Dating Experts: “She’s Definitely Not in Love with You!” EXPOSING the Habits That END Relationships

I'm excited to see where we go with this one. This topic is all about why relationships fail and also how to break up if you need to. You guys ready? Yep.

Yeah.

All right. We've got Saadia Khan here who is.

A psychologist and relationship coach, one of the best psychologists in the game.

And also New York Times bestselling author Matthew Hussey in the house.

Dating and relationships expert and coach Matthew Hussey. For a woman to cheat on you, it's not that she's fallen in love with another man. She's just definitely not in love with you.

Ooh, I don't know where to start here. I struggle immensely with the kind of way that this is being framed. It's a very male picture in some ways you're painting women.

My main question is, why when a man cheats on a woman, we are so quick to blame the person and say he was out-sourcing his knees and yourself included going like, the cheater is wrong or he might be not a good guy.

No, no, no, no, no, hang on, hang on, don't put words in my mouth. Men and women are wrong if they cheat. What I don't do is draw a strange difference between men and women in this department, which is what you seem to do.

I'm telling you from a female perspective.

I don't think many women would agree with you. Okay.

It's been so amazing. Last year was just a transformative, life-changing event.

Team greatness is great.

My name is Lewis Howes. Thanks so much for being here. And before we dive into this special video today, I want to remind you about the Summit of Greatness, our annual conference happening this September in Los Angeles with David Goggins, Dr. Joe Dispenza and many more incredible speakers and performers. There will be so many live attendees there that you can meet with, you can network with, and you can help transform your life. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your tickets. And I can't wait to see you at the Summit of Greatness here in Los Angeles. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our episode. I'm your host, Lewis Howes, and I'm here with two of the top online personalities when it comes to relationships and understanding relationship dynamics. We've got Sadia Khan here who has just been blowing up on the internet for the last couple of years with your content and also New York Times bestselling author Matthew Hussey in the house. who both have been on multiple times individually, but we're having you guys come on together. We did a previous episode that I think a lot of people enjoyed and they're gonna love this, but I'm excited to see where we go with this one. This topic is all about why relationships fail and also how to break up if you need to. And so I'm gonna start with ladies first here. What you think, Sadia, is the number one cause of relationships ending in your mind. And again, for context, you have worked mostly with men, where Matthew has worked mostly with women when it comes to relationship dynamics and coaching. But what is the number one cause of relationships ending in your mind?

I think it's probably a combination of ingratitude and poor conflict resolution. Given that, like, let's say we select wisely and we've done all that work, once we're in the relationship, unfortunately, we're faced with something that we never had in previous generations, which is social media. And we're faced with endless alternatives. whether it's through the use of pornography, whether it's escort services, whether it's just liking pictures online. So we've got so many alternatives to the current situation that we are in. So it breeds ingratitude in both men and women. From a female perspective, they're constantly looking at couple content online where people seem super happy and excited and they get to see the edited, airbrushed versions of relationships, which naturally ignites their jealousy in.

The sense that my husband no longer does that with me.

And these are the perfect guys doing this with these other women. And look at how he looks at her, not knowing that it's totally literally staged and edited and stuff. So they kind of compare that desirability with the ones that they see online. Men, on the other hand, can kind of compare women more sexually with pornography and the beautiful, endless beautiful women that you see online, which then creates an ingratitude. And as a result, people are not nurturing their own relationships but spending a lot of time comparing with alternatives. And that immediately makes it so that you are seeing your partner as holding you back rather than contributing to your life goals. I think ingratitude is one of the main components followed by poor conflict resolution.

Why do people struggle so much with conflict resolution? Because they have a fear of either.

Being wrong and then not resolving it because they wanna be right rather than actually resolve the conflict, or they have a fear of being alone, one or the other. So they either have a fear of being wrong and then they'll always wanna be right and they'll always make, they don't even wanna resolve the conflict, they just wanna prove to their partner that they know more than them and they're smarter than them. or they don't want to raise the conflict on the opposite end. They don't even want to raise the conflict because they have a fear of being alone and having to start again. And as a result, they'll suppress their true needs and desires and just maintain the relationship, even though it's actually needs oiling or it needs some kind of refurbishment. So either way, they either don't resolve or they don't confront or they confront too much, but without an end goal in mind. They just fight for the sake of fighting, rather than actually resolving a conflict.

Okay, two things right here. I heard lack of kind of gratitude and appreciation for what you have because you see all these other potential options that are the Instagram ification of, like, a perfect moment for people's lives that you're not experiencing and a lack of cultivating that gratitude. And then a poor conflict resolution in the relationship is your number one cause of relationships ending. Okay. Matthew Hussey, what do you think is the number one cause of relationships ending in your mind that you see? through all your coaching and content.

Well, I think, Saadia, that the comparison point is a really important one and a really important kind of context for relationships in general today, that there are so many kind of enemies of presence in our relationship and really seeing what's profoundly beautiful about our relationship and making all of those very superficial comparisons. And that, by the way, that's not just true of like you could be comparing yourself to a relationship on Instagram that is actually really unhealthy behind the scenes.

Yeah.

You could also just be comparing yourself to like me and Audrey's relationship looks awesome on Instagram. It's not really unhealthy behind the scenes, but we still fight sometimes.

Right, right.

Like we still, it's not perfect all the time. And people don't see that side of it, not because we're hiding anything, but because it's just not, we wouldn't air that on Instagram, you know, so. It's even when you're comparing yourself to healthy couples, you're still making false comparisons there. And I think another thing that's interesting about that is just the presence of novelty in general. That we are addicted to our phones and to social media and to this constant dopamine agenic cycle. that it's also the enemy of the kind of calm that is needed to fully appreciate the relationship that we have, or to sit and appreciate the subtlety of what's amazing about our partner or what's amazing about this moment with our partner. You know, how many of us are guilty of laying in bed next to someone, both of you are on your phones scrolling, and okay, sometimes that's okay, 'cause you're not gonna spend every hour of the day that you're together staring at each other. It's not that that's always wrong. It's just we know sometimes, or I think we get a feeling like, oh, this is veered into the realm of we are just mindlessly scrolling next to each other with absolutely no purpose to what we're doing here.

Yes.

It's not feeding anything positive or interesting. And we're not really relaxing either. We're like, our brains are taking these dopamine hits constantly, and we're not paying each other any attention anyway. And I think that's a struggle that people have The addiction to dopamine, I think, is a struggle both in and outside of a relationship. When we're dating, it makes it hard to really get to know someone because we're used to constantly feeding ourselves with some new hit of whether it's literal attention in the form of a dating app or another date, or it's just the attention of, you know, social media or porn or whatever it may be. We're constantly feeding that dopamine cycle to the extent that it's hard to actually truly settle in and get to know anyone. And that happens, I think, in relationships as well, but in a different way. I think a more evergreen reason that relationships struggle is if you, if you just take the notion of, you know, familiarity breeds contempt and apply that to long-term relationships, you, who are you going to be more familiar with than this person that you share the same bit of carpet with? for years and years and years. It's very easy to build up contempt for your partner. It's very easy to minimize all of the wonderful things about them or to no longer see the wonderful things about them and to magnify the things that frustrate you or annoy you. You know, if you leave a difficult dating situation or a bad relationship and you find something good, In the beginning, the good thing just looks so great because you go, oh my God, I remember what it was like three months ago when I was with this person that made me so unhappy, that was so... wasn't my cheerleader, didn't support me, was inconsistent, made me feel unsafe and anxious emotionally, didn't see me. So it's very real to us how great our partner is in that moment. But with every year that goes by, you get further and further away from that initial feeling.

Initial feeling of that negative experience.

Yeah, yeah.

And more and more into just the everyday experience with your person, which might not have changed. It might be just as good as it always was, but you just don't feel it anymore. You're a little numb to it. You're not connected to it. And so I think a big one is just remaining connected.

To.

It's almost like it wouldn't be a bad exercise for everyone to kind of take out a piece of paper and write down all of the complaints you don't have because of the partner you have. Yeah, that's true. Like, we rarely think about that. We think about what we might be missing. But what am I not complaining about? Because of the partner I have right now, what's never a problem for me? What am I not anxious about? In what ways don't I feel unsafe? In what ways is my energy not being sapped by constant fighting or negativity or someone not being there for me or seeing me. Those are the things that I think we have to connect to more because those are the things that get lost long term if we're not careful.

I had a brain surgeon on and a neuroscientist on. He was both a brain surgeon and a neuroscientist. And I asked him after studying the brain, he'd done over a thousand surgeries on the brain, but he's also studied the mind. I said, after all your years of studying the brain and the mind, what's the number one skill every human being should have? He replied with emotional regulation. You said one of the things is poor conflict resolution is one of the things that causes people to break up. You added to that as well, Matthew. Why do you think people struggle with emotional regulation, not just in life, but even heightened more in relationships? And how can someone learn to regulate their emotions in a relationship, if they've been so used to reacting in fight or flight mode for so long, what do you think is a process they can start? I'll have you start and then we'll have you add to Asadiah.

Well, I think the people that trigger us the most are the people that we're closest to. So it's hard to, you know, they, well, they uniquely know how to push our buttons as well. Hopefully they don't do that on purpose, but you know, they have the knowledge to be able to push our buttons, but also just, it's like family. You know, you think you've grown so much and you think you have become so kind of wise and you've healed, and then you go back for Christmas with family or for the holidays.

Push your buttons.

Within two days, something has you feeling like a 14-year-old who's mad again. You know, it's those people that are closest to us have this unique ability to impact us. so I think it's really, it's a, it's really easy to have patience with a friend. You know, people like, oh, it's so much easier with my friends. Yeah, no, you don't see your friend every night of the week. You see them once every couple of weeks. It's like a little honeymoon every time you get together because you just, you're just excited to see each other. Of course they don't push your buttons the same way, but the person you're with every day is going to. So I think having we have to almost step back from it a little bit and go, this isn't necessarily a sign that my partner is so much worse than everybody else. It's a sign that this person is so close to me that it's the easiest place for me to get triggered. And it's probably the place I. The place I have the least patience, because I give so much energy everywhere else in my life. I take for granted that this person's going to be there at the end of the day.

Right.

You know, we go to work and we give our best energy and then we go home and whatever is left, we hand to our partner and, you know, we've reserved our patience for everyone else in our lives. So I think taking a step back and going, what would it look like? This is a very hard thing to do, but what would it look like if I gave my partner the kind of grace or patience or understanding that I give to other people in my life that frankly probably do a lot less for me, that show up a lot less for me. What would it look like if I started showing up for them in that way? I think isn't a bad question.

Interesting. What would you mould you out of that side?

I would say one of the problems with the racial dysregulation is we as human beings tend to select the person who enables the dysregulation rather than the person we want to be with the most.

Why do we select that person more?

Because they tolerate our insufferable behaviour a bit more. Sometimes as a woman who's suffered from lots of emotional dysregulation in the past, I would find myself just seeing somebody's tolerance of my insufferable behavior as a signal of love. So sometimes people who can't regulate their emotions will look for the punching bag in their life. They'll look for the person that they can be dysregulated for, and that person remains committed and they see that as a signal of love, and they connect with the person who actually has weak boundaries. So a combination of emotional dysregulation and selecting somebody who is tolerable- who accepts the dysregulation. Yeah, it leads to that dysregulation not being resolved. I think the key question is that with emotional dysregulation, we know if we do that at work, we'll get fired. And we know that if we do that in public, we'll get arrested if we do that in public. But when we pick a partner and we make sure that that partner doesn't actually have a willingness to walk away or that partner just allows it the most, we might just exude all of our dysregulation on that one party. So it's really important when you suffer from emotional dysregulation to select a partner that still, just because they can tolerate, doesn't mean they they should, and they should still, and you, on the receiving end, still have a threshold of how much you can and can't accept. And only when a partner or a person who's emotionally dysregulated meets somebody that they genuinely love and respect, but also has a very clear threshold of how much they can handle, does a dysregulated partner start to monitor their own reactions. But if they feel like they can get away with it, sometimes they will. So I think dysregulation can lead to selection of enablers rather than selections of compatibility.

What is this quote? I'm sure you both have heard this. If they can't accept me at my worst, they don't deserve me at my best. What do you guys think about that saying in relationships?

I used to be a big banner for that because I was a nightmare myself. So I was like, oh, I love this statement. But I think if you can't respect somebody at your worst, you don't deserve them at your best. And so while you're at your worst, if you totally disrespect that person and totally crush their boundaries, you don't deserve when they're at their best or you don't deserve them when you're at your best. So instead of expecting somebody to tolerate your behavior, remember you also have a duty of care to them. And you should also say, At my worst, I don't want to put them through so much suffering. At my worst, I want to express myself. I understand I'm not going to be perfect, but doesn't mean I treat them as an emotional punching bag.

So I can't emotionally punch on them all day long and then say, well, you have to deal with my emotions.

And then you'll get a party on your birthday. It doesn't really work that way. so it's almost like a form of manipulation. And I'm saying that in the worst case scenario, 'cause I've been that person that had that kind of mantra. But it's actually how we treat our loved ones at our worst is a symbol of how much we respect them. And we need to try and be mindful of that because some people just can't tolerate you at your worst. Doesn't mean they don't love you. It's just that they're not equipped for.

That level of emotional dysregulation. You should be able to, I mean, your worst as a child, I'm assuming you're gonna scream and throw tantrums constantly. But then hopefully you learn how to develop your emotions and navigate your emotions so that you can be frustrated or have a breakdown, but not trash on someone. Yeah, not punish someone. Not punish someone and say, you're doing this to me, right? It's like learning how to, maybe you need to step away or maybe you're gonna get loud for a moment, but.

You'Re not going to attack someone. Ask yourself, would you tolerate you at your worst?

If at your worst you get abused.

Right now, yeah. Yeah, right now, I'm good. Right now, but yeah, in my past, maybe not. In my past, I wouldn't, but right now it's fine. But in the past, if your worst looks like emotional abuse, if it looks like infidelity, if it looks like, Physical abuse. Would you tolerate you at your worst? And if you would, perfect, you're probably in a healthy space. If you wouldn't, what would you suggest to somebody who's going to have to, what would you say to yourself if you had to experience that? And if you would say to yourself, oh, just leave, don't tolerate that, then don't expect your partner to tolerate it.

Why is it so hard to leave a relationship when, after many years, when someone treats you poorly or they have dysregulation, frequently, let's call it on a weekly basis or every other day, it seems like dysregulation or this type of emotional, I don't know if you want to call it abuse or... Roller coaster. Roller coaster emotions, lack of respect. Why would you say, Matthew, it's so hard to leave a relationship? The relationship is failing, it's not healthy, but people tend to stay in your work that you do with a lot of women, why do women stay so long? Maybe there's kids or not kids involved, but why do women stay and how can they start to shift to make it healthier or get out of it in a healthy way?

I think it's, well, it would be, it would be termed the trauma bond, right? That there's a, there's this behavior that makes life really hard with this person, or it might even make it intolerable, but we tolerate it for as long as we can and You know, if it ever got too, too bad for too long, we would just have to leave, right? If it was just hell 24/7, no matter what, we would leave. It would be enough, we would reach a certain pain threshold.

But there's doses of moments, right? There's good moments.

There's that moment where, you know, someone does something that hints at a different side of them. It hints at the potential for kindness, the potential for understanding. It hints at what the relationship could be.

Or was in the beginning.

It was in the beginning and that reels us back in as a broken clock, right? The broken clock is right twice a day. You don't think it's a good watch for telling the time, right? It's failed in its fundamental function. But When it's right, you go, well, you know, like that kind of relationship you're describing is the broken watch. We're trying to use this thing to tell the time, thinking that, oh, no, it was right a minute ago. Oh, well, maybe it is working after all. And then we have to wait another 12 hours before it's right again. So that you have to ask yourself, am I in that broken watch relationship? And if I am, what's the way to get out of that? Well, I think one of the ways is to properly tune into your feelings, because I think we don't really tune into what our experience is. We are so focused on where it could go or the fact that we think that we will never be okay if we lose this person. How will I get by? Can I Can I deal with the pain of losing this person? If I could just get them and turn them into the thing that I need them to be, then I'll be happy. We're so fixated on that, that we're not fixated on the pain that we are in constantly, which is making us miserable. Or if we really paid attention, we look at how this disproportionately makes us miserable. I worked with someone who ended a relationship with a very toxic person. And this person was never around. This person was completely dismissive. Even on the weekends when they were together, this person was just on their laptop paying them absolutely zero attention. And the woman that I was coaching, I remember at the end of the relationship, she said, I just don't know how I'm going to do this, how I'm going to be on my and then I. Not a relation. Yeah. Like, if I'm. I don't know how I'm gonna be on my own. And then I actually showed her the relationship.

You are on your own.

I said, this person's never home. They stay out on the weekends. You're completely alone. Even when you're in the same room, you've spent the last five years learning how to be alone. You're already good at this. You just have this old Association that. That I. When I leave, I'm not going to be able to take it, but you already have the tools.

Why is it seem like it's easier as a girlfriend or a guy friend of a person in a struggling relationship? Why is it easy for them to see, man, this has been two years you've been in this pattern, this loop of up and down emotional roller coaster and it doesn't seem healthy when it's so hard for the person in the relationship to realize, man, this is broken. This is not working. But I'm gonna keep trying to make it work. I'm gonna keep trying to get that clock hit the right time every minute. Why is it so hard for people to understand they're in a broken relationship?

The investment they've placed into it makes it very difficult for them to see objective reality. In their mind, they have a vision of the future. It might involve children, it might involve a home, it might involve any kind of connection, and they think that vision can only be achieved with the person they've invested the most in. They don't realize that vision is still achievable outside of this relationship. They attribute the ability to achieve all of that to this relationship working out. as a friend or a family member, you can say, well, you're still a great person. You can still find love. You can still have kids. You can still get married. But you can do it outside of this relationship. They don't see the vision outside of the relationship. So they've zoomed into the perspective of only through this person can I achieve my end goals. We, as friends and family, can say your goals are separate to this individual. They can still occur, but with somebody who doesn't have the unhealthy traits that make it impossible in this certain situation.

What do you think of the things, we're talking about why relationships fail, but what do you think of the things that people don't do before committing to the relationship that end up causing it to be just a rocky foundation to start with, which is destined to fail? What are things that women do or men do that you think set up a rocky foundation? I'll let you start.

They don't communicate what is a deal breaker to them. They know all the things that they like. I like to go on dinner dates. I like to do this. I like to do that. that the stability of the relationship depends on the actual deal breakers rather than all the things that you love about the person.

What are some examples of deal breakers.

That people don't communicate? It might be lack of availability, emotional availability, it might be lack of affection. So they might be funny, they might have a great job, they might be beautiful, all of those things. But if they are emotionally unavailable or if they are not considerate or if they're not compassionate as a person, but I haven't realized that that deal breaker is still there causing disruption of peace every single day. But if I realize my deal breakers and I go into it with the mentality that as long as I don't care if you're an angel on paper, but if you've got even one deal breaker, chances are we'll fight about this deal breaker forever. Really? It could just be that, you know, we disagree on a deal breaker might be commitment levels. How much commitment do I want? Or just a deal breaker might be how much time we spend together, quality time. It might be any of the love languages. One of them might be a deal breaker for you. But if that person has even one deal breaker, it will resurface again and again until the relationship slowly starts to corrode. so it's important to express what you think emotionally might be a deal breaker for you.

And what do you think are the biggest deal breakers for people? Would you say it's sex or topics around sex, money, and topics around money, family, kids, religion, or something else?

Good.

I suppose it could be anything depending on the person.

Or is it just literally like we could have three things that are right, but if we have two that are off, Like eventually it's gonna be harder to make it work. Like what do you think?

I mean, I think if we have a very different vision for how we wanna live our lives, you know, those are really hard. You know, if one person wants a family and the other one doesn't, you know, these are... But to the point of communication, those are things that often people turn a blind eye to.

Why is that? Why do we not communicate deal breakers and things that are actually really important because we're committing to the relationship?

Scarcity mindset. It's that that fear of nothing better is going to come along. Look, I think that in our love lives especially, we really want to meet someone. It's a universal thing. We really want to meet someone. And when we haven't met someone, we can start to get scared as time goes on and we think there's something wrong with us and I'm broken and I'm never going to find someone. And what if it never happens for me? And God, it's so hard to meet someone. And so the most dangerous moment in love and dating is the moment you meet someone you're attracted to. That is the most dangerous moment, because if you meet a person you're attracted to in a place of scarcity and fear, that is precisely the time that you lower your standards and you lose your boundaries. Because the instinct is don't do anything that could mess it up. The instinct is not let me see how right this is. Don't do anything to screw this up. Now, people have different ways of dealing with that fear. But if you take, you know, one example is some people go into like anxious fawning, right? I'm scared. I'm just gonna do everything I... What kind of category characterizes anxious fawning? I'm gonna...

Anxious fawning?

Fawning, yeah.

Fawning.

I'm gonna... Like, so I'm anxious and my instinct when I'm anxious is to try to make you happy. Because if I can make you happy, maybe you'll never leave me. so for a lot of people, what that means is I over give at the same time as under communicating what I really need, which is a really poisonous combination.

Right.

Because it simultaneously means you burn out giving to someone, but also no one knows what you really want.

And you resent the person for not giving you what you need that you haven't communicated it.

Yeah, you resent them, but you're too afraid to rock the boat because you don't want to lose them. And it's fascinating to me, like, you can literally look at different types of people and how how they react to that. Like if you are doing that and you come across an avoidant, someone who's avoidant is gonna get pushed away. They're gonna be like, this is a lot. And you're gonna keep giving even though they've pulled away because that's what you do. But you're not gonna communicate that it's hurt you that you've pulled away. So with an avoidant type, you won't get your needs met because you won't communicate as they pull away. You'll just keep giving, hoping that they'll come back. If you come across an anxious person, and you're anxiously fawning, that person might consume you. Everyone, but most people, not most people. Some people have had that experience with a parent where their parent was just trying to get their own needs met. And they became the child that gave and gave and gave and gave and gave to try to make the parent happy. But because they had no boundaries around that, they became deeply resentful of this one-sided relationship with their parent. People then go into that in relationships, too, where it's like, They just live in service of this other person who's anxiously taking as much as they can. If you come across a secure person and you're anxiously fawning, then that person's gonna have a hard time connecting with you because they're not gonna know what your preferences are. You're gonna say, they're gonna say, what do you want for dinner? And you say, what do you want for dinner? And they'll go, I don't know, Chinese food. And you'll go, that was me too. I wanted that. And if you do that three times in a row, they'll realize they don't know who you are.

Yeah.

They can't connect with you. They don't know how to make you happy, and they can't really trust you because they can't trust that you're ever really saying what you really think. So I say this to highlight the fact that this is how these Dynamics get started, is we're coming from a place of fear. And when we're coming from a place of fear, we go to the weapons that we know how to use.

Right.

We all have our weapon of choice. For some people, it's I don't let anyone screw with me, and that's their weapon of choice. And the moment they think they could get hurt, they reject someone before that person can reject them. Other people is my weapon of choice is making trying to do as much as possible for you that I make myself indispensable. We it's worth everyone asking, like, what's my weapon of choice? What do I default to? And if I never question what I'm defaulting to, you. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna always be in the same kinds of relationships. And by the way, that anxious fawning I'm talking about, who does it attract? The toxic person.

Right.

Because that person sees a free lunch.

Of course.

Like, I'm gonna come and take everything from the buffet here, and then when I'm done with it, I'm out. So we. Then we go, how. Why do I always attract people like this? Or why do I always fall into these patterns? It's because there is. A weapon that we are overusing. And at some point we have to, like, it's a very brave thing to go, what weapon am I overusing? And recognize, by the way, that's meeting a need. That there's some need it's meeting.

Right?

If I'm, Not a healthy need, right? But if I'm, like, if I crack jokes and make everyone laugh, and I know I can do that, then it meets a need for me. It's control. I know that I can control the room. through making people laugh. Now, it also might be a barrier to connection in situations where sincerity is called for. And we never get deep because I'm always making jokes. But if I stop joking and I say, I'm gonna try and create a deeper connection, and that means I'm gonna pull back from the sarcasm, let's say. I've taken away my own most practiced, sharpened weapon. And I may not know how to operate in this new territory. I now may find myself almost like a toddler in conversation going, I don't know how to play this game. I don't know how to connect with people when I'm not being funny. And it requires us almost to get worse before we get better, to feel like we're taking a step backwards before we take a step forwards. The step forwards might ultimately be a far healthier relationship or a far better relationship than anything we've ever experienced. But we might have to go almost like go back to like learning how to walk again in an area and give up that power we're used to feeling so that we can have something much more rewarding on the other side of it.

Interesting. I wanted to ask you guys about, you know, deal breakers is something we're talking about just now. I'm curious about if someone is in a relationship and they realize that, okay, we've been in this relationship for a year, two, three years now, and we have deal breakers. Maybe we've committed to each other, but these deal breakers just, I can't accept that's what you want and you can't accept what this is what I want with kids or religion or sex or money or whatever it might be. How do we know, is it possible to continue and create a healthy relationship even when you have deal breakers? Do you think it's possible? If one wants kids, the other's don't. If one has one religion, the other wants a different religion. If one doesn't wanna be around extended family, the other does.

Is it possible to create a healthy relationship still? As long as you can deprioritize that deal breaker without building resentment. If I decide I want children and my husband doesn't want children, and I think, okay, well, I can deprioritize children. I can wait or I can not have them at all. But in the process of that, am I just gonna have some frozen, on-growing anger towards him, and then that's gonna come out in the form of verbal abuse that's going to come out in the form of like hostility, then there's no point. And then I have to call it a day. But if I can deprioritize that and forgive or just not kind of collate any resentment, then yeah, deal breakers can be accommodated for. You just have to make sure that you don't feel like you're losing yourself in the process of maintaining the relationship. And what that might look like is, let's say I might compromise on children or something like that. And then I need an equal compromise on his perspective on what he can do to meet to kind of make up for that. compromise that I'm doing. As long as we're both giving the same amount, we're not actually going to build resentment and we can de-prioritize that deal breaker. It's workable. I don't want people to be like, oh, I've got a deal breaker. I have to end it. It's just more of a case of.

Can you de-prioritize whatever it is that you thought was a deal breaker.

And can you let it go without resenting yourself or the other person? Yeah. As long as you don't lose yourself and you don't resent them, then remember, if you can find a new purpose, let's say, for example, you get dogs instead, or let's say, for example, you focus on your nieces and nephews and and you're not going to start hating your partner, but instead see it as, okay, now we can spend the rest of our lives being really connected and committed to each other and not have to worry that, you know, couples sometimes drift apart, blah, blah, because of this. Okay, let's make it work. Or let's say the deal breaker was financial. And you think, actually, no, I can live within a budget and I can actually enjoy our lives and maybe we have more simple holidays or maybe we.

Have a simple way of living. I can do that without resenting my partner. Then we can make it work. What do you think is the biggest, the hardest deal breaker to let go of around from men? Yeah, for men, for let's call it, you know, the amount of sex you want to have consistently, the religion you want, your family to be raising in, their kids in, money, extended family, and, Yeah, what would you say is like the hardest thing to let go of?

My personal experience of working with the men that come to me, maybe find my content. So I have to preface this so it might be a bit skewed. But from a male perspective, it tends to be sexual. It tends to be the case that what I find in my male clients is if their sexual needs are men, they're naturally more compromising on everything else. Everything else.

Literally.

You wanna spend more if you wanna be this religion, if you want really, they, if they go through, what happens is once they feel sexually satisfied, they naturally feel appreciated in that moment. And as a result, it's like the compassion is turned on, it's like the acceptance is turned on. They feel like she understands his needs, so he's more willing to meet her needs.

He's more understanding in general.

Yeah, but whereas when he's deprived of that need, he doesn't even wanna do the simple things like go to movies with her that she likes, or he won't wanna do the simple things. Now again, I have to preface this, it might be the ones that I encounter in my practice, but generally speaking, I feel like that's kind of their language for appreciation. And as a result, they're more compromising, on other areas. But when that language is not being met, they don't even realize this, but they're a little bit more ratty or they're a little bit like, why should I go and do this for you? They become almost like little children. So I would say for them, that tends to be the case. And I think because they don't have the burden of children on their body. And so if they had a high sex drive, some men just don't have a really high sex drive, so they can compromise quite well. But the ones that have a really high one, it doesn't naturally go down as much as you would think. You think by the time they get to 50 or 60, it would go down. But you'll meet men that Even when they're 60s, they still see that as a form of love and connection. So they don't really have the same enjoyment of a long conversation, a long walk, but a quick, you know, five minutes of that means something to them. So I found for men that tends to be their deal breaker a lot of the time. What would you say? Would you say that steros are not in your, because you guys are men, I don't mean to tell you.

I mean, I don't, I think if I wasn't having sex in a long, you know, after 10 years, I don't think I'd be fully satisfied. You know, I'd feel like that's a need that I would still want. So in your mind, did you sell it?

It doesn't need it, I don't need.

It every day, but it's a need that I would want a healthy relationship with.

So you don't like how some women, they think, oh, by the time I turn 50 or 60, I can retire.

For sex or something. I mean, didn't Robert De Niro just have a kid at 80 or something? It doesn't die. I don't think it would, I mean, unless, like, it didn't function anymore, and.

It, like, the desire went away somehow because of age. Yeah, this is what really kind of jaded me with this idea. I think when I had a client who, sadly, he suffered from some erectile dysfunction because of some illness, nothing major. And even in those moments, he would still use a pump to get it because it was, and I just remember thinking the tenacity of some men is that it's something they want, and it doesn't naturally go down and it's not going to go down. So I can understand why it's their root of appreciation of it seems to be. And I see other times where men have been really heavily manipulated by women, and women have just taken everything and got away with murder with them. And I always What was the sexual behavior like? And they were like, it was fantastic. And I said, that's probably the reason.

Sex kept him in it. Allowed to deal with the behavior.

Created an ATM out of him sometimes or create something out of it. So that's why in my personal experience, that's what I've seen. But I don't mean to speak for all men or anything. So is that the case?

What would you think for women, I guess, that would be the biggest deal breaker that it would be hard to let go of and not be resemble of around? around sex and not getting their needs met, around having children or the lack of having children, around religion. What do you see?

I think firstly, there's what you're saying about guys. I think there's actually an awful lot of that the other way around, too. I think there's a lot of, you know, women who find that, you know, they're with a partner that's no longer interested in sex and.

Or with them interested in sex. Maybe they're interested in sex.

Possibly.

But now.

Possibly or. or in general, you know, it's just, you know, they find that that hasn't gone away for them, but they're no longer in a relationship where, you know, sex is really present in any meaningful way and that affects them. So I think that's not just that way around, but I, you know, I think the big one is for so many women is children. You know, if the devastation it can cause when And someone wants to have a child, they have a dream of having a family, and they find themselves with someone who's saying they're not sure, or that they don't want that. That causes a profound kind of grief in people long term.

Do you think a woman that has fantasized or dreamed about having kids for most of their life, and maybe that was in her intention when they got in the relationship with the guy, but at some point the guy said, you know what? I don't want kids anymore. Do you think that moment could ever truly let go of resentment and just say, I'm gonna let go of my needs just 'cause I wanna make this person happy or make this relationship work, even though it was a deal breaker, but now I can let it go?

I mean, perhaps some do, and I'm not suggesting everyone wants kids, but for those that do, I think it's a very, very, I don't know how easily that goes away for people. I mean, I can't speak on behalf of women here, but what I can do is say what I've seen, which is the heartbreak, the true grief that I have seen in women who I've worked with for many years who always hoped that someone would change their mind, always hoped that, you know, or a guy was responsible for continuously sort of stringing them along with the hope that he was met one day and then he ends up breaking up with her anyway. And then those years for making that happen have perhaps passed and that family hasn't happened and also the guy is no longer there.

Well, sad.

Or worst case scenario, he has children with somebody else after. Which happens too.

And you feel like, was I not good enough?

Sadly.

I heard someone quote Christopher Hitchens saying in life, you have to choose your regrets. And I think that that's as apt for what we're talking about here is you. You have to, you know, it's an impossible situation to be in. You know, I'm in love with this person. I want to be with this person. And they fundamentally don't want what is essential to my being. I, you know, if I, if I want kids and that feels like I think it's one of the, you know, truest expressions of my dreams and what I want to do in life. And they don't want that. It's an impossible situation for someone to be in. But I do think that that should, you know, which will I regret more is an important frame. You're always gonna have regrets in life. I mean, there's no, there isn't a life without regret. I, I don't, the, the, the British poet David White said, talking about regret, this idea we have in this culture today of no regrets is nonsense.

Good luck.

He says, well, you know, if someone says to him, I have no regrets.

He says, where have you been?

Yeah. What are your values? If you have no regrets, you have no values, really, then. But I do find women, as they age, they can be more accommodating to a man that doesn't want children. Really? If she gets to her late 30s, early 40s, she kind of is like, well, actually that might work in line with my body. Maybe I've missed my timing. Yeah, so it's kind of like she kind of aligns herself with somebody who doesn't want children at that age, and.

Then that can work.

But in her prime years to make such a fundamental decision is quite difficult for her.

I think that the hard part is precisely in that age you're talking about. Because if you're for so many people in their late 30s, early 40s, that is that time where it's- Crunch time. Yeah, it's no longer, you know, I'm kind of looking at it going, well, I can have another four-year relationship and still find time. It's that time where someone has to say, you know, what am I doing here? And I, you know, speaking of, we've talked about having hard conversations. The hardest conversation we have to have is with ourselves. You know, the, the, the reason I wrote in my book an entire chapter on called the Question of Having a Child is because I wanted to, albeit clumsily, perhaps encourage people to have a conversation with themselves that they maybe weren't having. what happens if I get to 38 years old and I haven't met someone yet? What do I do there? What's the plan B that becomes the new plan A at that point? Is it that I'm gonna do this on my own? Is it that I've frozen my eggs? Is it that, you know, what happens if I get to 41 and I'm still single? and, you know, having a child on my own didn't work. What's Plan C?

Right, right.

You know, I. I. These things matter because what they do is they give us a sense of relief.

Yes.

Knowing that I've had those difficult conversations with myself. What I. What I always hope people will do is not sleepwalk into their biggest regrets by constantly deferring the hard conversation to another.

Time.

You know, if someone is. If someone's not got honest with themselves about what they really want, and then, you know, 39 years old, they meet a 24 year old who just happens to be really hot and they're having a great time and it feels good and it feels like it's something. And yesterday I had nothing. It's a very tempting thing if you haven't been honest with yourself about what you really want to go, ah, just. Let's see where this close. But if you have a closing window for making that dream happen of yours, then, and, and you haven't been honest with yourself about that, you could sleepwalk into a relationship where you have completely misaligned goals and then find five years later that you're looking back going, what did I do? Why did I give my time? Why did I give my energy to that person? Because it felt good in the moment, but I, I I wasn't clear about my path. So we have to, there's always, in life there's what feels good and then there's our path. And the two aren't always aligned.

That's true.

So we better be really clear in our love lives, what's my path here? What's really important to me? Have I had that conversation? Not with anyone else. Have I had it with myself? Because if I haven't, I don't know what to say no to. And what I will inevitably end up saying yes to is something that feels good right now.

Yeah.

And we all know everyone's been, I've been there where you go into a relationship, it feels good and you go, oh, this is just a bit of fun. And a year later, you're like, I'm still here. What was, this was supposed to be a bit of fun. This wasn't supposed to be a year-long relationship. And you don't line up on that. No, I'm getting my heart broken or they're getting their heart broken. And that's fine at a certain stage of life when we're just, whatever, I don't have any real intentionality about what I'm doing. That's okay. But at a certain point, we have to start getting really honest about what our path is. And then we have to get good at following our path, not just our feelings. It's so hard to let go of those temptations when you're young and you.

Just want to have fun and connect. But when you're in love, or when.

You feel that chemistry, that connection.

Anytime, really.

Anytime.

Your book, Love Life, talks a lot about how to kind of set those standards for yourself. There's another book that me and Martha went through early on called Eight Dates. which I recommend. Which is really great. It's kind of like figuring out what your deal breakers are. It's like, okay, here's a deal breaker. It goes over the biggest topics and you have like, I don't know, it seems like a hundred questions on each deal breaker and it's not fun. You know, it's uncomfortable conversations, but I highly recommend that book as well, Eight Dates, because it just lets you see are we aligned? And if you could separate the chemical emotions that you have and the fun and connection and see, do our deal breakers line up or not, that will help you see if it's the right thing to move forward.

My hope is that people can find a way to whittle down that list to the things that are most important. Really important.

Because I think that has some flexibility.

Yeah, you're not gonna align on all of the 80 topics. Yeah, exactly.

But, you know, we sometimes look at these differences on the surface and we don't realize that actually what's underpinning those are some similar values.

Yeah.

But what we do on the surface are very, very different.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, again, to, to, to quote Hitchens, he said, you know, it's more important what you, it's more important how you think than what you think. And I think it's important to say, am I disqualifying someone because of this surface level thing that I see? Like, ah, that's not for me. And actually, actually how they think.

Yeah.

And how they arrive at these things. And the way they kind of process things or think about life is actually very similar to you. You just landed in different spots.

Right.

With how you, you know, manifest that in the world. And sometimes that can really work.

Yeah.

I'm a. I'm a. I'm a meat eater. And Audrey's a vegetarian. You know, she could have said, that's a deal breaker. I don't want someone who. But actually, we both love animals.

Oh, right.

We're both obsessed when we see an animal. We're both, like, deeply compassionate people. We both have the same. values around that. Now we've landed in different spaces on it for now. Who knows? Maybe one day this will change at some point. I don't know. But, you know, there's, that's a how we think is actually very similar. We just landed in different places on that. And I think that's true in a lot of areas of life where we disqualify people.

Yeah, I would agree. Even with money and stuff like that, you both might spend differently, but the way you like to make it and save it might be similar. So, yeah, there's an underlying thought process.

That needs to be taken into We're talking about why relationships fail. In the previous episode we did, we talked a little bit about cheating, but I'm curious in this day and age, I'm curious who you guys think cheats more. You've heard that both men and women cheat, but just women are better at hiding it. And that men get caught easier. And women are just good at hiding it. Is that true? I mean, that's kind of the thing. It's like, you know, both men and women, not everyone, but men and women do cheat. cheat, but women are less at getting caught, I guess.

I don't know.

They're smarter about it. I don't know.

And they have more opportunities than the average man.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, the average woman will have at least somebody will sleep with her. Like, you know, she doesn't have to have that much going for her. She doesn't have to have a great job and she doesn't have to have, you know, a lot of charm and wit. She can jump on an app and it's a bit easier for her. Whereas for the average man, it's not as easy.

So I think the opportunity is higher. Interesting.

Is that why? And guys, I guess, are hitting on women more than women are hitting on men. Right. So the temptation is a bit different there as well. What's the stats right now?

Do we know if men are cheating more than women these days or are.

Women cheating more than men? Well, the stats, I would always argue that women don't admit that they're cheating as much. There's almost a pride to men when they cheat and stuff like that. They're always a bit more open about it. I know some of my closest friends that have cheated, even to me, well, I've been in the process, they'll pretend they haven't cheated. So there's a part of them that denies cheating.

Was that men or women?

Women. Yeah, women, even more so. But then later they'll admit it. But I've been in the process and learned about that. at that time we weren't really together or that time we weren't together. But there was a simultaneous connection. But what I would say is I don't know who cheats more or who cheats less, but I think when women cheat, there is a, it's more definitive, as in that it's harder for them to come backwards from cheating. I tend to, and I don't know if you guys would agree, I tend to give the advice to men that when your woman cheats on you, it's very difficult to forgive her. I wouldn't recommend it. I highly don't recommend it.

Men shouldn't forgive.

With women, I think there's room for flexibility depending on the causes and the circumstances.

It's gonna get a lot of comments about that. Why should men not forgive the women.

They'Re with who cheat on them? Because for a woman to cheat on you, it's not that she's fallen in love with another man, she's just definitely not in love with you. Ooh, that's a good point. And so for you to take her back is just providing her free accommodation until she meets a man she wants to fall in love with. And I would, and like a lot of men think, oh no, women are so emotionally attached to sex. No, no, no, some women can literally have an affair with a local PT who doesn't care about her and she doesn't really care about him. It's what the driving force is not the love for the guy that she's cheating on. It's a lack of love and respect for the man she's cheating on.

Interesting.

Yeah. And so when you forgive her and retry with the relationship, she's already decided she doesn't really want to be with you, but she will stay in this until she finds someone that will love her.

So if a man cheats on a woman that he's in a committed relationship with. Is it also saying he doesn't respect and love her?

I think it's not so much a matter. Love isn't so much the component. It's more of a lack of respect. It's more of a lack of respect and a lack of fear of losing the relationship or whatever it is. I mean, I can't speak for men, but a lot of them can say that they can compartmentalize. They can still really want their relationship to work. They can still really. This is all illusionary, but this is what they say. They want their relationship to work. They love their wife very deeply. They want all of that, but they are just Outsourcing the sex because it might be lacking or it's not the way they like it, or they're outsourcing a feeling. In my experience with women, when they cheat, it's not so much that there's something they're craving outside, it's just there's something in the house that they're just not happy with. And as a result, they will cheat. And I've been in situations where I've had clients come on the phone or a video call, and I've searched on my screen, and I've looked at the couple, and I said, I can tell she's cheating. No way. Without saying a word, they haven't said a word to me. And I remember the last couple I did this with, and I looked, I thought, she's having an affair, but I'm not gonna say it publicly. You said it publicly? After a comment, and I said, what brings you here? And she started with, we have a great relationship, we're very good, everything is good, we just don't love each other anymore. And I said, can you be honest with me, are you having an affair? And she said, well, recently, and it transpired that she has been having an affair. And I said, I can tell by your lack of connection to your husband, your lack of love, you're not, most people, when they come on a therapy call, he was all suited and booted, ready for this call, like, save my marriage. She was literally just like, God, do we have to do this? The disconnect that was there was there was no coming back from him. There was literally- From her energy. It looked like she was held by the throat to be there. And that's such a common theme when a woman cheats. It seems to be like, I'm not actually in love with you anymore, but I'll make it work because a guy, I haven't gotten many alternatives. So what I say to men is, firstly, not only is she not in love, the second thing is it ignites something in a man that's not good for him. And the main thing ignites is a feeling of inadequacy, sexual inadequacy and in masculinity, but it can lead to physical abuse when it comes to a man. That anger and rage, some men will use that anger and rage to just leave and go work on themselves. Other men will use that anger and rage to control and to abuse. Women do this too. I'm not saying when women find a man who's cheating, they don't get abusive. It's just the damage that can come from a man being domestically violent is something that is They're both wrong, but it's something that I wouldn't risk.

So that's-- I'm gonna have Matthew reply to us in a second, but do you think a relationship can truly repair and heal after someone has cheated?

Or do you think-- Not when a woman cheats.

When a woman cheats, you think it's a lot harder or you just don't think it's possible? Not possible.

Really? Yeah. I would honestly say, from what I see, every time a man forgives a woman cheat, she eventually leaves him for forgiving her. Oh, really? Yeah. Why is that? It's just because of lack of self-respect.

Is that it?

She understands now that there is no boundaries to this relationship. Most women are under the impression that a man would leave. Men tend to think that women can be a bit softer and emotional and they can kind of convince them. Most women tend to assume men will leave because that's what they tell each other. I would never put up with it. I would never put up with it. So when she learns he's willing to accept the unacceptable, she now realizes unacceptable behavior will run with him. And therefore, there is no motivation motivated to prevent it happening again. So I've always seen, again, I have to preface this, I see worst case scenarios, but I've always seen it become a repeat offender. I'm not saying men don't do it the same way, but I'm just saying in my experience of seeing when women.

Cheat, you're simply waiting for her to leave you now. So maybe, I mean, maybe you could stay in a relationship, but it's just.

Not gonna be a healthy, committed relationship. There might be more- I think one thing men underestimate is how loyal we are to the person we believe gives us the most sexual satisfaction. We are women. Yeah, we are incredibly loyal to the man that gives us the most sexual satisfaction.

Really? Over like financial security or safety or providing status?

A lot of the time they can be. I'm not saying all of the time, but a lot of the time they can be. I know women who will wait for a man who's in jail simply because, not because he's the best, but she's all he knows. Since she's been with him, she hasn't touched another human being. So she's, that's all she knows. and women that are like that, they're not as curious. That's all he knows. But when she's got that curiosity and she opens herself up to being pleased by other people, it becomes difficult to revert back to monogamy. Really? Yeah, it becomes very difficult.

Oh, I can be pleased by someone else as well, or maybe it's better or different.

It could be man or woman. It could be man or woman. When you open that door up for her to unlock that part of her to somebody else, it becomes difficult to reverse. So I'm saying this from a female perspective. I would love to hear from a male perspective. What is like when it comes to cheating. But there is a lack of respect that comes afterwards. Yeah. And there's a willingness to try again. And it just means she rarely stops because she's now checked out the relationship.

And do you think if a man cheats that he within a relationship, that he could stop cheating in that relationship?

It's difficult again. Yeah. I still think it's a difficult thing. I would say it's difficult. I don't know how definite it is because it would have to become to check, like, you know, a real understanding he loses his family. But with, but for women, it's just the potential of domestic violence that comes with it as well. I just think it's better to just let her go rather than hold her and then have so much rage and either rage towards her or rage towards yourself. Either way, it's not good. And I know that sounds too definitive and too negative, but in the original, when I first started my practice, I used to take a lot of my inspiration from Esther Perel where she's like, you can rebuild, have those conversations. What I noticed is the rebuilding is just buying time. Yeah.

For the inevitable.

For the inevitable. Maybe it lasts another four or eight years. Maybe 50 years ago when there weren't data cheating apps, it might kind of undo itself. In this day and age, when there's so many alternatives combined with almost what they see as permission, it means delaying the divorce.

All right, Mazi, I'm curious about your.

Thoughts on cheating and- Feel free to disagree.

You know, I guess why do, with the women that you work with, and I know women cheat that come to your retreats or they're trying to like heal and fix their broken heart and all these different things, repair from being cheated on, all these things. Why do you think women cheat or the ones that have communicated why they cheated? What's the main reason women cheat in a long-term relationship? And can a relationship repair after cheating occurs? You've heard from a lot of women.

Yeah.

You have been on this show before.

I don't know where to start here. we struggle immensely with the kind of way that this is being framed. The, the kind of Saadia, the talk about, you know, women cheat because they don't respect their man, which I think even that is a, you know, so many people cheat because they, they are craving an emotional connection that they're not getting inside their relationship. I mean, how many women are with men that are never present, you know, who don't show up for them, who, you know, are workaholic, you know, obsessed with their business, obsessed with something else. And then all of a sudden, they find that they develop an emotional connection with someone on the outside that maybe started innocently enough, but, you know, that emotional connection turned into something more. I I don't. It's a very male picture, in some ways, your painting of this idea that they are essentially just, you know, they don't, it comes from a place of essentially disrespect and contempt for their man, and it's just a bit of sex on the side. Maybe there's some of those, but it feels like we're missing a giant archetype there, which is the woman who is craving connection. And emotional connection. Yeah, emotional connection. And that's the precursor to a physical physical connection.

So would you say the fault lies in the man not meeting her needs or in the cheater herself?

I don't know that I think of it that way. Well, I think because she's, I think she's obviously transgressing in terms of the boundaries of the relationship. And it's a, that's a, that's wrong and that's, you know, on either side to not have that conversation that, hey, I'm not getting my needs. Matt, can we talk about this? Or even, hey, I'm having feelings for someone. I need to talk about this because I don't want it to go to a place I can't come back from. So that, that, of course that's wrong. But I'm, I'm more just suggesting that the, I think that the, the scope of why people cheat is a lot wider than, you know, I don't, I dis, I don't respect my husband, and so I'm just going to go and do this. I also So I don't, I struggle with this idea that women are, once they've cheated, they just can't look at their man the same way again. And that they've just now fundamentally lost something.

I think they can look at the man with love or respect.

I think they can look at him the same way, but not if he forgives her.

Well, but this is, that's actually what.

I think is, what was really interesting.

About that Sadiya is, it's a kind It's a real kind of almost prejudice against women and their capacity for kindness. It almost, it was almost the same as saying that women are just inherently more cruel than men.

But I'm saying that with the preface that they've already cheated, which is a lack of kindness.

No, I know that I get the scenario.

It's not women.

What you're saying is that men are capable of kindness, compassion, and future connection with someone that forgives them. But women are not capable of such kindness.

I would argue it's not that they're not capable of such kindness, but we're talking about a market of women who already demonstrated a lack of kindness through the cheating. So in that subgroup, absolutely they're lacking kindness. I hear you.

We're talking just about people who have cheated.

Yeah.

But to kind of other women in that way, where it's like a woman is incapable of having the ability to go, oh my God, I have really.

Made a mistake or something.

Fucked up here. I have hurt the person that I love who loves me. I've hurt this person that I've made a vow to that I'm in this relationship with who didn't deserve it.

Yeah.

And that has nothing to do with them. That's on me. And that, you know, if this person is kind enough, if they have the space in their heart to forgive me, I'm gonna honor that.

Yeah.

The idea that that's impossible to me suggests that you feel like women are somehow missing a compassion gene.

It's not that they're missing a compassion gene. They're looking for protectiveness in a way that men don't look for in women.

I think that's incredibly reductive. But I find that really The idea that what women are the only thing women really care about is what does protect mean exactly?

Protectiveness is like a biological. We take it in an evolutionary sense. A protectiveness would be from an alpha perspective in an evolutionary sense, it would be a man that protects his kin from cuckoldry. It protects his children being born from somebody else essentially, paternal uncertainty. Now from a primitive perspective, we look for men who not only can gather resources but can also prevent paternal uncertainty. Now, when he's missing that fundamental, like, he's not bothered about paternal uncertainty, it's not that weird.

He is bothered. He's, let's say he's broken-hearted he's like, oh, my God, I'm crushed. You're saying she would have had respect for him had he shown up at the apartment as she was about to have sex with the guy and beat him up? No, she wasn't. Given that she already did on the side and she came back, the fact that he missed the moment and he's.

Now crushed and hurt, that, that is him not protecting her. That's the thing. Masculinity is not about being and consistency. Masculinity is about knowing when to walk away as well from a female perspective. There are endless women who have men that message double text, triple text, what puts them off in that moment is not his kindness and compassion, it's his unwillingness to walk away when he's being disrespected.

But you are framing forgiveness as the antithesis of masculinity.

But you are framing forgiveness as acceptance. I think forgive me if I was to do that, but accepting me is a different experience.

Forgiveness is saying this relationship means more to me than my pride or my ego. I love you. I wanna make this work and I'm gonna be a big enough man to make this work in spite of this. And that makes him the bigger person. It doesn't make him emasculated. It doesn't, he's not, you're framing forgiveness as he's emasculated himself by forgiving her and she can never get over that moment of him emasculating himself.

I believe that very, very strongly and the reason being is that the relationship should mean loads to you but part of you should understand for her to do this, we don't see the relationship in the same light. Your inability to understand the importance of reciprocality is what makes you less masculine. It's not a case of forgive me all day, every day but for me to step out on you means that this relationship means something different in your your eyes than it does in my eyes.

But you're saying it's different if it's a man?

I wouldn't say it's totally different.

I think the disrespect is there, but I think you said if it's a woman and she forgives him, or if it's a woman and she forgives him, it's fine and it can all work.

But if a man forgives a woman, it's difficult. I said it's difficult. I said it's very difficult. But I do think men can compartmentalize sex in a way women can't. Similarly, when we were talking about male cheats, you were very quick to say that the cheater is a problem.

But when females cheat, it's an emotional.

Need she was outsourcing, which seems to.

Be a I didn't say she wasn't wrong.

I said I was wrong. Only when I probed that.

Only when I probed that you were wrong. I have no issue saying anyone who cheats is in the wrong. But it was, what I was refuting was the idea that she's only cheating because she doesn't respect him.

Yeah.

That she could be cheating because of an emotional connection that she's not finding in the relationship. I'm not suggesting there aren't also logical reasons why men cheat, but it's wrong on either side.

It is wrong on either side, but the previous conversation it's very much a fault of the cheater. In this case, there was a compassion to her reasoning. Now, there wasn't a compassion to a man cheating because he wants sex. Like, you know, if we're going to.

Show compassion, it has to be on both ends. The woman that is actually showing compassion to the woman, what I was saying was your assertion that there's only one reason women cheat, and it's because they don't have respect for their man, was.

A really singular notion. But I would still argue that, because even if she's lacking emotional connection, connection. You're going to lose respect for the person that you don't have a connection with, but you're tied to. There's going to be some, because, look, there's some women that lack emotional connection, but they don't progress to cheating. There's some women that lack Financial stability. They don't go to cheating. I think the lacking is one component, but it's not the only. I guess what I'm saying is, why is it different for men? The only, I would, I personally don't think there's much coming back from when men cheat either. But in my personal experience, Sometimes what I notice is men go into two categories, right? Some men will, when a woman forgives them, they'll think, right, I've got a freedom pass, I can do this forever. I'm gonna do this forever. Other men will think, I've done it, I've tried it, I've tried all types of, it's usually sexual.

So it's out of my system.

I hurt myself, I hurt my wife. I hurt myself, and then they can lose my family, my kids. Yeah, there's too much to lose, and then they can repair. With women, it's just not, and also the other thing is he doesn't start to think less of her for forgiving forgiving him. In my experience, men don't think less of a woman for forgiving him. They might think, they might go and disrespect and do it again, but they still think, oh, she's really loyal and they kind of like the forgiveness. They kind of appreciate the forgiveness. With the forgiveness when you give to a woman, it just makes her feel like I have a man that doesn't respect himself. He likes the relationship more than he likes himself.

I really, I really struggle with that. I disagree.

I, you know, have you worked with men that have been cheated on.

Oh, yeah.

And have they been cheated on just the one time, or do they end up getting cheated on again and again by the same person?

Well, I can't say I've worked with someone over six months or a year and tracked whether they've been cheated on multiple times, but I. The idea being put forward is that women don't have shame around having, you know, the primary emotion. for most people when they cheat, and unless they're incredibly unhealthy, is shame. It's terrible shame. It's guilt that overwhelms them, men or women.

What if someone doesn't have that?

Well, I would argue that that is someone who maybe fits more the mold you're talking about.

But I would say that the underlying trait to cheat is a lack of guilt and a lack of shame. I think to get that involves an element of lack of shame and guilt.

I don't know that that's true. There's so many people who cheat are guilt ridden, shame ridden, hate themselves afterwards, regret it for years. Many people go to therapy to try to overcome the shame and the guilt they feel from having cheated.

Would you say those are more the people that do it one time by accident? I'm talking prolonged affairs can't be that much shame and guilt. Prolonged affairs, I wouldn't say has that much otherwise so it stopped.

Well, there's, there are affairs that go on too long, and there are affairs that people stop and then look back on and go, how could I have done that? I mean, mistakes fall into both categories, both the act of passion and, and loss of judgment in the moment. Sometimes it's a loss of judgment for four months. But what I guess what I'm saying is the idea that I, I just want to, I really don't want to perpetuate this idea because it really inflames men in a way that I think is bad for relations between men and women. This idea that women are sort of especially bad and underhanded and that they'll go and cheat and once they've cheated to add insult to injury, if he forgives her, they'll go, yuck, you forgave me.

Absolutely.

I have no respect for you now. That is perpetuating an idea that actually makes a lot of men incredibly angry at women for very unjust reasons because the truth is women are just as capable capable of feeling, and in many cases more so, feeling tremendous shame and guilt after they've cheated. That is the headline. The headline isn't, if he forgives me, I am gonna keep screwing him over, over and over again. The headline is, Then how do you explain, I am guilt ridden, and if he's forgiven me, I still struggle with the guilt and it's gonna take me a long time to get over it.

But then how do you explain perpetual cheaters, which happens many, many times on both sides? Yeah, but how do you explain that?

I'm not making a difference between men and women here.

You are. I know, but here's what I'm saying is that there isn't really a huge difference in terms of the propensity to cheat again. The difference is how the people respond to it. One is slightly more dangerous than the other. The response, when it comes to the anger and hate men feel to themselves, because look, fundamentally, everybody, they might say differently. Fundamentally, if you ask somebody who's been cheated on, if they had a magic pill, one would make them forgive their partner, and the other one would give them the willingness to walk away. Which pill would Mose people wish they had the ability to walk away because they don't want to live with those thoughts and flashbacks. I genuinely believe if you gave everybody those options, men or women, they would take the pill that says, I have the willingness to walk away and understand that this is not healthy for me rather than a pill that makes me forgive. So when you have to automatically go down the path you don't truly want to be in, and then you're faced with the flashbacks, and then you're faced with the kind of worry and paranoia and stuff combined with increased physical strength, it's not a safe environment to put yourselves in. And I also have a different point than the one you were just making.

Yeah, I know.

That's not the physical point.

It's a very different point.

Yeah, that aside, the lack of respect is you don't... Look, I wish this wasn't the truth. I'm not saying this from a prejudiced perspective. I'm saying this from a factual perspective. I wish it wasn't the truth. But the reality is we know, look, we've all looked up, pick pick up artists. Yeah, we've all looked at pickup artists in the past. The fundamental kind of theme, pickup artists tell men when you want to pick up women is what? To act like there's plenty of fish in the sea. That is a fundamental trait that gets women into bed with you. You act like there's plenty of fish in the sea. When you become that guy that's too needy, that's too kind of persistent, you lose her sexual interest. Now, if that works on a short-term Fling. Tell me how on a long-term level, when you know your wife has slept with another man and had sex with another man, every position you've done with her, she's done it with another man, and you show forgiveness on that end. Is that not just an extreme version of the guy that double texts?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Completely different.

Why is that? Because you're discounting what a relationship is. A relationship is two people who have built something together.

Together.

You're reducing the, the, a relationship to, you know, his ability to demonstrate he can go and get other people. And that it's an, you're, again, you're still framing forgiveness, which in the right context, not in every context, but in the right context, is an extraordinary, Brave and Powerful Act.

All weak.

As an, all week, if it is, in some context.

Yeah.

But you're framing all forgiveness as an act of desperation.

Here's the thing with forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't mean continuation. If you were my husband and you hit me, I can forgive you in five minutes. I'm a very non grudge kind of person, but I would not stay married to you.

It's as simple as that. But you said, and you said everyone, everyone, if they could have the choice, would take the pill to leave.

And that's just not true.

Well, then, if there are plenty of people who, who, by the way, in many cases, if someone cheats on you, leaving is easier. Leaving is the easier way out. Stay Healing and doing the work with someone to get over it is the harder path. People don't take the easy pill of just leaving a lot of the time. And not just because they're desperate or because they're too weak, sometimes they take the other road because they are brave and because they actually believe in the relationship and they love the person.

But the love is not reciprocal is the key component because if it was reciprocal, nobody would be doing something that would fundamentally destroy it. So the love is not reciprocal.

Not clear. Your belief is that on the male or the female side, or maybe you're just talking about women again. If someone cheats, they do not love the person and they are not capable of ever loving the person again.

Their version of Love involves incredible amount of pain to the person they love. Now, if you co-sign that behavior, you are not demonstrating self-compassion you're developing, you're demonstrating codependency. Yes, you can forgive, and it's a difficult route and you can go, but what you're ignoring Cheating is a symptom, not the cause of the pain. There's a deeper issue of respect in the relationship that's been lost. There's a deeper issue of transparency in the relationship that's been lost.

There's a deeper issue of trust that's been lost. Let me ask you this.

What is your message to a cheating spouse? Yeah, before you ask it though, what I'm hearing Saadia say is, when you create a relationship that's healthy, there's standards that you're supposed to have, right? And hopefully you communicate those, but some of those are uncommunicated.

We're not supposed to cheat if we're in a committed, this is a relationship.

And especially if you're reciprocating.

Like, yeah, it should be reciprocated.

It should be reciprocated. We're gonna trust each other. We're gonna be loyal. We're not gonna cheat on each other. That's a committed relationship unless you've communicated otherwise and has some other type of relationship. People go, that's not cheating in my eyes. Exactly. You're, you know, so I know your book is all about, you know, setting standards at a certain level. So let's say the standards are met where men and women say, we're not gonna do this. And then it happens once that someone breaks the standard. which maybe someone's emotionally angry at someone and they broke a standard there. Maybe they did something else behind their back that it wasn't sexual cheating. We're talking about sexual cheating now.

And.

What would you think then if someone did break that standard? If it was a man that cheated on the woman, should the woman stay? If the man says, I'm really sorry, it's never going to happen again, or he just just says, I'm just not getting my needs met. You know, either way, that's.

She be brave for forgiving him and very kind for forgiving him.

She might be. Yeah. I mean, that's an intensely personal decision that every single person has to make. No one can make that on behalf of another person. I I. But would she be brave and she'd.

Be good to forgive him and she'd be a kind person to forgive him?

Well, no, that depends where it's coming from.

But then why is it. Why is your answer different for men and women?

It's not different. My. My answer is the same for men and women. So what is it? What was strange to me is that it was for you, it was a man was capable of cheating and then moving on with the continuing with the relationship, having been forgiven and creating a healthy relationship on the back of that.

I did say that's not. I said it's not.

Okay. But it was very definitive about saying 100 with women. They are incapable of such grace.

Yeah.

That they cannot do it. In fact, for them, the only motivator is how manly and masculine the person is. And apparently that's defined by him rejecting her after she slept with someone else.

It's not that he's not attracted to men. And I have to wonder what you.

Would say to the huge number of people who will be watching this, who have had infidelity in their relationship and have gone on to have beautiful relationships after that.

I would say that in my personal experience, the reason I'm so adamant with this this message. Whenever I've done videos where I talk about this, the endless amount of comments and messages I get saying this is a hundred percent true. I forgave my wife. She did it again and again. And I found out my children weren't mine. She did it again. The risk of men forgiving cheating is bigger than the risk of women's forgiving cheating. If I cheat on the biological kids, the kids. Now, there are some fundamental differences between men and women. I simply biological.

Explain that to me again. So if a man cheats, Yeah. And he leaves her on her own with kids. That doesn't represent a giant issue for her?

It does represent a huge issue.

But in your mind, the issue is bigger if she cheats and he has.

Children that he's paying for. I know there's cases of men going to jail.

So there's a financial obligation, but that's a worse one than the woman who's going to spend her life raising children on her own when a guy leaves.

But here's the thing, the law. But here's the thing. I don't want to hear that.

I think that the financial financial, the, the financial risk is bigger than the risk to a woman of bringing up a family on her own. If a guy leaves, the law helps when you, if I, if I have.

A, my husband doesn't pay child support, the law will help me. But she'll still, you'll still be raising kids.

I will be. I will be.

But that's a less risk. Financially, you ask financially. So I'll stay on the finance.

No, I'm saying, is the finance a lesser risk to you than a woman having to bring up a family on.

Her own for the rest of her life? But here's the thing, bringing up the children, alone will happen men or women cheating or just a breakdown of relationship is. But here's the key difference. If I have a child with somebody and he chooses not to pay child support, I can take, I can get the law involved. But if I pretend the child's his and he's not paying child support, he can end up in jail for a child that's not even his. So the risks involved are.

So if a woman cheats, what I'm hearing you say, if a woman cheats and doesn't tell the husband he's with, then she's in relationship and has a child that's not the husband's child. The man.

Imagine the emotional consequences of that. Imagine that. So we're women. Look, we always know our child is ours. One thing we can go through life is with that certainty that even if we're left alone raising this child, this is my child. I wore this child. And, you know, yes, it's difficult, but it's in my child. The emotional consequences of raising children and then rigging, figuring out they're not yours or going to jail for not paying child support. Their child's not even yours. That's aside. That's still kind of a secondary thing. My main question is, why when a man cheats on a woman, we are so quick to blame the person and say he was outsource in his knees and yourself included were like the cheater is wrong or he might be nasty. No, no, no, no, no.

Hang on, hang on. Don't put words in my mouth. I said men and women are wrong if they cheat. What I don't do is draw a strange difference between men and women in this department.

Which is what you seem to do with women. Can you then cut outwardly say it's incredibly brave and incredibly compassionate on on.

Either side, I think if someone's coming from a place of love and strength, not from a place of having zero boundaries, not from a place of not respecting themselves, if they decide that they believe the person and that they understand that person well enough to understand why that act happened and where it came from, and they want to be big enough because it requires an extremely big person on the side of a man or a woman to be able do that.

It.

If they want to do that, I think that's an extraordinary act, and it's an extraordinary ability to sidestep ego and do something out of love. I can't believe I've spent so much of this episode defending, you know, forgiving cheating, because it's not. Look at any other piece of content I've ever done. I've never even talked about this before, but it just.

It.

It really feels to I think what you're saying is a real dismissal of so many people will be watching this going, I've had infidelity in my relationship and we're 10 years past that and we have an extraordinary relationship and how dare you invalidate my entire relationship?

What about the millions of people who have watched it and thought to themselves, if I had just known this, I wouldn't have carried on with that woman, started a family with her and now she lives in my home with another man and I I pay child support. What about those people?

That's an eventuality. But any woman can tell any number of stories that are equivalent to that.

I know, but it's an equal amount of people on both ends. We can't just cater to one end of the argument.

Who's doing that? But if I say, I think what's, again, I don't is, we keep getting mixed up here. I am saying it's the same on either side.

Okay.

You seem to be saying that this, making this point about women and how they are just driven by whether they respect the man or not. They are incapable of, which I think is a real insult to women, actually. They are incapable.

But not women cheaters. It's a different story.

So women, cheaters aren't women anymore.

No, we're female cheaters. Female cheaters is different to women.

I don't draw a distinction. I'm talking about female cheater. You're saying female cheaters are fundamentally different from male cheaters because a female cheater will look at a guy and say, if you give me, there goes my respect for you. And I am saying that is massively insulting to women's ability to cheat women's ability to cheat women are still women.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I think it's a sub group. Because if I said, if I wasn't saying a blanket statement of women don't appreciate forgiveness, then I wouldn't be in a relationship. I required forgiveness from my partner so many times.

The way you speak about people who cheat is like they're the Antichrist and they'll never be able to come back from it.

But earlier you said I was too soft on people that cheat.

No, no, no. I said, They're wrong and we should call it wrong. That's what I said last time. We should call it wrong. I'm not calling it wrong on the women's side. I'm saying it's wrong on all sides. I'm just, I don't, this idea that, you know, give a woman an inch and she'll take a mile, like, is actually perpetuating this myth about women that actually sows division between men and women. It has men thinking that, who cheat are particularly bad.

Who cheat are particularly bad.

But men who cheat aren't particularly bad.

I haven't said that. I haven't said that. But here's what you- I think there.

Is a rhetoric, I have to say, there is a rhetoric if anyone is listening between the lines of what you're saying that really does, it's a kind of insidious notion about women and how they're sort of especially underhanded or especially calculating. related that apparently men are not. They're sort of bumbling. You know, they'll cheat, but afterwards, I say whatever.

But when it comes to women. Yeah.

Don't forgive a woman. Because a woman is incapable of respecting.

It's not a case of don't forgive a woman. I'm telling you from a female perspective.

I don't think many women would agree with you.

I think, look, here's the thing. Cheating women have come to me and told me this, that they cheat again and again. I get from cheaters.

But I don't think that's all cheating women.

I agree. I don't think that's all women who cheat. I don't, I, I would, you might not agree with that. But me personally, in my personal experience, I wouldn't make this up. I haven't made this up. But what I, I, I would love to believe that once you forgive a woman for cheating, she is so apologetic and she never does it again. Men or women reality. Here's what I would say about forgiving. Yes, you might think it's a martyrdom Act. Me personally, I don't think that.

But you might think it's a signal of martyrdom. For me, a signal of strength in a loving relationship.

In order for me to be in a loving relationship and from what I see, love has to be reciprocal and it has to be based on the idea of respecting each other outside in their absence. Your definition of love is I love you so I'm going to make it work. My definition of love is my love on you is predicated on the fact that you respect me in my absence. Without that reciprocality, we don't actually have love. We have one person attached to another person who is not reciprocating that love. that love. Now, just to give you an example.

Someone who cheats can't love the other person.

I've refuted that. But respect, I'm not saying love, but the respect isn't there, regardless of that. But what I would say is, outside of the respect, what I'm trying to say to you is that when you forgive a cheater, instead of going into it with the rose-tinted glasses that, oh, this is so forgiving and so loving, my actual advice would be is if you're going to forgive a cheater, go in with the knowledge that they probably will do it again. They might not, but they probably will because people don't lie. Their behavior doesn't lie.

But that's a different point than the one I've been talking about.

Pause here for a second.

I want to let you guys continue on this, but I want to pause for a second because I want people to chime in in the comments. And if you've ever been cheated on and you've been able to make it work, I would love to hear in the comments the process of how you made it work. Because I think for other people, Watching or listening to see your comments of like, yes, it worked or if you've ever been cheated on and you tried to make it work and it didn't, share that as well. And also, if you're a man or woman, share if you've been cheated on and if you believe you can respect or love or both the person again after they've cheated on you or if you've cheated on someone, and they've forgiven you, do you feel like you can respect and love them? Maybe it's in a stronger bond afterwards or maybe you have less of respect. I'm curious to hear your thoughts and feedback on that.

Would you, would you put that in you personally? Do you think for me personally, if my husband was to forgive me cheating, a part of me would want better for him. I would want, I love him so much that my thought would be you deserve a woman who respects you in your absence. I deserve a man that respects me in my absence. So yes, I'm not saying that you can't recover, but you don't go in blind and assume love is the cure. You assume reality testing is the cure.

But there's kind of a common commentary on yourself.

Yeah, but it's also what I've seen in my practice.

If you say you cheated on your husband and then he took you back and you'd say, God, you deserve better.

Yeah.

It's really a commentary, not on his masculinity, but what you think of yourself.

But it's also on his masculinity because I would want him to realize his worth.

It has nothing to do with his masculinity. It has to do with whether he believes the relationship is worth saving, which has no, which is no different to a woman forgiving a man. and this is my point. It's not, I am not trying to make a point here about whether people who cheat once will cheat again. I haven't actually commented on that point. We can talk about that. That's a different point.

The masculinity is what you're saying is.

That this strange distinction that you've created around women, I think is a really, a really divisive one for men and women. And I don't think men need another reason to look at women and go, they're especially conniving or they're especially bad or just, you know, be vulnerable in front of a woman once or be, you know, or for men to associate forgiveness with weakness.

But here's why I would say that is an essential component, because most men that you find that are jaded by women, that are these red pill men, are men who were repeatedly cheated on and they didn't understand the importance of walking away when they, I would argue.

The men that I've jaded, because they're.

Saying that I did forgive. Exactly. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. Because when you look at the men that are in these comments and that are furious or the ones that really hate women. They didn't get there by beautiful women that were submissive and loyal to them. They got there because they had one cheating woman and they gave her forgiveness and forgiveness.

The message to the red pill men is what you've experienced is no different to what gets experienced on the other side. So your enemy is not women.

Yeah.

Your enemy is the kinds of people who continuously disrespect you and betray you. And, and the, the red pill Community, the target on women and you're helping them.

Let me ask you on both sides before we go on there. If someone cheats once and then they have a conversation, man or woman, and they have a conversation, they found out, the partner found out whether they told them about it or they found out through some other means.

Yeah.

Told them or they found a message, whatever. And they say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm really sorry. Man or woman.

Yeah.

I want to try to make this work. I love I love you, I respect you, but I faltered. Maybe my emotional needs aren't being met. Maybe you are gone all the time, whatever it is. Whatever excuse, there is no excuse.

But there's an explanation sometimes.

But there's some type of explanation. Hypothetical. And say the man or woman says, you know what? Obviously this is not okay with me. I'm going to take some time to process this, and eventually they forgive them. Let's say this happens. Maybe six months goes by a year, a few years go by, but then the same person cheats again. Let's just hypothetically say, should you forgive again? Or is that the time when you should say, you know what? I love you, I appreciate you, I appreciate this relationship, but I have more respect for myself, man or woman. And this isn't work for me. You've crossed the boundary multiple times now. We've communicated it, we've tried to work it out, work on it. It's not, if you're doing this, should the person stay after being cheated on twice? I'll let you start with that.

I, again, to be clear, I'm not even saying you should stay if you get cheated on a first time. At no point in this conversation am I saying that.

Is that a sign of bravery and forgiveness and compassion according to your earlier discussion?

No, I don't think I said that at all. I said in a relationship, anyone has the right to decide either to leave because of their boundaries and it's been violated and I'm not interested in staying with someone who's betrayed me in this way. Or, I believe that there is something really important here worth saving. I happen to believe that this transgression is not going to occur again based on the conversations we've had. It's going to take me a long time to heal and to work through this, and you're going to have to be a massive part of helping me work through this. But I am choosing to do that. What I said is that for the person who comes from that place, not that I'll never be okay if I'm on my own, so I'm going stay, but when it's coming from that place, that's a brave act. But I also don't judge for one second anybody who says, you cheated, I'm out. I don't, you know, this is, I couldn't have been more clear on this. So if someone cheats a second time, then yeah, with anything in life, if someone on that scale is enacting multiple betrayal trials, you have to say, on what basis do I think really think this isn't going to happen again?

Right.

I was convinced it wasn't going to happen again. First of the first.

I'm curious.

What basis would I. With all the noble qualities that were assigned to the person who forgives in the first place. Like, let's say it's a man forgiving a woman. Some people. Yeah. Let's say it's a man forgiving a woman and he had all those noble qualities of bravery. It's not a lack of masculinity. Forgiveness. Why do those qualities disappear if she's doing it again. Why is it still not an act of bravery? Still not an act of nobility? Why is it still not a signal of how much the relationship means to them?

Of course, with every, with, you know, as evidence mounts that this person doesn't mean what they say, when they say that they've done the work to make sure this never happens again, it becomes more and more of a fantasy. The idea that what you're saving is, you know, you both see the relationship the same way. You know, that, that, that illusion of they've changed, they've, they've done the work has been massively eroded. And that you might be able to, the first time around, you might be able to convince yourself, and they might be able to convince you that there is something fundamentally different this time. But of course, with every other time it happens, It starts to turn on us to say, well, there's a pattern here. And if I ignore a pattern, then I'm gonna likely pay the consequences.

For me, the reason why I was so strict the first time is because they didn't, if they had six a one night stand, absolutely, I agree with your statement. But if it's, it doesn't matter if you had the affair once and then five years later. But if it was a one six month affair, that means six months of continuously betraying. It wasn't a one off betrayal. So that is a pattern by the time you figured it out. by the time you find a partner cheating, it's already over.

It's different if it's a one.

Yeah, you're saying if there's an affair.

It'S not just a one, it's a whole different story. But generally speaking, we were just talking about the concept of cheating. Yeah, the concept of cheating. When the person cheats, it's very unlikely you find out the first time. There's been a pattern going on for a while. That's why to me it doesn't make a difference if you forgive the first.

Time or the third time, the behavior.

Is going to continue.

Because the first time you caught them.

You were insinuating like if they just had sex and that was it.

People cheat once.

On a one night stand? On a one night stand? Or one affair?

For me, there are people who transgress in all of life. Cheating doesn't live in a special category of like everything else is fair. Cheating is just one other way we screw up in life, right? It doesn't live in a different category than everything else in life.

And.

People do, they make mistakes in life. And there is this, like, at some, with everything in life, we have to have a relationship with it that says, I am capable of making a mistake once. And again, I'm not defending cheating. That's not what I'm here to do. I'm just saying that in life, we have to say that we're capable of making a mistake once. Otherwise, we're all screwed. I have to imagine there are mistakes you've made that you've made once and gone, I'll never make that mistake again.

I certainly. But here's my key with forgiving, forgiving, cheating or forgiving any Behavior. Expect it to happen. again. That's all. I, with forgiveness, has to come a reprogramming of your scheme of this relationship. It has to because you're being presented with evidence. Now it would be naive of me to go back into the relationship saying this person is incapable of doing that same behavior again. The better thing for me to do is I totally forgive you, but now I'm going to be aware that you have a capability I didn't know you had before. Chances are you might do it again, but my goal is now to forgive you, hope that you don't, but be prepared if if you could do that naivety of just forgiveness and love conquers all doesn't actually exist in the real world. What happens in the real world is reality conquers all. Yeah. That's why I would say, I think.

Matthew is talking about, you know, if you're gonna forgive and have these hard conversations after someone's been aware that someone's cheated, and you're gonna say, listen, do you really, you're gonna have to need to feel this person wants to be with you, that they have some serious remorse that they say, I made a horrible mistake. you know, and mine, I never want to do this again, and I never want to hurt you again, and I hurt you, and I'm sorry. I'm assuming this is what would need to happen.

By the way, let's be clear. That cheating came, that was a response to something they were feeling, and in order to have any confidence that someone isn't going to do that to you again, they need to show you that they're doing the deep work.

Everything.

To rewire their response system so that whatever they were feeling, whether it was, you know, unhappy, bored, horny, whatever it was, insecure, that their response system to feeling those things will never, ever again be that. And that's not something that just happens because someone decides, I'll never cheat again. That happens because someone does therapy or because they rewire those patterns to make sure that this something has fundamentally shifted in the way that I approach my life, that that will never again be my response system. This is serious stuff. It's not just someone saying, I'll never do it again. No, it's, it's having some. And by the way, the reason why it's so hard to heal from cheating is because it's so hard, aside from just the sheer betrayal that people feel, it's really hard to know whether someone has really done that work or not and to determine when you can be confident that they've really done that.

And you can't measure their attachment to the other. how attached were they? And did they just stop because the other person didn't work out? So it's a very difficult.

It's tricky.

Yeah, it's a very difficult.

I mean, I want to ask a couple of other questions before we wrap this up. But to kind of transition that you alluded to it, if you've been cheated on in a relationship, whether it's you're married or just a long-term committed relationship, and the relationship ends, betrayal happened, the relationships end, whether they ended it or you ended it because you got cheated on, but whatever happens, it ends. How can, like you said, how can someone start to heal after they've been cheated on so that they can set themselves up for a healthier relationship the next time around?

Like we said earlier, I think having those difficult conversations with your partner to understand what is their coping mechanisms when things go bad. Some people, when things start to go bad, their coping mechanism is to outsource love and affection from another the person. That's just what they do. They have a backup plan. Other people, their coping mechanism might be alcohol, whatever it is, or they might have discussions. It's figuring out what do people do when things are tough. Now, if they use human connection as a form of coping mechanism, this person is probably likely to cheat. So you start to go into relationships with a bit more awareness of what causes it, a bit more understanding of what can be the signs. And it doesn't mean you go in with a radar and just knock everybody off a straightaway, but you go in with a transparency and open communication that this is what I've been through. I never wanna go through it again. If you have these tendencies, what can we do in our relationship to make sure neither of us feel the need to go to alternatives? Or you might decide both of us do have a need for alternatives. How do we create an open conversation about that? I understand in this day and age expecting no one to ever cheat in a million years is difficult. I understand that. But how do we manage whatever our boundaries are? How do we speak about it and manage it in a way that neither of us is blindsided by the other's behavior? yeah.

Okay. Matthew, how was it?

Was the question, how do you heal if you leave or how do you.

Heal if the relationship ends and you're starting a different relationship with someone? You're, you know, you're single for a while before you get into the next relationship, I guess. How do you heal before you've met.

Someone or once you've met someone?

Before you get into the next relationship, how do you heal or how do you go through a healing process so that get into a new relationship without the, I guess, traumas of being cheated on before.

I think understand that that's for some people that that really takes time. It's not an overnight process of just trusting again. It's that there's a, you have to grieve for the version of you that believed in this relationship and that came to this relationship in good good faith that, you know, you had a mutual understanding of what was acceptable and that that was violated and that you were betrayed. And that there's a, you know, this is where once again, self-compassion comes in because it's you're grieving for that you that believed in that relationship and thought that it would last and thought that would remain beautiful in all of those ways. And that actually that part of you that believed all those things was in many ways the best part of you. It wasn't the worst, it wasn't the most foolish, it wasn't the most desperate, it wasn't, it was the best part of you that believed that. And, and someone did something to betray that and, and to really grieve for that part of you. I was betrayed and I got so hurt in the process and I deserved so much better than that. Especially the way I was showing up in that relationship. You know, I think sometimes we. We look at ourselves and how we were in a relationship and we think we were fools. But actually, we saw what we were capable of. We saw how we could love and how we could. How we could show up for someone when we loved Yeah. And that's beautiful. That version of us was betrayed doesn't take away from how beautiful that version of us is and how beautiful that version of us will be for somebody else who has a different character or shows up differently in the relationship. But I think that's the beginning of healing that.

Do you think someone who's been cheated on, if they don't process and grieve and heal and they jump into another relationship too quickly, they don't heal within that process, do you think they're more likely to get cheated on again if they don't heal that in them?

I don't know if we're, if we haven't grieved for that part of us and we haven't had that compassion for that part of us and really felt it, then we might miss a connection that we can make with ourselves during a time like that. When you've, when you've been hurt like that, it's like a beautiful time to make a connection with yourself that maybe you. I feel like those wounds give us an opening to really, like, make friends with ourself and show up for ourselves, and that builds a stronger connection.

And some people go into, like, self hate, though, you know, during that time, like, how could I be so stupid? Yeah, but that's the blame.

That's the that's the blaming. And it.

But you're saying there's an opportunity for.

You to really connect with yourself and to. And to show up for yourself as a safe and loving force. And when we do that and we nurture ourselves through the process of healing, we'll find ourselves naturally next time around being more protective of ourselves because we go, God, it took me so much to take care of myself. and to nurse myself through this pain, that I'm going to be really conscious about who I allow into my life. Because I want to only, this person I've been protecting for the last six months or a year deserves goodness. And if you don't make that relationship, make that connection with yourself in that time, then you may not feel connected to yourself enough to protect yourself next time around. so now you might put yourself in the way of people that don't represent that goodness.

Yes.

And instead of seeing that I shouldn't put myself around a person like this, we simply go, I just have to monitor them as much as possible because I need to make sure I'm hypervigilant all the time and constantly checking whether they're hurting me like.

Yeah.

The last thing I want to do.

Is create more trauma. No, because we want to be able to relax in a relationship.

Creating more trauma. for yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this. The biggest reason why. What do you think, Louis?

What do you think about forgiving cheating? We didn't get your opinion.

Sure, man. Well, well, before I share that, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the biggest reason why they think people, they think relationships fail. You guys shared both your thoughts on that and then also kind of your perspective on cheating. I asked you guys that in the comments already, but add to that, what was the biggest takeaway from this so far. For me, I think, I just think it's really hard. I think you have to be willing, you have to be such a person willing to think about consciousness in a different way. And you have to see something in the other person, if you've been cheated on, that believes, fully believes that they won't do it again. And so you have to say, okay, I'm willing to let go of this ego or this lack of self-respect that maybe I'm feeling or lack of this betrayal that happened. I have to be willing to forgive or let go or transform my emotions and my hurt from this in some way and say, I believe in what they're saying in front of me, that they're fully remorseful and sorry, that they, and they're going to show me a different level of respect every single day. Until I believe it fully. And that's going to take time from the other person. So I think that's the only way it can work. If someone has some type of consciousness that's like, wow, okay. And they can also, some people are going to like this. If they can also say, maybe I wasn't able to, maybe I wasn't showing up fully. Maybe I was gone too much, or maybe I wasn't having the emotional conversations, or maybe I wasn't present and looking at you. It's a dynamic. Whatever it was.

Yeah, there's a dynamic.

I'm not saying it's okay that this happened. but how can I show up to make sure that, or what conversations do I need to have so that we're more in alignment? You know, maybe I've been lacking intimacy myself, whatever it might be. I'm not saying it's okay for the actions to happen, but say, well, how can I show up differently? And I don't know. I think it's possible. I think it's highly unlikely and it's hard to do. I think it's hard to do for two people to say, I really I want this, I'm gonna be conscious, I'm gonna stick to new standards myself. But I think those that do it probably have the most beautiful relationship. Because they've been through some of the hardest stuff and they've overcome it, then they could create this incredible bond of love, trust, respect, and both of them.

Feel like there was something they were doing wrong and they can fix that wrong.

And I think if they could do that, it's either the 1% that can do that might have the best relationship ever, but you need both With parties.

To be equally invested. Yeah.

Yeah, I met people actually a couple weeks ago where this happened and they divorced and they took two years apart. They barely saw each other. They just dropped the kids off in the corner, you know, drop off no contact. And they both started to heal. Two years later, they remarried.

Oh, amazing.

So it's like they had time apart. They hated each other. Then they got, you know, then they transformed and they both said, oh, I saw something in that person before, and now we're gonna come back together. And they're back together now and they feel stronger because of it. Now it doesn't mean they might be hurt and pain still, but I think when two people go through pain... You.

Have to risk love with somebody anyways, so you can risk it with the person you're already with.

Exactly. So I think it's highly unlikely unless both parties transform into new people. You have to both shed old identities and become new. That's the only way. I think. That's my thought. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below.

You're equally an expert in this field, so I think the expert through personal.

Experience and through wisdom of life.

No, your wisdom as well. Yeah, okay.

But I'm so grateful for both of you. We have Saadia Khan here, saadiapsychology.com and the Saadia Psychology on Instagram. You've got tons of content, videos, and you do one-on-one coaching as well, so people can check you out anywhere on social media or saadiapsychology.com as well. MatthewHussey.com, the3Relationships.com for your newsletter, Love Life, the book which just hit New York Times bestseller. People can follow you, tons of great YouTube content, tons of social media content as well. You leave workshops for women all around the world. You lead a lot of workshops for men. Women who've been heartbroken by men who screwed them over. Men who've been heartbroken by women screwed them over.

Everybody here. Different perspectives from both.

But I think it's been beautiful. Yeah, I really appreciate it.

I love hearing the alternative perspective. And like I said, I'm skewed because of my clientele tends to be men who are jaded. So I have this perspective. But it's interesting to hear the other perspective. So I really appreciate you challenging me with all of that.

I'm curious, what is the biggest takeaway you heard from Matthew and what he was sharing that maybe is different from what you've had to say, but just the biggest takeaway for you? and I'm curious the biggest takeaway for you from what Saadia shared during this conversation.

I think the importance of self-compassion in the sense that it's not always needed to be branded as a weakness. I know that I have this very staunch and I think it's probably hardened from the work I do, but the idea that self-compassion is almost, I almost used to equate it to self-pity, which I don't see as a strong emotion, but realizing that it's actually the driving force behind self- change is what I've taken away from this. So it's an important component to motivate you into becoming more accountable anyway. Yeah.

Okay. There you go.

I think that for me, it's just a, you know, we said it before, the, the debate, the Lively debate that can happen in a positive way, I think is, you know, it's like, I don't see enough of it.

Yeah.

You know, I think that's a, it's a lost art. So the fact that, you know, I respect for debate. For sure, for sure. And you're extremely gracious in the way that you, you know, come at debate. So it's, I like it. I do it, I do it.

This will be time. This wasn't meant to be a debate.

And let's like go against each other.

I was more just curious of the perspectives.

This was just curious.

This is the first time we've done this.

I'm excited for this.

I think, you know, I'm curious to see what you guys think at home, whether you're listening or watching, leave a comment below. And if you want to hear more, what topics do you want to hear.

From both of them?

If they'll come back together, we'll see. And thank you guys both for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. Thank you guys.

It's beautiful.

I think the myth is that it's just all women go around looking for status and money. And that, you know, when they see status walk into a room, they're like, yes, please. And if that were true, then every rich dude that walked into a room would be the hottest property around.

And you just know that's not true.

A lot of guys who make a lot of money.