share it with someone who you think might need to hear it and if you've got a question or a topic you want us to explore you'll find the link in the episode description to send it our way and hey did you know that um some episodes are also available on video now so check uh check the episode description for the link there you can find us on youtube and watch us on spotify and we want to give a very special shout out to ali o'brien for incredible theme music thank you so much ali and until next time everyone keep talking keep listening more importantly most importantly and keep unzipping those taboos and please take

care I'll see you next time.