#803 Treating Predators & Infidelity - Dr. Monique Thompson

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Welcome to episode 803 with my guest, Dr. Monique Thompson. My name's Paul Gilmartin. I'm the host, I'm the producer. Uh, yeah, I wear a lot of hats. Uh, if you're new to the podcast, welcome. I hope you find this to be a place for honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas, and sexual dysfunction, to everyday compulsive negative thinking. And this show is not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. I am not a therapist. This is more like a waiting room. That doesn't suck. The website for this show is metalpod.com. Metal Pod, also the social media handle you can follow us at. What do I wanna share with you? Well, I suppose I should share since I talk about my life on the podcast. I shared this with the Zoom group Patreon people over the weekend, but Saturday, as in a week ago, I'm in my woodshop and I've told you that Gracie, my dog, is getting a little old. A little fatter, a little slower, and she's having trouble getting through the doggy door. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna go out in the woodshop and I'm gonna build her a ramp so she doesn't have to jump so high to get through the doggy door. And so I'm doing it. I put a couple of screws in and then it's too long. So I bring it to the table saw and I'm trimming a little bit off it and I hit a screw that I forgot was in there. Shower of sparks.

Oh my God.

I got a dust collector which pulls air from the machines. All the sparks travel down the ducts and start fires in the dust collection ducts. And at first I don't notice that. At first I just noticed that there was a little ember in my table saw and I see a little wisp of smoke coming up. So I was like, Open it up, see it, put it out. Ah, now there's another one. Before you know it, smoke is pouring out of all the ductwork. I go running in the house. I tell Christina, call the fire department. And, uh, she, she told me— I ran back to try to do what I could in the shop before the fire department got there. And she told me later that she, like, didn't even know how to speak. She was so flummoxed that she, you know, she dialed 911 and they were like, what? She didn't remember the address where we lived. She had to go out front and look at the address. Meanwhile, I'm in the shop and I'm just thinking, if this fucking thing goes up, I don't even know what, what I'm gonna do because it's a lifetime of collecting tools, collecting wood. It's my love. It's my happy place. I've got projects that are half done. I'm teaching a student how to woodwork. We've got all the wood that he bought and that we're in the process of milling. All this is going through my mind. And the other thing is, if the fire department comes in here, Water is the mortal enemy of woodworking machines. You don't even want to get a drop of water on like the surface of a woodworking machine because they're made of cast iron and, uh, it rusts like immediately as soon as water hits it. So the idea of them spraying my machines down, they would be ruined. And, uh, so all of that is going through my mind as I'm waiting. Fortunately, I live about 300 yards from the fire department, so they're there immediately. And they're like, so what's going on? I was like, well, you see the smoke pouring, pouring out of the, uh, the ductwork? And, uh, so they're like, well, we're gonna, we're gonna have to start taking these ducts apart. But the fires that had started in there were so hot they were having trouble Holding the ducts to take them apart. And they get up there and the smoke's getting thick and they have to put their respirators on. And I'm running around trying to get— because I've got chemicals in there that if they caught fire, they'd explode. And, and I'm running around and we are— I mean, they're— they were very calm and collected. And, um, and I said, If you can avoid having to spray machines, please, that would be awesome. But understand, you need to do your job. Do whatever you got to do. And they had to spray a shitload of water in the ductwork. And it eventually, after like 2 hours in there— because it would go out and then it would start up again. And so eventually we just had to crank water through all the ductwork. And I don't know if the dust collector is ruined or not. I'll find out later. But I got a put all that ductwork back. But if you can be lucky having a fire, none of my machines were damaged. None of the wood that I have laying around was affected. And I'm so, so grateful that the garage didn't catch fire and start other fires because that thing would have burned so hot. It would have definitely taken— the firemen told me, they're like, you would have Definitely taken out at least your neighbor's garage, if not a couple of houses potentially. Um, but it didn't, it didn't come to that. So, uh, how was your weekend?

Insane.

I never thought I would ever have in my life have to utter, call the fire department. Oh my God. So that's, that's where I'm at anyway. Uh, as far as how I am doing mentally, kind of the same. Uh, I feel like I'm slowly, slowly kind of crawling, um, out of the, the flatness, you know, maybe 5% in the, in the right direction. I still am just not really enjoying doing anything, uh, except learning Spanish, reading, and playing hockey.

That's—

and of course being around the people I love, but that's, that's where I'm at. And I appreciate your continued support. So again, this will be an episode without surveys, but this is a new interview, this one with Monique Thompson. And I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting to share, but there you have it.

I just want to hit my head hard enough to go to sleep for a few weeks. I live alone with a bird.

We do not occupy That much space. And don't own a car. In other people's heads.

I never sort of knew I might turn around and hit you. I had rage inside of me.

Exhausting.

Until I became a parent. It's traumatizing to watch someone you love so much.

And I'm glad I got to the other side of it.

In so much pain. You are not as fragile as you fear you are. And he's yelling he's gonna kill her. You don't have to go through pain.

It's so nice to be reminded.

To find purpose.

Of how much love. First I was suicidal and now I'm homicidal. And goodness there is. And he said, well, that's good. Improvement in the world because you're not thinking about yourself. Isn't that great? I'm here with Dr. Monique Thompson, and we're going to talk about, uh, infidelity, among other things. You made the trip from Dallas?

Yes.

Thank you for coming.

I was delighted to be here.

Your husband Nick is sitting about 5 feet away.

Yes.

Waving to us.

Big Daddy Wonderfulness, the Unconquerable, Nick Thompson.

And you guys have been together 20—

26 years together, 23 married. But we've been— he was my junior high school crush. All the girls in the neighborhood had a crush on Nick.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'd rather enjoy going to his high school reunions to be— he's my trophy husband.

So if you're comfortable, before we start talking about the work you do with couples where there has been infidelity. I'd love to know as much about you and your personal story and any mental or emotional struggles you have had in your life, if, if you're comfortable.

Yes, yes, yes. I love the tone and texture of this particular podcast on self-disclosure. I appreciate that. And I do, of course, everybody, everybody has, you know, a story. I would say mine as relates— let's maybe Find the hallway of this world of couples and a bedroom door. You know, what is it like for me? I'm a married woman. And we really engage in a lot of care and keeping of our marriage as a thing for itself. So one year for our anniversary, I said, can we please just go to therapy for a year? Can we just go to therapy for a year?

Mm-hmm.

I wish I could find the kind older guy who sat with us while we literally Let it all out, um, for a year. And then it was like this big tsunami had exploded, and then after was this beautiful, just amazing world that had not really existed in this clarity before. And now we rather enjoy each other and are constantly finding like a quick path of recovery no matter what. So I enjoyed that. But I encourage any couple And I'm a professional in this field, that you're at some point, use what you can for what you need as well. Eat fruit from the tree and get yourself some nourishment. And I would say that, and he works in mental health too, that that would be the part of my story most akin to my work that I would encourage anybody to do, but that has benefited me personally. Possibly more than anything else, because we noticed post, of course, after all the work, well, how much further along might we have been if we had taken that moment earlier? And even in, I would say, the kind of depth that we have for pausing to self-reflect now, I noticed that that's faster too. That the fighting— I don't— have a problem with people fighting, period, including myself and my husband. Um, and we jokingly said, if you can't say what you really need to say and recover from that, you might not even be really married. You might not have a real marriage. Um, getting to your most, you know, unattractive, unclothed self in front of your spouse, working through that and being loved versus needing to be buttoned up and presentable. And that would, I would say, be a good description of our marriage. Very messy, unbuttoned, but fun. He is my best friend. You know, I hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you. That's, that's part of our marriage too, having to, you know, come to the table and say things that you just don't want to say. Um, at one point I didn't know if I was going to be able to have kids. We were getting very, very close. I could tell that he was serious. Um, one of my friends, ironically, who's never met him but is also a therapist, And in the evenings at that time, we would stop at a coffee shop after we'd seen our clients for the day. And she and I and another friend would just sit there and talk shop, drink coffee. And I talked about him all the time. And she said, it sounds to me like he wants to get married. I'm like, how can you say that about somebody you have never met, ma'am? She's like, just to get the feeling. Well, obviously, obviously, Jessica, if you're listening, she was right. But I kind of listened to her a little bit and thought, well, She may be— so I made myself tell him, hey, I don't know if— I know we're getting serious and I don't know if I can have kids. And that was one of the most excruciating honest moments in my life and took so much out of me. Because in my mind, what if he says, well, that's a deal breaker?

Physically, you didn't know if you could have kids? Right.

Physically, I didn't know if I— well, I'd had a scare. My OB-GYN had felt like we've got it under control, but I hadn't tried to have a baby. And I hadn't ever been pregnant before. And in that window, I was in a window of, you likely will not be able to. So then, wonderful OB-GYN, she actually delivered our first baby, but she was very honest with me. She was like, I think we can fix this, Monique. You're a young girl. You can get this done. Well, I'm not with anybody that I'm trying to have a baby with. So fast forward time, I am with someone that I really want to be with. But now I'm like, oh, what about that? And I had it in my heart forever. I just couldn't get that out of me and say it out loud because I just didn't want to face the risk of losing him. But finally I did. I just said, this is what's going on. And like you said, he's just right over there. He said, I bet you can't. He said— that was his response. I bet you can't. And we conceived her that day. And that's the rest of our story is he's constantly my I bet you can't person.

Yeah.

And I am likewise, like, to him. He says I help him a lot. But we also can be like the worst playground fighters in the world. Like, we get down on the playground. We will push each other off the slide. And I'm I'm not gonna sit by you, that kind of thing. But then give us like 15 minutes and we're, you know, I'll share my chocolate milk. Can I have your bologna sandwich? It's literally the, the tone and texture of our marriage. So on the one hand. On the other hand, I can say for my mental health that I don't think, um, I don't think I'm the sort— I don't think I'm the sort of person who I don't think I could be where I am without a connection, deep connection to someone who also has a deep connection to me. I know there are people who are fine being alone and don't feel lonely. I don't think I'm that sort. I'm not a true extrovert.

Mm-hmm.

I'm also not a true introvert. I'm about 49/51. I do like to be rather alone to reenergize. But he knows I want to be alone together. I just want you to be quiet.

I so relate to that. And I get that from my dad because my dad was not a chatty guy at all. But he wanted to have people around him. And that's one of the reasons why I love going to a coffee shop where the flow of life is around me, but I don't want anybody to bother me.

There you go.

It's almost like sitting by a stream.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You mentioned that you ran a group therapy for sex offenders. What— talk to me and the listeners about what that was like. Excuse me. And what the average person doesn't know about what those sessions are like. Who Those, I don't know, that sounds like I'm, those people are—

The population.

The population.

The population, the clinical population. It's a clinical set. Yeah. The irony is that I teach for University of Phoenix, and this is the class that I teach is for helping professionals understanding how to go about helping people within the correction system. But the correction system is not a healthcare system. And so what if somebody's there that needs treatment though, What do you do? How do you accomplish the goals of corrections without crossing so far into the healthcare system?

And are they incarcerated when you're doing the group?

The group that I was working with was not incarcerated. They were registered sex offenders. So they're in the community registered with court-ordered mandated treatment. And at the time, I was an intern working under a registered sex offender treatment provider, conducting adult male sex offender groups. I would say, I think there was one guy in my groups whose offender interest was adult females, but all of them had a victim profile of children or young women and young boys, young males. So things that your podcast community may or may not, I don't know. I don't know what people know, but I'll say what sometimes is helpful when I teach the class. That's all I can do. One is that there is a victim profile. People who have deviant sexual arousal is what we're talking about, sometimes are not even self-aware of the range of their own deviant sexual arousal. They're clear that it's a crime.

Mm-hmm.

And they're clear that it is also morally wrong. So I want to clarify that, as that is not an indicator of a mental health condition.

Mm-hmm.

People are clear that it is both illegal and morally wrong. People are not unclear about that. But they do experience physical arousal. And how do we know that? Well, there's any number of instruments we can use. Most common is the plethysmograph. Plethysmograph is when they hook up nodes to measure your physical response, your arousal to images. So certain images are shown to the person and a measurement of their arousal is taken. And now you have what their actual deviant sexual arousal profile is versus sometimes someone may have been arrested for a specific crime, but that doesn't tell us all of their deviant sexual arousal. Treatment is about addressing the full picture.

So are they mandated to take that Test? What are you talking about? People who have been test studies? Or are you talking about people who have committed crimes, and this is a part of the—

Yeah, well, sometimes, sometimes people are mandated to get a plethysmograph, to get a polygraph. Often, this is not necessarily the case, but you can ask also. A person can say, I want that. Typically, a clinical assessment is going to include other kinds of tests like a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the MMPI, which gives you a clinical picture of what diagnosis they have. So now we're saying, well, they did this crime, but do they also have any diagnosis over here, psychiatric? personality kind of things. So you do want that information.

And do you see psychopathy?

Yeah, you might see that. You might see that. You may see any number of things over here. On the one hand, you also may see nothing. So however you assess here, we already know that you have criminal thinking patterns because you committed this crime and somehow made it okay in your brain to do that.

What are some of the things they tell themselves?

Well, so that's actually an exercise in therapy. What are all the ways I've made it okay to victimize my victims? So some things that you'll hear are, they will convince themselves that they weren't hurting the victim, convince themselves that the victim Did not prevent it from happening, convinced themselves that they were just different from other people, that there's something wrong with me, and this is just something I did because something's wrong with me. Some— so not all people who are victimized then go on to be perpetrators, but some are. and have a long sexual history. So usually you do a full sexual history going all the way back, all the way, all the way back, of not just sexual history as like we would expect sex ed or something, but a full history of all the deviant levels of sexual interest and acts the person has completed over the course of their lifetime. And often you go all the way back and you'll see a young child who engaged in sexualized play, or who sexually victimized animals, or who engaged in inappropriate sexual exposure to pornography, or to sexually— who was oversexualized as a child. But not everyone who does that then goes on to—

Correct.

So sometimes you would hear a person say, well, I thought that was normal, or in my family, this was always going on. However, back to my first People do know right from wrong. They especially know legal versus illegal. And so then you say, well, how did I— how do we know this person knew? The hiding of it is universal. You will see that people wait for opportunity and victim profile. So if there's someone who is a sex sexual deviant— it's a little bit more appropriate to say they have sexual deviancy— then the opportunity is often created or sought. We usually see that in public literature, saying, calling it grooming, where the opportunity is created or just taken, you know, opportunity is just taken. But if that's not this person's deviant interest, they will not take that opportunity.

Mm-hmm.

So if I'm not interested in pubescent males, If I'm only interested in very young boys, I'm not gonna do anything to the boy once they change state. So then you say, well, why were all of them little kids? And so people say, well, they— because little kids can't say anything. That's a little bit true, but more true is that this person was just not sexually interested in an older child. They were only interested in a younger child, or they weren't interested in younger children. They were interested in older children, or they were interested in violence of any kind. So the deviant sexual arousal is what you really want to deal with. And in therapy, what that looks like is sometimes forensic-oriented cognitive behavioral therapy, not our traditional cognitive behavioral therapy that we would look at for like depression or mood disorders. It sometimes looks like ammonia therapy where you Create a script where the person experiences arousal and then administers ammonia to decrease that arousal. Group therapy is standard, not individual. And I will give an experience that I feel like is the— here's why we have to have group. Over a few weeks, I— the guys at one point confronted one of the guys on something That I was like, how could this be an issue? It was about going to the laundry in the evening. And suddenly one of the guys said, so you're interested in that kid? And I'm like, what kid? I literally was sitting like, what kid? And so the guy, his discomfort, I said, talk about that. So he goes ahead and he talks about it. And the guys had picked up on these seemingly unimportant— we call them seemingly unimportant decisions that were leading towards creating an opportunity to victimize a kid. The guy was happening to be at the laundry too often, and the other guys had picked up on this pattern. As it turned out, a young mom was coming across the laundry around the same time. So he's creating a sense of familiarity with the mom. He just happens to be there doing his laundry. This is innocent enough.

And is he lying to himself about why he's there?

He's lying to himself on a surface level.

Gotcha.

But what we now know— well, I say now know, we've known this since the '60s, Eugene Genling from University of Chicago was one of the first people to look at why doesn't therapy work? We do a lot of studies on what makes it work, but why does it sometimes not work? And he actually was working alongside Carl Rogers. Everybody's heard of Carl Rogers, right?

Mm-hmm.

But Genling said, well, I think there's something that the client is doing. Or not. And here we are with what you just asked, is he aware? And Ginling said, I don't think people are self-aware. I don't think they are pausing to attune to themselves and listen deeply to the self, the felt sense of self. And so there's this, you know, landmark study, they would look at, look at these videos of people in session, and even very fresh therapists could pick out a person who was engaged in focusing and connecting and attuning to the felt sense of self. Okay. So there's a seed for people to kind of keep in mind. The felt sense of self is just that ability for you to hear you on a deep level. There's like a few steps to kind of getting quiet, not quite the same as meditation.

Mm-hmm.

But the example I give to people is like figuring out what you want to eat for lunch, where you sit and go, hmm, no, I don't think I want that. I think I want crunchy. Well, I want crunchy, but I also don't want greasy. So you're listening, you're Really attuning to yourself. And then someone will say, well, what about such and such? You're like, yes, that's it. So then you've connected deeply with yourself. We do this all the time when we're trying to think of what do we want to have for lunch, something simple. But when it's more complex, you can actually do the same thing. It just requires attuning to yourself and focusing, listening deeply. Okay, so now we have an adult male sex offender, or we have someone who's thinking about cheating on their spouse, or we have someone who's Been cheated on. And at the surface, there's all this pain and all this content and all this noise. But for all parties, pausing, getting very quiet to the self, connecting deeply to the self, there's a discovery of your most honest, authentic truth, and then living with that. So back to what I mentioned, I did not find in my many years of working with these guys that they were genuinely unaware. Some were aware, but did not prefer to now do something about it. Right? So they were not unaware of their deviant sexual interest or arousal. They were uninterested in doing something about it.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so pause on that thought. And we say, well, why? I want us to take a walk out of these hallways and outside and go across to another universe where Helen Fisher lives. And she did a ton of research on how the brain is connected to itself and engages in choices of intimacy and connection, biologically speaking. And then I want us to think about epigenetics. So Dr. Rachel Yehuda did a ton of research on, well, are there markers? Can you inherit certain things? And so to that, I want to think about family systems. So in any family system, You have this heavy unspoken sense of moral coding of what is to be done and what is to not be done. What do we do with a secret? What do we, you know, how do we handle sexual interest, sexual repression, or sexual expression? What do I do with this? Do I have a family system that is nonjudgmental enough that I can talk about what I'm thinking and feeling and have an open—

Mm-hmm.

open enough communication that someone will help me figure this out, kind of be a companion, a guide along my journey, versus a jailer, a justice system, and press, you know, push me down out of my truth instead of helping me to live with my truth and figure out a way to not harm others.

Mm-hmm.

So if you think of it that way, yes, They know, and yes, sometimes there are inherited markers, but if I make a conscious choice, I can sometimes be guided to make a conscious choice that does not harm others. Just like people who are interested in another partner but are in a monogamous relationship. And some of the research we have on what helps couples is, well, what actually helps couples is to have an honest conversation about that. and say, I'm interested in such and such. And for the partner to say, well, okay, I, I hear that. I, I want to be clear though that I'm not open to an open marriage. So if you want to pursue such and such a person, let's have a beautiful divorce. We don't have to have a chaotic, horrible divorce, but we have to end this because there's no way I'm interested in open marriage. What we see instead, what we actually see instead is the person does not in fact go and tell their spouse or their partner, I'm interested in other people. They go and have this experience with someone else. Without fail, the partner finds out. Without fail, the partner finds out. And upon finding out, the partner does not come and say, you know, you are a lovely human being, and you have done something terrible. And I don't know, I don't know what I want to do about that. But I want, I want you to try and think about what we do next. And let's come together another time. That would be lovely. And out of all the couples I've, I've worked with over the 25 years that I've seen couples, I have seen that kind of dynamic a handful of times. Genuinely have seen it a handful of times. Um, and by a handful, I mean I can think in my mind of the couples just right at the top of my mind who I saw that happen. So people need to know it does happen where your partner finds out and comes to you and says, this is— you have to stop this, but you might not. And if you don't stop it, we're gonna have to have an ending of things. And we have such an intertwined life that I want you to think about this. And they're very calm about it.

How often does that happen? Because that seems like an outlier.

I agree with you. And I consider them outliers. On the one hand. On the other hand, once we start working, I mean, clock in, that's one-on-ones, that's joint, that's one-on-ones, that's joint, so we can get out of the emergency. That's one-on-ones, that's joint, that's one-on-ones, that's joint, so we can get from urgent to— we're at least, we're still at crisis, right? So one-on-one, joint. When we're now out of crisis, we're actually working. We're finally working.

We are going to take a quick break and see if we have any sponsors. This episode is sponsored by Quince. And yeah, love me some Quince. If I say this all the time when I do ads for them, but it— I don't know any other way to say it. If somebody asked me, where can I find the best quality clothing, home decor, you name it, at the best prices? Hands down, it's Quince. I just got a pair of their linen pants. I'm looking pretty summery, I don't mind, I don't mind saying. I have several of their t-shirts in colors that I love, and they're— the quality of the cotton is so— it's just good. It doesn't feel cheap. I got some of their undies. Let's not talk about that, but I love Quince, so check it out. Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/mental. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/mental. Quince.com/mental. And as always, we'll put the link in the show notes.

Hi, I'm Beck Bennett. I thought I was Beck Bennett. No, no, no, no. I'm Kyle Mooney.

Yes, exactly.

Sorry about that. No, all good, all good.

Thanks, buddy.

Yeah, and we host the show What's Our Podcast here on HeadGum.

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How often do you see the partner who has been cheated on willing to get quiet enough, whatever the state is, for self-reflection to say, hey, was there a part of— did I— do I have a part in this relationship that I need to own? Not that that justified being cheated on, but, you know, one of the things that I know, I was sharing with Monique before we started recording, and many of the listeners know this, but—

Mm-hmm.

When I was married, I was a cheater. And it—

I—

one of the things that I decided was I needed help. And so I started going to a support group years and years ago, and I still go to it, um, because at the heart of it is an intimacy disorder, a fear of intimacy.

Mm-hmm.

And I never had Mm-hmm. A clue that my willingness to have difficult conversations in my marriage and to identify and express my needs was at the core of why I didn't want to be monogamous. And that has changed since I've learned how to identify my needs and to have difficult conversations. And I enjoy monogamy. I never knew that I needed a partner who was willing to work on themselves and own their stuff. And it was a revelation to me. I just thought I was dirty, and at my core, I was a dishonest person, and I was gonna die like that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so talk about the, the person who is being cheated on and the kind of patterns and mental state that you see them on, see them in. And, and I understand that there is a time period for it to be just about their pain. And correct me if I'm wrong, but because it's such a deep betrayal to them to say, okay, what's your part in this? You know, when you're, you're third session.

Mm-hmm.

Which would, to me, would seem counterintuitive and almost cruel.

Well, if they are not at that place of listening to self. Some people are able to listen to self, even upon finding out something as devastating as my partner cheated on me. On the one hand. On the other hand, it's not a far-fetched idea to understand that for many people, it's a what the moment. It's a 911 call. It's You know, somebody died, you know. So for most of us, having that kind of reaction is normal. I wouldn't say healthy. It is normal. Living there, you cannot live there. You cannot live there. But will you be there for a while? Yes, which is how we get to what do you do. So if you're the person who was cheated on, the 24-hour window, you're gonna have to just excuse yourself because you're gonna do whatever you did. It's just going to be what it was despite your best effort. You're going to be someone you thought you'd never be, or you may be surprisingly calm. It is a little bit like finding out someone died. You don't know how you're going to react until it happens. Well, then is the step-by-step process that is not really pedestrian enough to be step-by-step, but is a process of moving yourself from this dysregulated, emergency, my body is on fire state to a state of acceptance and calm where you can make an intelligent decision.

That seems really hard.

It can be, except we're— I mean, in 2026, there's a family of trauma approaches. Pick one. We know so much more about the nervous system, about the brain, About the biological effects of trauma, about what you can naturally do, non-medicinal things you can do to self-soothe that are healthy. And because of that, I would say that people who already come into this kind of trauma, who prior to it had a fully kind of engaged system of treatment already in place, possibly from childhood trauma or something else that had nothing— and I also have people that just happen to have healthy lifestyles.

Right.

I mean, truly, they were already engaged in a lot of protective practices. They already were doing yoga. They were already walking outside. They already got sunlight exposure. They were already eating a pretty healthy, brain-healthy diet. They already had support groups and close friends, and they weren't socially isolated. They had a full life, and this still happened to them, right? So their step into work is a is to me like off the curb than someone whose life was already unplugged and just a second away from shattered. This takes you to the stratosphere of shattered. So now the work of that therapist is to— and most professional therapists know to do this anyway. We know to assess for level of care. All of us do immediately assess for level of care. And sometimes the person is not ready for Traditional private, come in my office, see you next week therapy. They need an increased level of care, which can be increased number of visits. It can be intensive appointments where you're meeting for a few hours instead of for an hour. It could be for me where we're not sitting like you and I kind of sometimes. That means we've got to move your body while you're in session, a walk and talk session. It may be that I immediately want a team. I want your OB-GYN, I want your family doctor, I want your nutritionist, I want your personal trainer. We all about to have to create a little team here to get you out of this burning building. If you're a male, I want you— I want you to also meet with your doctor because sometimes there's been sexual dysfunction that accompanied this moment. And now you— we just got to get everybody to the table, right? So you get everybody to the table. Now you have your Fire department, get this person out of this burning building. Are they okay? Are their lungs clear? You know, can they even engage in therapy? And now you can. But all the family of therapy, polyvagal therapy, I mean, there's so many, EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, there's sound baths, there's any number of trauma work that you can do. All of them have the same intent, which is to get the nervous system calm enough so that the prefrontal cortex can engage meaningfully. In any kind of therapeutic work, on the one hand. On the other hand, getting people to sit still through that— I don't want anyone listening to think that if you make a decision in this non-regulated state, oh, it's the end of the world, it's the end of days, it's over for you. 25 years later, I've learned I never know. Never know if the couple's gonna, you know, land well together. or land well apart, I can usually tell that there's going to be a landing of some kind if people are willing to literally commit to the work. So it's like taking your car to the shop, and you've got to just— the mechanic's going to come and tell you, well, it needs a lot of work, and we don't even have all the parts. So you got to find another mode of transportation for a little while, because this part we have to literally find, like, we don't know where it is. It's not a sophisticated part, it's just a rare part. Okay, that happens in couples therapy. Somebody comes in and you realize, as you mentioned, that the person who was cheated on had some pre-existing condition. Easily anything in the mood disorders, anything and anything, right? Including health issues. Including— that makes engaging in therapy secondary to the treatment of what was pre-existing.

Right.

So then my approach to it is, well, then why don't we set the date for decisions out a little bit so that we can give time for decision-making after you're out of the ICU, you're at least down on the regular floor where people can come visit you, or maybe you're actually discharged from the hospital, kind of get you all the way out before we start deciding, are you going to leave this relationship? Do you want to—

Mm-hmm.

So try to stay just right now, we're just getting everybody settled in. I see one-on-one, joint, one-on-one, joint during that time, heavily for assessment, also for de-escalation, and for necessity. Because when people are in those kind of intense states, keeping them scheduled is the most immediate task, is just getting people to come in and see someone versus just— I can't take it anymore. I forget the whole thing. I quit. So sometimes it's not the person who was cheated on who's forget the whole thing, I quit. It's also sometimes the person who cheated, it's like forget the whole thing, I quit. I don't know who's gonna jump ship. I never know. You think the person who's yelling and screaming, that doesn't tell me anything. I never know who might jump ship. So I'm often just glad for everybody to show up. It's just everybody just clock in. Um, and then when we're calm We can start doing more traditional things down the line. I mean, Gottman is down the line. Um, going to workshops, that's a year away, you know. Assigning reading, I don't know when we're going to, you know, just right now show up. We get it through and we go to the next appointment. And sometimes those appointments are 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. They're not always traditional, neat, 45-minute-long sessions where I clock in and I say, okay, what are we doing today? And you say, oh, let me see. It is not that pedestrian, but I enjoy it. I enjoy human puzzles very, very, very much. I like complexity. So it works.

What, if any, books are available for people To understand more about this, for the non-professional?

Yes. So some people like books. I like videos and books. All right. So if somebody's kind of curious, and I'm going to put these in categories, about the biological side of it, like literally what's going on in my brain, my nervous system, even what did I inherit? What are my genetic markers here? What did I inherit from my bloodline that's influencing how I'm interacting with this stressor? Dr. I mentioned Yehuda, Dr. Rachel Yehuda. You could Google Holocaust epigenetics. That's easier. Google Holocaust epigenetics, and that video is going to come up on YouTube. I like that for the biology. Google Helen Fisher. Any of her videos are going to help you with the biological nature of this kind of content. But then we have the actual like treatment of trauma. So Shapiro, S-H-A-P-I-R-O, I love her for EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, any of her work there. Polyvagal theory, Porges's work there will help you with kind of understanding what's happening with you, but what to do about it part of it. EMDR, there's also self-administered, you can do what to do about it. So those works.

And we'll put these in the show notes because that's a lot for people to remember.

But Sue Johnson, I like her EFT. For people who are very, very charged, very like in pain, the EFT work can be asking a little much when you are just so emotionally charged. So I'd like to kind of first assess, assess for the trauma. Some people don't need it. Some people do. If you need it, you need it. If you don't, you don't. EFT, Susan Johnson's work. What's EFT stand for? Emotionally Focused Therapy.

Cool.

So I like that for couples. I love Gottman, Once the Fire's Out, and you, you for sure want to go down this path of reconciliation. I love his work on communication, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's very accurate. He's a great statistician. I like my workbook, ironically, for the person who cheated. If you're the person who cheated, the Infidelity Recovery Workbook I recommend because it keeps you from that secondary trauma of answering questions defensively, um, overpromising. Um, it— there's alternating chapters, one for the person who cheated, one for the person who was cheated on. I mean, it kind of addresses some of those thinking errors you may be engaging in early on when you first find out. So that first week or so of discovery, I really love that a lot of People who've read that who were cheating said, I wish I'd read these chapters, especially chapter 7 or so, before I started answering questions, because I would have slowed down a little bit. I would have paused more. I would have listened more versus jumping in with solutions and answers. And then for like your everyday person, if anybody ever is going into any therapy at all, self-help at all, Mm-hmm. My favorite of all time, like if you forget all these videos and all the books and even my book, Focusing by Eugene Gindlin. That is a classic. It helps you to learn those 6 steps of connecting with yourself such that any place you go, self-help, private therapy, life coaching, you're bringing the one thing you need to bring, which is the ability to listen to yourself. to that experience, such that it can be as meaningful and purposeful and beautiful as you're hoping it will be. So that would be my favorite.

One of the things that I learned in doing the work in the support groups was that I had been, you know, when, when I was cheating, I, I was in a state of constant overstimulation and numbness, and it was impossible to listen to my body. Plus, I'd ignored the intuitions in my body— the stomachache when I'm around somebody who's toxic, etc., etc. And what I discovered is when I stopped engaging in those behaviors, and it took months, was my body felt different and I could feel the cues.

Yes.

And I honored them rather than saying, you're selfish. You, you know, don't do this. Give that person what they want, the person that's draining you, etc., etc. And befriending my body—

Yes.

Was the door that opened that allowed me to identify my needs.

Yes. Yeah, your longest companion, your oldest friend is you. You've been with you since you were in your mother's womb. And you will be with you to the very end. When you have your last breath is when that final farewell happens and you are no longer with you. But you being able to listen and connect and not judge yourself, have self-compassion such that you can hear. The more self-compassion we have, we're better listeners to the self.

Mm-hmm.

You can even hear your emotions. Your emotions have very powerful messages for you too. When you can get quiet enough to listen to them, sometimes your anger says, you're not actually afraid. You just need to make a decision. You know, or your sadness may say, that's not even your sadness. You feel sorrow for the person. You know, listening to your emotions, but that quietness, like you said, when you're writing the prose of something, sometimes you need another human companion, human. To just be gently, quietly with you, or use some of the techniques I mentioned to get you into the room, your own studio, where you can connect with yourself. Now, this authentic person that you are makes a little bit gentler, more authentic choice, or when does not, is able to be honest. Oh, I said yes, I really meant no, and now I need to go back and clean that up. And now has a little bit more courage to go do the cleaning up instead of, ah, well, it'll be okay. But then you feel that in your gut, it's not okay. So listening to the gut, taking a breath, pausing.

Hmm.

What do I want to do about that? I think I just want to give myself some time. I'll take a shower and see how I feel after the shower. Hmm. I've been feeling lonely all day. I haven't talked to anybody all day. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a walk and talk to somebody and then see how I feel. And then suddenly, the more connected you get with yourself, you're like, I am, I have ruined my sense of, of trust in this person. I'm assuming that they won't forgive. I don't know that they won't forgive. I don't know that there won't be mercy. I jumped to a conclusion. I'll just give them a chance. You reach out, you say, oh, hey, I mentioned that I would be able to be there at 6 on Friday, and I have some other obligations. I won't be able to make it. And the person just says, Okay. And you go, I tormented myself for hours this morning. But having a moment with yourself to just be gentle and caring, just the most loving parent that you can be to you, instead of delegating the parenting of self to others.

And putting the— like you said, putting the crystal ball away. There's almost nothing the crystal ball won't ruin.

Because listen, because the first lie is that it's a crystal ball. It's just a bottle.

It is not.

It's just a bottle.

Boy, you talk about something that needs to be shipped back to the manufacturer. Holy fuck.

Buy your receipt. This never was what you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was never a crystal ball in the first place.

So talk more about what the work looks like for the cheater. And, you know, you talked about getting quiet, listening to yourself. What are some other— just share what it's like for somebody who is listening, who is either one of them or neither.

Well, if you're the person who cheated, one of your actual, like, tasks— like, is there something I need to do? Yes, there is something you need to do. And anyone who's participated in any kind of 12-step program is very familiar with what I'm about to say. You need to make both living And direct amends. Um, there's no such thing as— as far as I've had work to do with anyone where there was infidelity that did not also involve financial infidelity and infidelity of time. There was an opportunity cost of the— of you being away and out of your family's equation or out of your relationship's equation. You can— you cannot give time back. So there's living amends to be made. Where you say something to your partner and you're genuine about it, and you realize there is a risk of loss of this relationship. Well, if you're following a 12-step model, part of what happens when you're making amends is accept when to do so would do harm. Well, you gotta stomach that. And sometimes removing yourself is possibly the best way to discontinue doing harm. Because your demand for forgiveness, your demand for reconciliation, your demand for mercy may be too much. You may have to say, you know, I don't know if you'll ever forgive me, or if you'll ever have mercy, or if you'll ever be able to reconcile. And I will remove myself from your equation so that you have the space to make a gentle choice with yourself. And if and when you ever come back to me, I don't know where I will be. So there's the avoidance of overpromising.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know where I will be, but I will be willing to listen. I can choose to be willing to listen if you ever come back around. But overpromising, I'll wait for you. I'll never go. So now you've added to the list of things to make amends to versus taking things off your list. And that I'd recommend still working with someone who's maybe been down a similar path, a gentle path through the 12 steps. Patrick Carnes' work, I love that for that.

Yeah, he is the fucking king. He is the king. And he himself suffered with sex addiction.

But he had— the book gives you like, oh, do this. So sometimes it does help to have a, what am I supposed— what does that mean when you say amends? Or what does that look like if I can't make direct amends? And do I need to do all the steps? So everyone who may be in that role, looking at that gut, you know, feeling like you're saying, checking in with your gut, Hmm, do I have to— do I have some work to do with that relationship? And listening to yourself. And sometimes, even though they've said, oh, we're fine, you can check in your gut. You're like, we're really not fine. We're really not fine. And sometimes, I mean, this is me being honest with you listening, not— it's because you still haven't made full disclosure or discovery, and there's something your partner still doesn't know that you did. You know you did, and you're like, oh, we've made it so far. But they don't even know.

Mm-hmm.

And I just don't want to open that back up. Well, part of your living amends is being forthcoming instead of waiting for discovery and knowing that your risk is still that it may do harm for you to insist on forgiveness or mercy when that person needs space and time. And you cannot overpromise that you will somehow magically delicious be the unicorn in everybody's valley to be there when they show back up. I mean, that solution lives right next door to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Just saying.

And Santa Claus is a notorious cheater, and Mrs. Claus.

Yes. He can't keep it together.

You wouldn't think that he would fuck an elf.

I'm saying. But you would be surprised.

You would be surprised.

This is where all the elves came from.

You're in there, you're 14 hours a day, they're wrapping the presents.

They look interesting, yeah.

I just had a question that was on there. Oh, so what would some examples be where— are there examples where you do not disclose something? Yes.

So here's my direct clinical experience is not to do it until you're ready.

So do it eventually?

Possibly. Pausing for that to sit on people, possibly. So I've worked with people who know, know that their partner has cheated and haven't decided what they want to do about it, if anything. So this goes both ways. And I've worked with people who are cheating or have cheated and are in therapy to figure out what do I want to do about that. Um, my work has been to help people get to their deepest most honest, authentic truth. But your listening audience should understand that sometimes you have coexisting, competing, conflicting living truths, multiple things that would— you think you'd have to pick one over the other. But no, they are all living right there.

For instance?

Together. I love my spouse. I'm not sexually interested in my spouse. I I enjoy their company emotionally and I feel safe with them. My lover, I enjoy sex with them. I do not enjoy their company necessarily, and I do not trust them enough to want to spend the rest of my life with them at all. The two possibly don't even know about each other. So a person comes in and they are trying to figure out, Why am I doing this? You know, why, why am I even engaging in this behavior? Why am I playing with fire? You know, what am I going to do about it? Do I have to give up one or the other? Can I just tell them about each other and see if they're okay with it? Um, can I just tell this one, I'm just not coming, I don't want to be with you anymore, but then I don't have any sexual interest in my spouse, so what am I supposed to do about sex? So those are very complex questions. And like on social media, you think it's very black and white, either or. In real life, On a real couch, behind closed doors. This is everybody. I see the devout. Over 20 years working with Perkins School of Theology, I see a lot of the devout. I see every level in our society, people who have— need foundation support to have an appointment with me, and people who could well afford everybody's appointments. And we see them on TV. Everybody in between. That kind of human challenge is persistent, quite persistent. So I don't know what the answer will finally be or how many sessions it will be, but it takes as long as it takes. And that is the beauty of therapy, is someplace safe where you can unpack and say that without being judged for it. Or sometimes, you know, I'm pretty forthcoming. I'll say, well, we can imagine what might happen. We can imagine what might happen if your spouse finds out this is going on. Let's play out a couple of scenarios. We— it's not far-fetched that they're going to be pissed. I mean, that's not far-fetched. It's also possible that they could be cool about it, but not really. They could be fine for a couple of days and then finally blow up. Who knows? We could— none of those are really our concern. Our concern is genuinely your truest truth. Where are you living in your truest truth? And that's difficult to get to, but sometimes people realize, I, you know, I don't even actually want to be with either of them. Turns out. Or, before all this, I don't think I ever wanted to be married. You know, just finally getting down to their truest truth. They find out whatever their truest truth is. Now your next courageous move is to live your truest truth, when you might also have to embrace judgment, that your family may judge you, your friends may judge you, you may lose some people. People have lost jobs. I mean, there's—

Mm-hmm.

So facing those potential losses, And not sugarcoating it. And I don't even believe in positive thinking, just focusing on the truth and accepting death as is, life as is, yourself as is. So that is some of the work that is involved. If you are the person that was cheating and you're not sure what to do, or if you're the person who's been cheated on and you're not sure what to do, your first step is to go to some place where you can have the solace And space to unpack everything and look deeply inside yourself with that self-compassion and figure out what, out of all these competing truths, the self— my wisest self's most honest answer is what. I like to use your 80-year-old self sometimes, checking in with your 80 years. What does my 80-year-old self say? What's the comment from my 80-year-old self? I see a lot of people who have faith and I say, well, can you sense God's comments on this? And sometimes they can hear and he will say, well, this is what you need to— what you need to do. Sometimes we have to do trauma work to even clean up these internal relationships so that you can hear yourself. I can't know on day one, but I know that if we show up with each other, we can get someplace.

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One of the things that I have found to be— excuse me— such a huge impediment to recovery is wanting to control the process by trying— again, we're talking about the crystal ball— predict how things are going to unfold. Because in my experience, we have no idea—

Mm-hmm.

What we are going to look like and what we are going to want. How we're going to view the world and ourselves on the other side of unpacking those things and becoming our own friend. And what I have seen in my support groups a lot is that we realize it is not a good fit, this person who I've hurt or who has hurt me.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and You know, when I'm, when I'm helping somebody who is new in our support group, almost to a person, you see this desire for them to want to control what it is going to look like. They want all the answers now before they invest their time in it. And we don't get to see the blueprint.

No, we don't. And sometimes people are mad about that. You know, I've been yelled at. I've been, yeah, I've been yelled at, cursed out. People have quit therapy, come back later and said, okay, I just need to clock back in. And I'm like, I was fine the whole time. Because as a younger therapist, I came in, some of the work with the adult male sex offenders helped. Other work that helped was at the same time that I was working with adult male sex offenders, I was working with kids who have been sexually victimized. And I was doing my internship in psych At the psych ER level, covering the psych ER overnight sometimes, going to our state hospital to do in-person assessments, going into boarding homes to do community mental health. So I came into the field with enough ability to sit with people when they don't want to sit with me, when they don't want to talk about it, just knowing how to stay contained and with myself to be able to do this work. So as a young therapist, that was helpful. What I didn't bargain for was you think with all that complexity, that infidelity would just be par for the course. It is not at all, at all, at all, at all. It's a changing jigsaw puzzle that looks like a rhino some days. And then other days, we're in a new universe where the apples talk.

Yeah.

You know, just, it's always fluid, and being willing to stay fluid with it, stay On the cusp of what do we know now? I'm constantly reading journal articles. I live in ResearchGate. I gifted my practice last year with me getting trained in EMDR and with then getting certified and saying, okay, now you need to just kind of publish. And just kind of forcing myself to stay in the loop of the academics of it. It is a very complex area of our human existence. And name another mammal that does this. Right.

So, you mentioned that you were, at the same time, dealing with the sex offenders and the victims. Was there anything fortuitous, as a therapist, about experiencing both of those at the same time that helped you help one or the other?

Very, very much. Namely, my college roommate whose home was near where I did group told me one day, you cannot keep coming over here like this. And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, you're checked out. When you come out of that group, you're checked out for an hour and then you suddenly come back. I hadn't even noticed. Now in hindsight, I realized that post-group, I had used myself up. And I was in what we would consider—

Both groups?

Not both groups, right.

Okay.

Not both groups. So just the adult milk group. I would be in what we would consider a dorsal vagal state, fully shut down. I would sit on her couch. We would watch Friends, a couple of episodes, and then I would just come back, right? Now, looking back, I realized that that was a way of me self-soothing, coming back up to the surface, getting to sympathetic state, coming back up to the surface a little bit more. And now I'm ready to engage. I'm ready to have dinner. I'm ready to hang out and talk. She's watching this though, right? And as I come over, I'm not talking, I'm sitting, I'm not engaging. And she's watching it like clock where she was like, I can set my watch. It's an hour. It's an hour after you come in, you don't talk to anybody, you sit down in the corner and you cannot keep up. So I hadn't noticed it though, because with the work with the kids who are not the kids of these guys, but I had contracts with Dallas Independent School District. I was at several youth and family centers. seeing kids, and I just happened to be good at, good at that. So I was, as I was good at it, you get more and more. So at some point, that was my entire caseload, was for the kids, was kids who survived sexual trauma. It was beautiful. I was on such a natural high after working with the kids. My creative side would just, ah, flourish. I happened to have a center director who let me get anything I wanted. I had all the tools I could possibly think of. I did every— we had so much fun. I used art, I used music, we went outside, we did— we were on the floor, you know, we did all kinds of stuff. And the kids would just get better, better, better, better, better. Then you take yourself over to these guys and it's like molasses in the wintertime. I mean, guys would be in therapy because when I got there, some of them had already been in group for like 15 years and still not willing to acknowledge Things that you've already served time for. You've been convicted. You've admitted guilt to the— but then you won't say it out loud. Still? Still in group? No movement? I—

So was there anger in you that you were—

It was incredulous to me that you could be this close to going back to prison and unwilling to admit something that we already both know.

Hmm. And why do you think that is?

I would still like to know why that is. But my supposing is shame. My supposing is, at our core, humans want to be loved and accepted. And if there's something that I think I'm going to say, or reveal to you, that will make you not love and accept me, I'm going to use avoidance behavior instead of approach behavior. That's my supposing.

Mm-hmm.

So in group, we're talking about mandated therapy. So they're not able to miss without going back, right? They're there every week. They come in every week. It is so rote. And out of years of doing that, I think I did group for maybe 4 years or so, I would say one guy, One, would I say I saw observable, notable progress to where this person was able to verbalize, I am wrong, have victim empathy, and engage in behaviors that were clearly empathetic towards the victim. An example is— Letting the family know, I won't be at any of these events. Do not expect me. Do not call me because I did A, B, and C to this person. And they need the freedom to come or not, but they need to know from everybody that I won't be there and that I have no expectation of being invited or considered. And saying that proactively instead of waiting until Thanksgiving. We don't know if this person's coming or not, because if they're coming, now we got to get supervised visitation, court-ordered supervised visitations where you got line of sight supervision of this child because this person's going to be there. It's awkward for everybody. Just, it's a to-do, right?

Mm-hmm.

I saw exactly one guy take that proactive initiative to say, I need to somehow do this. I don't know how to do this. Because what maybe people don't know is that there's usually a no contact rule, meaning you can't— the person can't call, they can't write, they can't have that person's pictures in their home, no contact. So one person, I think I need to figure out how to make sure my family knows that I'm not coming to anything ever again. Like, don't just pretend like I don't exist because this person needs the space to be in that system with me being labeled as a person who is not welcome.

So what is the goal when you were treating the offenders What is the reasonable goal? Um, it obviously for them to not offend, but I would imagine, you know, our, our fantasy life is our fantasy life, and is it unrealistic to expect them to no longer be aroused by—

Yeah, so your lifetime commitment is to always be in therapy with somebody who's a registered sex offender treatment provider. And to do your due diligence to pay that expense as part of your retribution, and to not see it as punishment, to see it as part of your amends. Part of your empathy for your victims is to have the living amends of every day knowing I have arousal to this. I cannot do Halloween.

Hmm.

I don't go to the water park. I don't do these things because I will be aroused. I will look for opportunity or create opportunity. And I don't have to to, you know, announce this to the world, but I need to always follow these rules, not because I'm afraid of being, you know, put back in prison, but because these rules now are important for me to keep myself in a level of integrity with the community. Now that's a big ask, and that's why you need to have yourself in group therapy and individual work. Just clock in. That's part of your expense for your year. that is just going to be part of your expense for your year because of the biological arousal. So you cannot remove that from yourself, but you can remove yourself from opportunity and stay sober-minded that that just is true. It will not be untrue. It just is true. The challenge there is, as I just mentioned, for me realizing that this is a forensic population, there is no mental health issue that caused you to be someone who hurt kids. You knew what you were doing when you did it. You did not want to get caught. You would like to continue. And if the corrections field does not protect you from us, you will continue.

Mm-hmm.

Versus with working with— and I work with a lot of adult survivors— the survivor is not a victim, but they were victimized. And their work is resuming self, my genuine self, without having to annihilate the part of me that this happened to. This can't ever have been part of my story. And not saying that, oh, this had to happen so I could be a strong person. BS. I hate that this ever happened to me. Let me move forward with accepting that it happened to me, but I'll never approve of it having happened to me. So it's a different story.

So you talked about the boundaries that the offenders need to have in place.

Yes.

You know, the reality of, I can't go to this place, I can't go to that place. What are some tools that I don't know. So, is sexuality looked at as something that just needs to be removed from that person?

Mm-hmm.

Or are there ways for them to soothe that are conducive to their future viability as a law-abiding citizen? How— what does that person's life look like When they are in a state where they need to soothe, is sexuality not a part of that at all?

Well, so remember we talked about deviant sexual arousal, and that there are some aversive methods, ammonia therapy as an example. So let's say that this person says, I want to live, quote unquote, a normal life, but I'm sexually aroused in this other way. So some of the things to Do, I'll say it as a not do, do not masturbate to thoughts of your victim. Do not—

To what?

To thoughts of your victim.

Gotcha.

Do not masturbate to that population. Do not create ways to masturbate to their population. Avoid. So you do need to, that person needs to engage in avoidance behavior and ongoing therapy. So for example, if they're in group therapy or individual therapy and can get to be able to verbalize Registered sex offender treatment providers are constantly required to stay as educated as any other provider on, but what do we know now? What will work now? For some, that's just a vow of abstinence, just living in an abstinent sterile situation so you don't harm people. It is not a place where— so with substance abuse, we see— measured tolerance or measured use as a way of harm reduction versus full avoidance. Not over here though. Over here, you will harm a human being. So we do need full abstinence and avoidance. And that's a long, hard road for most people. And so that's why you need professional help the whole time. Forensics was the growth point for me, understanding the difference between A choice that hurts somebody's feelings, caused them to experience betrayal trauma, or caused them to feel victimized. Even if they're not a victim, they felt victimized. Versus over here, we have actual crime. And I sometimes wish that when we say, I'm like, in a family, we may say incest. I wish you would say this person committed a sex crime against a child. Because saying it was a crime is a little bit more clear to me.

Mm-hmm.

And as a therapist coming from working with those 2 groups, that is something I took away was being more clear the difference between a healthcare system and a correctional system. This person committed a crime and needs to face these penalties of corrections for that crime versus someone who cheated on their spouse, betrayed a vow and needs to correct behavior, possibly, if they're going to reconcile, or live in this behavior and find a place where this behavior is welcome. That's a totally different kind of thing. And it's not forensics. It's not criminal. It is a different type of thing. And those 2 populations are not the same. So some— for me, walking out of that experience was a clear straight separation of forensics from mental health.

So is it unrealistic? Because it seems like it would be unrealistic to me to be asking somebody to not have an orgasm the rest of their life.

I don't have a problem asking somebody to not have orgasm for the rest of their life if what you are getting off on is 3-year-old kids, right? I'm fine with it.

Right. And I don't mean morally. I just mean in terms of The physicality of it? The physicality of it.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with us finding a way for you not to have an orgasm for the rest of your life, to 3-year-old Keith.

So what does it— no, I just mean, just an orgasm—

Oh, confessing when you do. Confessing when you do. So coming to group and saying what happened.

No, I mean, is a part of that person's continuing care to say, it— Can they be satisfied by having an orgasm, but not thinking about something illegal or harmful? Does that ever happen?

Do they have a healthy appetite for non-deviant sexual interests?

Yes.

Okay. I don't know. But can that be known? Usually, yes. Can it be known by just the average practitioner? Likely not. Can you know that by doing a self-assessment or something like that? Likely not. For that, you do need more sophisticated instruments, likely a plethysmograph or something along those lines, because what you're measuring, as you just mentioned, is a biological interest and arousal that is not always at your prefrontal cortex conscious brain level. But to be fair, most of our brain activity is beneath conscious awareness on the one hand. But as you asked me about like, what did I learn as a therapist, was that in this forensic population, at no point ever were they actually unaware that they were doing something wrong.

Right.

Right. Versus, um, this is true for many people who have cheated, underappreciating that you did not need to give that person your phone number. And being overconfident that you can just go to dinner with them, and then being even more overconfident that we can just hang out, and even downplaying entirely that I really don't talk to my spouse that much. You know, I like talking to this person, we just have more in common. So you're not consciously aware how you're stacking these seemingly unimportant decisions toward this final act of infidelity. But if we were to roll back the tape on how did we get here, we would see all these seemingly unimportant decisions leading to this moment.

One of the lies that I would tell myself when I was cheating was, well, I won't go all the way. I won't have penetrative sex. I save that because it's special.

Because yeah, so that's, that's where I'm saying the difference is forensics versus Everything else. Forensics versus everything else. You borrow a friend's car and they said, hey, bring it back like you found it. And you don't fill the car all the way back up or you don't plug it in to get it. And you, oh my God, I'm going to run late if I do. And then you give the car back and you keep telling yourself you're going to have time to do this. And now you're Nemo. You think you can do these things, but you just can't. So then you go to drop it off with your friend, And your friend says, hey, I needed you to fill it. I don't have time to fill it. And you're like, I know, but I— well, the whole time you were out running your errands, you kept saying these things to yourself that I have time. Oh, I'll do it in a minute. And to some degree we can say, well, was that procrastination or was this theft of this person's car? Well, it was not theft of their car, but if we just close that curtain and go over to forensics, you— took somebody's car that did not give you permission, and you knew that you did not have permission. Forget that the keys were in the car. You knew that if you'd asked, the answer would be no. Okay, so now over here in forensics, we have your— you knew you were committing a crime. You committed a crime. Over here with betrayal, we have an issue with consent.

Mm-hmm.

Because if I ask my spouse, are they okay with this chitchat that if they were in this group text with me, They would be offended immediately.

So important.

Consent was missing the whole time.

So important to live your life as if your spouse were standing next to you, which seems unrealistic, but it's not. It's really not.

It's not.

Because once you have withdrawn from the things that are getting you high, you will find that they don't have the power or over you that they used to. And that was not something that, that I understood. I thought, this is my natural state, to be in this state of mind where I need excitement even though it goes against my moral compass. I had no idea that I could live my moral compass, that it was possible. And, and that was a revelation to me.

Mm-hmm.

Because I had always intended to do the right thing. But I would lie to myself saying, I'm going to be back in the hotel room by 9 o'clock. I'm not going to have— you know, I'm only going to have one beer, and I'm going to be faithful.

Oh, yeah. This is just about business. We're just trying to make a connection. I'm trying to do— and you're telling yourself, but the minute that you allow your spouse, the self of your spouse, to be present with you, It sobers you up a little bit because you're now getting to some more genuine content inside of yourself. At that moment, taking a breath and pause. That pause is powerful. And it's one of the most powerful things we have as humans is the power to pause, reflect, think. That breath to settle the soul, settle the self, settle the heart.

So hard to get there.

Kind of keep connecting, keep sitting there. It is a practice. We now know that the brain continues to learn throughout the lifespan, right? So the pathways in your brain where you have a well-worn path are easier to access. And the more practicing you do of that connecting with self, it's easier to practice. You get it faster even. As you do not practice, it's like when you were in school and you thought you were going to be ready for that test. You didn't practice. You didn't read. Nothing.

Mm-hmm.

And the morning of the test, you feel panic because you can't remember anything. And you're like, I know it's in there somewhere. And technically, yes, it's in there somewhere. But that little pathway is so overgrown.

That's true.

It's extinct. So the same thing with daily interactions. You're at a stoplight and you realize that you're experiencing rage and you soothe yourself, calm yourself. Allow yourself co-regulation of compassion and even a passing thought of, I don't know what's going on in that other car and I might be a few minutes late, but I can let them go around me, and slowing yourself down because that's something you can choose and you can do. But this is a daily, minute by minute, hour by hour choice. And you asked me at the very beginning my own thing. Once upon a time, Did not pause before I would go to sleep to read. And I love to read. I picked that back up in the last year as a way of saying, okay, if I slow myself down before I go to sleep, I might, I might be a little bit different person. You know, every night you go to bed and you become your future self. And I thought, well, I think I'm gonna kind of hedge the bet in my favor a little bit here. And I started reading this book that has these little small chapters in it to help me kind of curve myself toward the future self that I'd like to gift myself to be. For years, I've listened to a little playlist that I made to kind of help self-soothe my brain as I'm sleeping and kind of pull the brain into a deeper sleep cycle because that's healthy to do. But I also recognize that some of it is not just the health of my brain, but the emotional health of the thoughts I'm thinking.

Hmm.

And so there's so many different ways that we have to kind of nurture and care for self, the brain, the heart, the gut connecting. And a lot of it is just moment by moment, finding a flow with your day, acceptance of self, acceptance of the inevitability of your no longer being here, and living this day with peace of all truths. That's a daily challenge.

One of the biggest challenges that I have found, and people That I know in recovery, whether it's from food addiction, drug and alcohol addiction, sex addiction, is this core belief or fear that if we don't engage in this, it is going to be a life of boredom and flatness. And it is a terrifying, almost existentially threatening— Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Fear, especially because in the beginning stages of withdrawing from those experiences, we do feel that way.

Yes. Yes.

Talk about that.

What if you make friends with it? What if you make friends? What if you say to—

What's that look like?

Your boredom, hi, friend. What's going on? What's going on with you? And you listen to your boredom. You say, okay. I'll come back. What if you listen to yourself? What if you listen to your addiction? Hi, how are you? What's going on? What if you start the conversation and keep the conversation flowing all day long? All day. You know, what if you make friends with your victim state? Hi, victim state. What's going on? How are you doing? Talk to me. You know, keeping that line of communication open. So my husband's right over here. I'm going to tell something that we didn't discuss, but I must because I'm going to trust that it's okay. Right before this, we had a little bit of a spat over nothing. It's always over nothing. Um, and then a few minutes later, we were laughing and playing, you know, playing, playing with each other, whatever. And I remember thinking, oh, I'm so glad we're here. I'm so glad we're here where that little argument cannot continue to live and be between us. To be fair, I know that he does his own work. And I do my own work. And the truth is, as we're interacting with people, you don't know if the other person's doing their work or not. But if you're doing your own work, your internal family, you know, the addiction, the boredom, the need for pleasure, your dopamine, your serotonin, making friends with those differently. Make friends with your emotions. Listen to them. They have important messages. For you, about you. I was feeling sad a few weeks ago and I listened to it and it was like, take some things off your plate. And I was like, take what off my plate? And I then listened to that part of me that needed to say what I said. What am I taking off my plate? Doing things for others. You are in service to yourself. And I was like, ah, okay, take off my plate doing things for others. I am in service to myself right now. And I put the right now there because I don't know if that truth will still be true 2 minutes from now or 3 hours from now or next week. So then I continually visit that part of myself and listen to that conversation. What is it saying to me now? If I can keep listening, I can live my truth versus the truth imposed upon me by my Western culture and the truth imposed to me by my identity as a mother, my identity as a wife, or as a therapist, or as a friend. I can live And the truest part of me, if I listen to the truest part of me and then think about that true thought. So for me, it then meant, well, let me think that through. What decisions do I need to make now so that I can be in service to myself right now? And I made some decisions that felt attuned and accurate and aligned in that moment.

Hmm.

And that's a constant, constant conversation. You know, am I really hungry right now, or am I really tired? Let me listen to hunger. Let me listen to tired. Tired says, you're not hungry, you're not tired, you're actually full of energy. You just don't want to do that. You want your energy put over there. Oh, okay, what's going on with that? And that's that listening. The focusing is what we bring to not just a therapy relationship that we can do better in, but to yourself, your relationship with yourself. And it's all day. It's all day. It's in the shower. It's for breakfast. It's for lunch. It's for dinner. People interact with you and you're co-regulating from a felt sense of self that's more accurate. So they say to you, oh, the other day you said you were going to— and you're not defensive. You're like, huh, let me think about that. You can pause more gently with yourself.

Mm-hmm.

It's a gentler way. But I find that it's not We did have a— it doesn't mean you're not going to have an argument or something. It just means that I find the comeback, the recovery, is a little bit more staccato.

I have found my higher self in that stillness and my moral compass. The ability to live my moral compass is inaccessible outside of that stillness. stillness. It's, it's just not doable because you— I find in the stillness you can step back from the mean voice in your head, which is the gasoline that compulsion and abandoning our moral compass thrives on. That's— that is what I have found. And I know I'm not telling you anything that you don't know.

Right.

I'm talking To the, to the listener, right? Yeah, it was, it was life— it is life-changing for me. But it's still difficult to not want to put a documentary on that's dark because it's going to excite my central nervous system. Because, you know, it's, it's just, it's stimulation.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? And sometimes, honestly, it's soothing because it's like, oh, I'm not living in that I'm lucky. And that may be true, that I'm lucky that I'm not in that horrible situation that I'm watching the documentary about, but I'm using it like grading my life on a curve. Like, oh, I'm lucky I have food, I have a roof over my head, I'm not being persecuted, you know, etc.

Or nurturing that exile part. For me, there's a a part of me that I, in my mind, have that part of me in this space where it is being nurtured, where it gets what it needs, but it is apart from me while it gets what it needs.

Mm-hmm.

With me sending hope there that it will grow and it'll become what it needs to become, but it's also separated from me while it is growing and become what it needs to become. Um, and I think all of us have something, something in you that if left untended would be harmful both to you and to others. I can be provoked. And learning to be less easily provoked, or to be predictively for myself knowing certain situations where I'm going to be provoked, and choosing ahead of time to kind of get emotionally prepared for being provoked. This is, I think, yesterday I said, well, I'm ready. No, it wasn't. It was on the flight here. We're in the middle of this thing with the lines, right? But because I was watching the TV, I said, let me just get emotionally prepared for these lines because I know me and this is going to provoke me. And that part of me that would be provoked, if we let her out, she doesn't know when to stop.

Yeah.

She's just going to keep going. So I thought about it. I said, well, she'll want a snack, but she won't want that kind of snack. She'll want this kind of snack. So I'm thinking about That part of me that if I show up and I see a line that's 4 hours long, that's going to threaten my flight, then I'm going to get hit so far in my gut and I'm going to be so pissed that nothing is going to soothe me. And then 5 days later, I'm going to look back and go, well, see, I acted completely— I was an ass in the airport. I can prepare. And so for me, preparing meant making sure that there were some food options upon my return. Oddly, I kind of sat with myself and said, what am I really feeling? I said, really what I'm bothered by is that when we come back from this trip, I, I'm gonna want something home cooked, but I won't feel like cooking. So I need to put some things in the refrigerator that I can still have a home cooked meal when we get back. So I did that. And then I thought, what else is bothering me? And I said, I don't want to be in the airport without my pillow and my blanket. because just in case, I want to be able to cuddle up. And so I picked my pillow and my blanket out. And so then when we got there, we were stuck in the airport, but I was emotionally present and fine because of checking in with that part of myself that will 100%— and she has come unglued and hurt people before, right? So she needs to sit over there and be nurtured and cared for. So in my mind, I kind of create this place of almost paradise for her. that she can have and she can be tended to. But checking in with that part and seeing that she has found a secret exit. And upon being provoked, that sister will come out and all of y'all going to hear about it. So that's what— so our youngest is in school still. The oldest is in law school. So a long time ago, he said, you can't go unsupervised to the kids' schools because you don't know how to keep it together. And he was right. He was right because I will escalate. So learning that, okay, well, what I need to do. So with our youngest, I'm like, you say nothing. If they ask you something that happens to you at school, you tell them, call your mom. Because I realized in unfolding it is that I don't want to come into the situation and don't know what's going on. So my kid has to say nothing until I get there. And we jokingly call ourselves her attorneys now because she says nothing.

She's like, Dr.

Thompson, she says she wants you to come up here. She won't talk. And I immediately know, okay, that something's happened. I need to get up there. So I'll come up. She knows I'll listen to you, whatever's going on. I'm on your side until we get you out of the school building. And then we don't know. But when I show up, but that helps me to stay present and with her and think versus if I show— if all I know is that something's happened to you, I don't know What happened? Somebody's threatening you? I go into such a protective, insane level of that, that if he's not there, I don't know, for real. I guess I'm confessing on your show. I might have caught a couple of cases if this dude hadn't been with me. I think the guy, the math guy, Nick, it was the math teacher. He wasn't going to let my child in the class over math. This was over math. I was about to have the— yes. Yes.

Well, I appreciate your honesty and, you know, you coming and making the trip here to share your experience. Where can people find your workbook?

They can find the workbook anywhere. It's on, um, I think a lot of people get it from Amazon. So Infidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples, available anywhere by Dr. Monique Thompson. Um, can I put something in there? If you're a couple doing that Figure out how to work on that workbook by looking at some of the reviews, because some of the other couples have been so kind as to tell how they used it. And I love those stories. Meanwhile, to find me, like actually find me, Instagram is @drmonekethompson. So Dr. Monique Thompson. And my website is spelled out, Dr. Monique Thompson with the H that we talked about before we started recording.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Many, many thanks to, to her and to her hubby. It was nice chatting with them. As I mentioned earlier, there are no surveys this week. Don't know when they're coming back. I need to get out of this flat, this flat.

Yeah, it's hard.

It's funny when I feel flat. I don't know if you guys feel this, but when you're flat, it's It's kind of hard putting sentences together. Collecting thoughts can be kind of difficult. I find when I'm really flat, I don't even like listening to music. I just want silence. And yet stillness can be so hard when I'm flat, unless I'm laying down in bed. But— Yeah, I was talking with somebody about this the other day. It was actually an episode that we have yet to air, but I was talking with somebody and we were talking about the difference between melancholy and flatness. And melancholy, at least you can see reflected in the world around you. You know, you turn on a sad song, you feel Maybe a little bit seen, a little bit connected. But flatness by its very nature is disconnective. It's just— I know there are worse things to feel, but I find it to be the most frustrating of them all to understand. It's, you know, how do you describe a void? How do you compare 2 different voids. It's, it's hard. It's really hard. Um, I was thinking today, you know, when, when I'm feeling flat and unproductive, my brain likes to think about should be doing this, should be doing that. Um, And it occurred to me today that so much of the shoulda, coulda, woulda thoughts in my brain are around like 5 or 6 verbs, actions, whatever you want to call them: achieving, producing, controlling, winning. Like, my brain thinks about those things whether I'm out playing hockey, I got to I gotta do good. I gotta, you know, gotta win, gotta make a good play. And so rarely do I ever think about the verbs and actions that are just as important but are so off the radar. Things like feel. You know, I've never thought to myself, today I need to feel. Today I need to sit in my own skin and feel what I'm feeling rather than try to distract myself. And it's hard, but I feel like that's where— that's where the juice is. For growth is in the lesser-known verbs, the redheaded stepchildren of the verbs. Is that a politically incorrect thing to say? Can we say redheaded stepchildren these days? Am I going to be canceled? Anyway, boy, if you're out there and you're feeling flat, I feel you, my friend. I feel you. Whatever you're going through, if you're If you're struggling, um, just never forget that you are so far from— so far from being alone. And I know that I am not alone. That is the one thing I do know, um, all the years of support groups and doing this podcast. And even if I didn't know that in the last 4 weeks since I've started talking about this On air, the most recent struggle, the number of people who have said, I'm feeling the exact same thing, and I was— I thought I was the only one. Yeah. If you're out there, and you must be because you're listening, I may not know you, but I love you. I do. Anybody that listens to this podcast, and certainly anybody who is still listening 102 minutes in, um, I definitely feel some, some love for you and, and, and gratitude because, um, it's nice to feel seen. It's nice to feel, um, heard when that flatness is there. Just, just having it witnessed, even if it's hard to describe, just having that witnessed and validated is, is a nice thing. So if you're out there, just never forget that you're not alone. And thanks for listening. Everybody I know is bizarrely beautiful. Everybody I know is bizarrely beautifully fucked up and In some weird ways.

Bizarrely beautifully fucked up in some weird ways.