Inside the Mind of a Cheater: Why They Do It and Who They Target

In today's podcast, we're going to be discussing inside the mind of a cheater, why they do it, and who they target.

Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy.

Gary, thank you for the upbeat topic today. Appreciate it, buddy. Okay.

I'm glad you're being honest. Like, okay, tell, tell everybody listening how excited you are to talk about this topic today.

Well, we just had another really fun podcast. I'm, like, kind of in a good mood. I'm ready to go. And I'm just like, oh, cheating is so heavy and it's awful. And even before this, we were just talking about how it's. We can't believe that people can still cheat even in this day and age. Like, how would one? Even with social media and technology and everything. But it's still such a big problem. Oh, my God. It's wild.

It's a big, It's a big deal. And I think, you know, you don't want to talk about it. I don't enjoy talking about it because I think by default, we are both really positive, upbeat, solution oriented people. But I also think there's something to be said for covering every once in a while some of the darker sides of relationships, because these things are a reality, too. And I know a bunch of our clients end up working with us because they've experienced cheating in the past.

And the vast majority, I mean, yeah, we'll do this at the next event we have, but I'd be curious, show of hands, if you've been cheated on. And I would, if I had to put a number on it, I'd say it's 90%. Yeah, it's very high.

It's high. And, you know, there's a lot of different stories that our clients bring to us, but there's one that has recently kind of stuck out. And it was, it's essentially why she ended up, you know, enrolling in our program. But she did. The way she described it was it didn't happen overnight. One day we were laughing and everything seemed perfect. The next, we were sitting in silence at dinner, wondering how we got here and how the emptiness crept in. And then she was asking like, what got between us? And that's what she was wondering. And that's actually what prompted her to start asking more questions of her partner. Like, where did this emptiness come from when this lack of fulfillment come from? And as they kind of got into it and she got a little bit more suspicious, it turned out he was in fact being unfaithful. And it's, it's such a violation, it's such a betrayal. Because we all expect that love should be perfect. It should be simple and should be always amazing. And. Except it isn't, right? And so you should believe that love is all of these things. And so it makes it hard to see it coming when you encounter somebody who does betray you. But it, I also think, you know, so many, all affairs aren't created equal. Some of them are like one night stands, a short little tryst. Some of them are out circumstance, inconvenience. Others are long, calculated affairs. And so the cool, interesting part about cheating is that it's one of those areas that relationship science really has spent a decent amount of time, time and energy looking into. And so there's lots of bad relationship behaviors out there. Cheating happens to be one of the worst. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. And again, uplifting, super uplifting and positive. But like, why do people cheat? Who's most likely to get cheated on? And then a last little bit about how to catch a cheater.

Well, and I think when we're, most of our clients are single and looking for love, when they work with us and they, when we're single, we kind of focus so much on dating, we forget about relationships. And something that I've heard you say is that intimacy tends to start with an explosion, but if it ends, it ends by erosion. Right? It ends with a lack of maintenance in the relationship. And, and that maintenance is so important, which is why, you know, really, you started here at Love Strategies because we not only wanted to focus on dating and how to date, how to flirt, how to meet high value, high caliber guys, but also how maintain those relationships because it's really easy to have like the simple brain of like, she cheated on me, she's just a cheater, he cheated on me, he's just a cheater. But it's much more nuanced and complicated than that. And in many ways, people don't typically cheat just for sex. They cheat for the emotional connection. So that's really what we're going to be diving into is just kind of breaking this down so that we can have an incredible relationship where cheating would be unfathomable. Like, you wouldn't even think either of you to want to cheat because the relationship is so strong.

That's what I think is one of the best things about what we do at Love Strategies. It's. It's not just. It's not just about finding a relationship partner. It's about keeping those high quality, fulfilling relationships going strong. Because what's the point of getting into a relationship if it's just gonna blow up in three months? Like, it just doesn't make any sense.

Gary, can I just riff for a second?

Sure.

Because I saw a dating coach out there. I will not name names, but she's like, I promise. I might guarantee he's. I' to find you the man of your dreams in six weeks, Right? You're going to be in a rel. Or sorry, let me actually rephrase it. It wasn't even the man of your dreams. You'll be in a relationship in six weeks. And I thought to myself, how dumb is that? Anyone can be in a relationship in six weeks. I mean, there are some homeless people down the street. If you want to be in a relationship not to get too strong, there's this. There's Joe sitting at the bar right now playing Kino. Drinking and Kino is our kind of gambling thing in Massachusetts here. I don't know if. Do you guys have Kino? No, they do not. Just to fill that. I thought everyone had Kino, but yeah, it's where you kind of gamble at the bar and whatever. Oh, but you can find Joe. What's that?

Sounds productive.

It sounds very productive. You can find Joe Schmo at the bar and be in a relationship in six weeks. But that's not what we're optimizing for. That is ridiculous. Like, also, I know that that guarantee is absolutely insane just because, you know, we've been working with clients and we have done the best record in the planet for the past decade, and you just don't know. That's just absolutely absurd. What we're optimizing for is the best relationship of your life that can last the rest of your life. And if that takes six months to a year, great. We have some clients where they'll start working with us. This is. Talk about great marketing. They'll start dating a guy in six weeks to two months, and they'll be so excited about it. And we're like, wait, hold on, let's take a hard look because we're, there's some things, there's some real risks of getting involved with this man that perhaps you're not seeing because you're in that early stage of intimacy and excitement. And Gary, we've seen it like we're responsible many times for saying next and moving on from these guys very quickly. Even if a client is excited about it because we're optimizing for long term success. How about that for a marketing campaign? Does that hit Gary?

Yeah, it's, it's what I say to clients all the time is like, there's things that are absolute, some of the biggest wins you're ever going to have in your dating life that do not feel like wins. And it's those super exciting relationships that we're like. But like, look, look at him actually. Is he actually emotionally available? Is he actually showing up for you? Is he making your life better? Is this someone who you want to be more like? Is this someone you actually trust and that respects you? And the answer to a lot of those, a lot of those times is like, no, it's exciting, but it's not any of those important things. And we'll suggest getting out of those relationships because it frees you up to find the amazing relationship you really deserv. And that's what it's all about. Because you want a relationship that's amazing, not with somebody who cheats on you. Because let's be honest, unfortunately the cheater guys are out there and it's important to be aware of who they are, why people cheat and what it all means so that you can avoid some of these issues. And so there's a ton of research about who cheats and we're not going to have time to get into all of those things. So what I want to do is highlight something that recently came out recently as in like the last month. And so there's some data that shows certain guys and women in certain types of jobs are more likely to cheat. And so for guys, it's guys with the highest paying jobs, they were the most likely to cheat. And so it was like 18. So when I say most likely, it's still not most guys are cheating. It's only, it's 18, it's about one in five. It's not a low number, but it's not a super high. But it's higher paying jobs, guys are more likely to cheat. Interestingly for women it was the opposite. It was women that had low paying jobs. Now I'm pointing This out not to necessarily tell you, do not pursue guys with high paying jobs or anything. I'm not, that's not the reason. It's what we always try to do with our clients is have them think more intelligently about relationships. And so when you hear this kind of data, a lot of people will overreact and like can't go for a guy with a high paying job. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Correlation does not mean causation. Not every guy in a high paying job cheats and not every woman in a low paying job cheats. Some doesn't mean all. But there are like these kinds of threads and it's like, why might a guy in a high paying job opportunity ability. What he's emphasizing some of those high paying guy jobs, I mean they're, they're very status oriented and they're very good at flaunting their status. Maybe those are the red flags that look for it. Not necessarily that it's just the high paying job.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, power is attractive to women and that, that is not uncontroversial. If you think that that's controversial, say, I would take a hard look at that. It's, you know, a guy who has power, prestige and status and is able to flaunt that, that's attractive to women. And so guess what? If a man has women throwing themselves at him, he's going to be more likely to cheat than some Joe Schmo who's got no opportunity to cheat. And the, I think it's interesting the women with low paying jobs are more likely to cheat. Perhaps they're finding an opportunity for other, other men. I'm not sure I haven't put enough thought into that. But that's, it's interesting. It's really a value exchange in many ways.

Yeah, it might be like, you know, a sense of like upwardly mobile. Right. Like in the sense of like if you're in a lower paying position, you're probably not also cheating with a guy who's also in a low paying position would be my guess. And that's just, that's pure spec. But I think it's just, it just goes to show this idea of cheating and what goes into it and who does it, it's more complicated. It's not simple. Right. And I think that's what I think is fascinating about relationships is it's not straightforward because you know what clients often ask, they'll say, Dr. Gary, why, why did he cheat? To which other clients chime in sex. That's why men cheat for sex. And I think it's the most common reactionary response, like, that's why people are cheating. And the research really shows, not really that it's an oversimplification. Now, of course, you know, at the same time, guys are not cheating to not have sex, but it's not right. It's not like, hey, I'm gonna go cheat, and like, let's never have sex. That's not it. It's. It's just not the primary motivation. And so this research is actually from a friend of mine, came from the same research lab, but this was. They sampled four, like, basically 500 cheaters to understand why they did it, and they came up with eight different reasons. I'm not going to go through and belabor all the different reasons, but it's like things like anger, how they thought about themselves, not feeling like they were in love. Commitment, sexual desire was one of them. But it's also like feeling neglected and just simply the power of the situation, like, the opportunity was there. And so I think there's just something to be said for understanding the multifaceted reasons why people cheat. You know, relationship therapist Esther Perel, what she says the reason guys or anybody cheats is people cheat to feel alive. People cheat to feel a sense of freedom. And breaking rules is a way to recapture that independence. And so I think when you start looking at all the different reasons why people cheat, it also clues you into all the things you want to make sure you're paying attention to in your relationship.

Yeah, well, I mean, the number. Under your friend's research study, the number one motivation was anger. And if there's a lot of anger in the relationship, it typically comes from unresolved anger. And look, in relationships, if you're not getting angry at some point at your partner, then you're not human. Right. There's just going to be moments where you're just like, oh, if there's like a very foundational emotion at anything, I'm not a very angry guy. But like, every once in a while, it's just like something comes up in you. But a healthy relationship allows you to resolve those challenges and those feelings. And if you're in a relationship where it just is constantly just being pushed under the rug and that rug just continues to kind of fold up, fold up. You're going to trip on the rug into the arms of a. Of a man or a woman and say, someone school really worked through this analogy.

What do you think about that? You're just walking on the Rug, you trip. You're like, oops, I fell into someone else's arms. Oh, my gosh.

I was like, that's really good. Like, the trip, the bun up the rug, the tripping, and then the falling into the arms.

Oh, sorry. Very unprofessional for me to, like, laugh out loud, literally. But that's hilarious.

I mean, hey, man, I got to make a cheating podcast a little bit fun. But it. It really is true with a lot of these situations where it just comes down to the relationship. It's not just. It's very, very rare that it's just some guy who's like, I need to be with just another woman or two or three other women to just get all my sexual needs desired.

Yeah.

Is that a part of it? Yeah, but it's perhaps for some, but it's very low on this list and much more to do with the actual relationship.

Here's the fun. I mean, I don't get to say this sentence very much, but here's the fun part about research is you get to be nosy into hundreds of people's lives and really dig into the experiences that they're having. Like, hopefully everyone listening to this doesn't have any direct experience with affairs. But even if you have experience with affairs, your experience is limited to one, two, hopefully not more than two or three. Right. It's like, it's limited, but the researchers, they're talking about 500, so you get a real sense of generally how this thing goes. And so here's just a couple, like, little tidbits that I. I found interesting. Women tend to have longer affairs than men, which I think makes sense. It's, you know, for women, it might be more focused on emotional things. When people cheated because of anger, lack of love, or because they simply wanted more variety, their affairs were longer. So I think that really speaks to, you know, when you feel like you have unmet needs or some sort of, like, anger, revenge, motivation. People who were motivated by the situation had shorter affairs. Right. So if it just kind of sprang up out of nowhere, it just tended not to last as long in those affairs. About 40% there were. It. They had intimate conversations. So it's not just physical. It's actually like emotionally connection connecting with somebody. But only in 1 out of 10 or 10 did they say, I love you. Now, it wasn't all about sex. Most of the time, what people were doing are kissing and cuddling. That's most of the. The cheating that went on, only about half had sex, and about 5% there was no physical contact whatsoever. It's purely emotional. And so I. That paints a slightly different picture than what people might expect.

Yeah, it's interesting. Emotional cheating is a very real thing, right. When. When you're not getting your emotional needs met and you feel like you've connected with someone else on a much deeper level, it can. It can manifest into a lot of kind of clandestine behavior and kind of behind the scenes and doing things that if your partner knew you were doing it, your partner would be very, very upset about it. And that's definitely a part of cheating.

Yeah. And I think one of the things I found most fascinating about this research finding is, to me, like, cheating's all about not getting caught. Like, that's why it's cheating. Like, when you're doing something wrong, like you're. You're doing something wrong to not get caught. And a lot of times we do things wrong because we think we're not going to get caught. But what they found was, like, actually, some people really seem like they wanted to get caught. Right. Which seems contrary to the point, but it's like some cheaters just weren't that careful. And it seemed somewhat intentional in the sense that when people were cheating because they felt a lack of love in their primary relationship, they were more willing to go on public dates. Like, they went out more. They took their affair on the road. Right. They went out to dinner, out to the movies. And it's almost like it's this, like, weird call for help or inability to do anything in any other way. It's like, you know, I can't really talk to my partner. I can't get our relationship right. So I'm going to cheat and see what happens, right?

Well, Gary, like, I know this is old news at this point, but the CEO of that company who got caught at the Play concert is just insane. But did you see his press release that came out as a result of that? It was so ludicrous because he's like, I'm so sorry. For what? Oh, I'm sorry for what I did to my family. Yada yada yada. The standard probably written by ChatGPT.

But at the same time, Coldplay really needs to look at their privacy standards for people at concerts, and I think they need to take a hard look at putting people on camera at concert. It's like, dude, what are you doing? You went to a concert with your hr, your VP of HR or whatever it was. You're completely out there in the open. Whoa. You wanted to get caught and you're Blaming Coldplay.

Right?

Like, come on, man.

It's like saying the problem with me robbing this bank was the security cameras.

That was the real problem here in my mastermind plan. This was the problem. But I think this is like, did he. On some level, maybe he doesn't recognize this. You kind of want to get caught. Like, you're not being secretive about it. And what they found, too, was people who were cheating because of lack of love were more willing to kiss their affair partner in public, engage in more public displays of affection. And it's just like, some of it might be they want to get caught, but maybe it's also that because they're not getting their needs met in their primary relationship, they almost feel justified. They feel a little less guilty about what they're doing. And I don't, you know, we don't know the CEO of the Coldplay thing, but it's like, what's going on? And, like, he can't be a dumb guy. And she. She was cheating too. Like, she's not. We're. They're not dumb. It's like, so what's motivating that? And like, to me, that's what's fascinating about psychology is like, you got smart people doing something that ostensibly to all of us outsiders is, like, ridiculously stupid. So what's going on?

I didn't know she was cheating as well.

I think so. I think. Okay, no, maybe I'm. I think I thought she was cheating too.

All right, Gary, here's what we gotta do. Need a podcast series of, like, cold cases or, like. Like an. Like an investigation series. And bring on some of these people. If we can get that guy, the CEO on pod. What do you think? What do you think?

I mean, I would love to do that. That would be. I don't think he would do it.

No. I think his publicist would allow him to come on Love Strategies to talk about why it is he cheated.

No.

And why he did what he did. But look, at the end of the day, just a quick plug for those of you who have gone through terrible relationships and they weren't really working out. A lot of times it stems from just kind of choosing the wrong partner and not knowing how to maintain the right relationship with the right partner. And so if you're looking for help, some help in this, your life, to navigate this with a strategy, just head on over to Love Strategies dot com. We have a step by step training on the homepage of the website that can walk you through what we call the seven little Love Steps. Once you understand these steps, they are designed to protect your heart through the dating process. And once you kind of understand this strategy and moving slow throughout the dating process, we can see a lot of these red flags before they become a major problem. 10 years downline in relationships. So again, that's love strategies.com I would check that out. That can help you out a lot while you're going through the dating process so that you don't end up with a guy at a Coldplay concert. He is with his HR director. Oh my God. Oh God, what a mess.

So you know it.

How's that?

Fantastic. Yeah, I don't end up at a Coldplay concert.

Don't go to Coldplay. Don't, don't date guys who like Coldplay. Don't do it.

So, you know, the other part of this really big study about infidelity is they looked at the aftermath. And so part of the aftermath of cheating is like, who actually confesses? Do people confess? And what they found is it's about 50, 50 split. Women were much more likely to confess to cheating than men were, which I don't, I don't think is a surprise. But people are also a lot more likely to confess when they thought the new relationship was going to turn into something meaningful. Now, funny story about that. What happens after people cheat? Well, it's not so often that the person you cheat with actually becomes a real relationship. It only happens like 30% of the time. The other part that is interesting in the aftermath of cheating is when you find out your partner cheats, it doesn't end the relationship as much as you think it would. Now, I know I, I share this stat with people. Other researchers found this too. And everyone has the same reaction after I say that is like, you know, I'll say cheating doesn't necessarily end relationships as often as you think. And everyone says, oh, it would for me, it would for me. And I think that is hopeful and I think that's probably the right conclusion. But I think we're not very good. I also know we're not very good at predicting our future behavior. And there's a lot of things that are going on in relationships and you know, not whether you should or shouldn't stay, but there's a lot of things that compel us to stay, maybe when we shouldn't. And so what this study found is only 1 out of 10.

Affairs turn into full fledged relationships. And the affairs themselves rarely ended. The primary relationship. Like those relationships kept going. Only one in five ended their primary relationship.

Wow, that's pretty wild. One in five.

Because you'd think, right, it would be five out of five.

Well, I think what we can take from this is for those who are listening and who have been cheated on, this statistic can allow yourself to give yourself some grace. If you were in a situation with a guy and he cheated on you and you tried to work it out, and just knowing that you're not alone through that, like, I, I, frankly, as far as I'm aware, I've never been cheated on. I'll just put that out there. So I don't know what I would do in that scenario. And I don't know how I'd handle. I'd want to say five out of five. Yeah, of course I'm leaving her. She can go have him. Good. Good luck and just end it. But I think reality hits where likely you may have known in your depth of your soul that it wasn't just the sex that caused it. There was something else in the relationship that you felt like you could work through and tried to work through whether you were right or wrong. That's a different discussion. But it allows yourself to give yourself a little bit of grace if you stayed in that relationship and tried to make it work.

I think we're so devoted, right? And we know that relationships are important. And you know, in many, many times you've been with somebody for 5, 10, 20 years, your lives are entwined, There's a lot invested, There's a lot of things you're going to have to undo and change in your life to blow up that relationship. And so I get, I do understand, like, you know, when you start thinking it that way, 1 in 5 doesn't sound so surprising, right? It's.

If you have kids, if you're married, you have kids, you have houses together, you name it. One night, slip up where a guy goes home with a woman, or vice versa, you know, okay, it's. It gets complicated, it gets tricky.

It's.

It's interesting. I'm not condoning that. I'm saying that that's okay. And I'm not saying that I would stay with someone if they did that to me. But it certainly gives a perspective and allows yourself to, again, like, don't be so tough on yourself.

But I think it also shows something that I think I'll pat ourselves on the back here a little bit, is that we're really good at is like, not allowing people to oversimplify things, right? Like, the oversimplified take is, he cheats, it's over you're done, whatever. And it's like, yeah, I think there's some sense to that. But like, wait a second, it's not that simple. It's not that straightforward. Things are more complicated. It's, it's, there's feelings and motivations and lives involved and it's just, it's not that easy all the time.

Whole other study. But another thing that I people I have found fascinating about cheating is are some people more likely to get cheated on? Like, does their, are there personality qualities that make someone a little bit more susceptible to cheating? Now I will just caveat this by saying, like, none of this is a guarantee. It's not like if you have these traits, you will get cheated on. But it is helpful, I think, to recognize, like, do I have some of these traits? And am I being a little too permissive in, in some ways, am I inviting this in in other ways? And so this research, over 1500 adults, including about 900 married individuals. And what they found is they basically gave everybody a bunch of personality tests and they found that people who were less responsible, organized or hard working were more likely to have experienced infidelity. So if you're not as responsible, not as organized and not as hard working, in other words, they scored lower in conscientiousness, they were more likely to get cheated on. Also among married participants, people who were highly agreeable also were more likely to get cheated on. And some in some ways that the agreeableness one conscientious one might just be like, you're not, you're not showing high quality as a partner. If you're not hard working and organized and responsible with the agreeableness one, it's, you might just be being too nice, you're too warm and forgiving. Like if, and this is a, just a sad fact about human behavior is if you find out that your partner is going to forgive you for basically anything, you're a little bit more likely to do, engage in worse behaviors. Right? Oh, my partner's super nice. She's kind, she's warm. Like, she'll understand. She'll at least forgive me. It might be hard, but she'll forgive me. Forgiveness and making being too forgiving isn't as kind and caring as you think sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, I see it as hard versus soft. If you're really soft on, you know, in your relationship, you might not have the same level of standards as someone. I'm just picturing the woman who's like, nothing's getting by me. If you do anything, you're done. Lorena Bobbitt type stuff. You know, let's know.

Chippity chop. Chop it off, buddy. It's not happening. You're, like, not cheating on you. I chop. I'm chopping.

I. I was trying to get you while you were taking a drink of your.

Yeah. Take a sip of coffee. And he's like making hand gestures and yelling, chippity chop.

Yeah, I'm chopping off that little wiener guy. Sorry. If you. If you put that wiener anywhere but with me, that's over. You know, you're not going to. Hey, that is a. Definitely a deterrent. Whereas if you're like, you know, it's okay. You probably did it because of whatever. You know, it's just hard versus soft. And. And I could definitely see that.

And some. The wrong guy will weaponize your kindness against you.

Yeah.

And. And I say that very specifically that way is like the wrong guy because not. The vast majority of men are not like this, but we've seen it. Like, you know, you encounter a dark, triad, narcissistic type of guy, he will weaponize your kindness against you. And it's just cautionary tale. Cautionary tale. So the. The other thing that I think is cautionary is. And I. This is like one of the biggest topics on the Internet, and I don't like talking about this, but I feel like we have to in. In some ways. And it's how to catch cheer. Is my partner cheating? How's my partner cheating and how do I catch him? And so I only became willing to talk about this because I. In doing research or I don't know what I was doing on the Internet, but I did a deep dive into cheating looking for research. And I stumbled across this site that was how to cheat without getting caught. And I was like, holy crap, the Internet. Like, wow. Like, what an amazing, crazy place the Internet is that this thing exists. And there's this long list of all these things you have to do to avoid getting caught cheating. And so what did I do? I reverse engineered it and was basically like, I'm going to use this to help people figure out if they're being cheated on. And so, like, a lot of the stuff on there is like super obvious stuff, like you would know, looking for physical evidence, fake eyelashes, unfamiliar things like bobby pins or faint lotion, perfume smells. And of course, glitter. Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies. I mean, it sticks with you wherever you go.

Who wears glitter? If anybody.

No man. No. The important thing there, Adam, is no man wears glitter. So if he Comes back with glitter, you better have a bunch of questions.

Oh, God. If there's glitter in your bed, it's. It's a prostitute. I don't know. Like, come on, who wears glitter?

It's, it's not good. But so you know, there's other things to catch cheaters that the Internet's full of. Like, you know, sudden changes in behavior, lots more work trips than usual. Is he starting to purchase clothing and cologne that you're not used to? See you. Are you getting gifts, like expensive gifts for seemingly no reason. But this, this list, they spent a ton of time on the technology side of things. And it was like all this like high tech stuff about WI fi and phones and different numbers and device syncing and Bluetooth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so there are a bunch of things that you could check to see if your guy will blame guys, your guy is cheating, all that technical. But here's what I want to say about this, the reality check, and I think this is super important, is if something about this conversation makes you think, you know what, I should start checking my boyfriend's or my husband's WI fi, Bluetooth connections, tracking digital payments, you know, getting. I'm going to get an app to spy on his phone. You know, all you need to know, right? Like you don't need anything. You don't need to be a forensic evidence detective. You know, everything you need to know.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, once you start going down that path, it means that trust has been broken. And with all this to simplify it, in my eyes, it all comes down to lying. It is lying, a consistent behavior in your relationship. And if there's anything that we hold strong to here at Love Strategies, it's approaching the dating process with truth. And it starts with you in all ways. And truth is the one thing that we will never, never compromise on. And if a man that you're with compromises on truth, AKA he's lying to you, even about the small things, that's a big problem. I don't care if it's just him saying, you know, yeah, I'm busy with work one night, but then he goes and grabs beers with his buddies. Yeah, you might, like some people might say, okay, he lied because he wanted to go grab beers with his buddies. I get it. And he kind of let it go. That would be the people pleaser. But, but where we come from, that is a lie, and that is not okay in this relationship. We do not lie to each other. Even if the lie, even if the truth hurts and the truth is difficult, call radical honesty. And so that is a value system that needs to exist in the relationship where there are no lies between us. Yes, the truth may be a little bit tough to hear sometimes. Maybe it will create conflict in the relationship. That's okay. What isn't okay are the small lies and certainly the big lies. And so if there's anything you can take from this, because cheating is just a big lie that's really at the. The end of all this is it's the lie that exists between the two of you. It's one thing if he goes and cheats on you, comes back and says, I cheated on you. I can't believe I did it. Here's what happened. That's probably some of the relationships where you're like, okay, I could maybe work. I could work through this. Okay, he came clean and he told me exactly why he did it, and now he wants to work on the relationship. That's understandable. It' where if he lied to you for six months or you lied to him for six months because you're cheating, that's the real issue here. So if you take anything from this, I would just say embed that core value in your relationship. It is what will set you free. And it's true in all relationships. Not just romantic, but professional, platonic relationships.

Yeah. And, you know, we have to remember, people just don't wake up one day and be like, yep, today's the day I cheat. Right. It's something you slide into little by little, small, little compromise by small, little compromise. And. And I love what you said about all the little li. All the little lies, because those little lies are basically gateway drugs.

Right?

Like, they're the things that kind of get you more and more comfortable with bending the truth. It's the exaggerations. If your guy is super casual about exaggerating about how much money he makes or his accomplishments, it's like, I don't know. I would. I would. I would perk up. I'd pay attention to some of those things because this is a guy who has a very loose relationship with the truth. Truth. And those little. Someone is willing. I know my experience, people are willing to indulge those little lies. They're also the ones that are shelling out the big lies. And so it's just. It's a. It's a testament to their character, and we want to pay attention to those things.

Amen. And if you want a little bit of help in this area of your life to be able to find that high character man. Because one thing Gary did was, you know, I've been saying, let's attract a high value man. I've been saying that for like 10 years. And Gary last year sat me down. He's like, like, Adam, we're not going to call it high value man anymore. We're going to talk about high character man. Ain't that right, Gary?

That's right. A little.

Sit down with me. I was like, I love that. And I think it's so true because in many ways, it refocuses our attention on what matters for a long lasting relationship. And we've been implementing that with clients and talking more about that. I've changed my vocabulary because that is what truly matters. If you meet someone who's high character, then suddenly this whole idea of cheating is never on the table because he is a man of integrity and character. So if you want that in your life, I would recommend jumping on a call with one of our love strategists. They're trained by me. They're the most high character people I know. They know this whole process, and they'll be able to see whether or not you need a little bit of help in your love life with our coaching and our guidance. And our goal is to help you start trusting again, but doing it in a way that protects your heart. I don't want you just going out there. Just start dating willy nilly and just see what comes. No, I want you to be able to see the signs, see the red flags, and then be able to open your heart to the right type of guy with confidence, clarity, and courage, because it will require some courage. So if that sounds good to you, then just head on over to loveapply.com if you listen to it in the podcast, we have links in the show notes to apply for that love strategy session. And if at the end of the conversation we think it's a good fit, we'll walk with you over the next six months to a year, help you in your love life, build that confidence, clarity, and connection so that you can move on. Never have to listen to another podcast about cheating again. Gary, can we never do a podcast like this again? Oh, my God.

Yeah. No, that's. Let's not. Chippity chop, man. Chippity chop.

Chippity chop. All right.

Yeah.

If. Here, here's another hook if you've ever been Lorena Bobbitt. And then go to loveapply.com because you don't want to have to chop off any guy's junk. Ever again. How's that for marketing?

That's great. Less crime. Less crime, more connection.

Good.

Thanks, Gary. That was a good one.

Nice. See, Adam?