Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater? Therapists Respond

Welcome to Marina on Marriage. Marriage isn't one big decision. It's tiny, small decisions we make along the way about money, about ourselves, about our loved ones. In every episode, we're going to look into one decision that was made and what is it like to live with that decision now. I'm Marina Edelman. I'm a marriage and family therapist in Southern California. I'm a former financial analyst, so I bring financial therapy into our discussions. I'm a founder of True Me Counseling, and let's get into it. Hi, Sean and Jasmine.

Nina, good afternoon.

Hi, Marina. I wanted to talk about infidelity, affairs, cheating. Such a hot topic. Jasmine, you primarily work with individuals. Versus couples. But I would love to hear, how do individuals present infidelity and betrayal to you? Like, what does that look like when they show up in a session? So maybe like walk me through your process a little bit.

Okay. One of the things that has come up in several sessions with various different clients is more so boundaries in the relationship and boundaries with the opposite sex. So it may not have necessarily been infidelity or that they've identified that infidelity has occurred within the relationship, but it's often kind of like a boundary that was broken in relationships with maybe friendships with the opposite sex or even colleagues of the opposite sex. So this may look like text messaging at an hour that may be deemed inappropriate or deleting text messages because they feel as though it may be something that their partner is uncomfortable with. And it could have been that they never really talked about what were their boundaries as far as what they would like to see and as far as behavior with the opposite sex or outside of the relationship. So they find themselves like not wanting to talk about it or feeling uncomfortable just addressing that with their partner. So they're kind of like mulling over it or talking about it with a family member or a friend or even coming into therapy talking about it. But they notice over time that they're building resentment toward the partner Because it's not addressed and it's continuing to go on, or the partner is assuming that it's not a big deal. Meanwhile, they feel very disrespected. So one of the things that I encourage them to do, and like you said, I don't see couples, but I encourage them to schedule time to do a check-in, like a relationship check-in, even if it's once a week at the very least. But a lot of people find themselves feeling like roommates with a person. You know, this is someone that you're married to. You're supposed to have the most intimate relationship with this person and be able to have like open and honest dialogue. And oftentimes they feel as though they're holding so many things inside. So encouraging them to at least schedule like once a week where it's time that you guys have devoted that you're checking in with each other and just having those honest conversations about what occurred throughout the week. What are some things that came up for you that maybe, you know, were a sore point for you or things that really bothered you? And how did that make you feel? And giving your partner the opportunity to talk about those things too, because there's so many things that they're sweeping under the rug. Throughout the week, and then when you realize that you have this whole duffel bag of things that you've been collecting and haven't really been talking about. And even in those honest conversations, like, not attacking the person, because it's easy when you've been, you know, harboring all of these feelings and, you know, emotions about things that you haven't addressed. It's easy to kind of like attack the person and just like dump everything at once, but really talking about what was the behavior. That was triggering for you? Or, you know, how did that make you feel? You know, that particular behavior. So, okay, I noticed that you were texting your coworker at 10 o'clock at night. That made me feel disrespected because they know that you have a family, they know that you have a wife and children, and you're currently in bed with me. Going forward, this is how I would like for you to respond, or the boundary that I would like for you to set with that colleague is No phone calls or text messages after 7 PM. That's when we typically have dinner. That's when I shut off from work things. If there's something that's urgent, maybe you can send a text message saying it's urgent then, but just know that I'm not going to respond until tomorrow morning.

Actually piggyback off of that because, well, what I heard you, Jasmine, say is how do you help your clients set boundaries, like identify their boundaries, communicate their boundaries? So kind of going off of that, Sean, you, because you do see couples and you see individuals. What are your thoughts if you have to set boundaries? If you have to help your partner understand healthy boundaries, what are your thoughts about that just in general? Like, what does that say about the relationship, about the partnership that you have to tell them what boundaries you expect?

I think Jasmine said something that I picked up on was keeping things in a duffel bag. Right? These resentments that we go through the week and we kind of put things in this little duffel bag. And I use the bag as a metaphor for other things. Like, you're carrying around this bag with you, but you don't really know what's in the bag. Or maybe your partner doesn't know what's in the bag. I think we have to, like, kind of unpack these bags, unpack these bags that we carry around. Some of us carry a backpack around and we're kind of weighed down by those things. I do think that, like, talking, communicating about this stuff is— there's healing in connection. I think we're not taught this stuff either growing up, boundaries and maintaining healthy boundaries. You know, we're 9 and 10-year-olds, we're carrying a lot of the same wounds that we're carrying with us, and then we treat our partners the same way. You know, kind of blurred boundaries are a normal thing that I, that I see with a lot of people. It's just, that's where you come to therapy, to learn how to have these discussions, to learn how to— again, what is a boundary? I also think, kind of segueing, there's this distinction between privacy and secrecy and having shared language around that. I think couples are— I'm sorry, I think privacy as human beings, we want a certain amount of privacy even in a relationship, but then secrecy, that is a different— that can be very unhealthy.

Well, Sean, let's like go into that, the most common thing. So is it privacy or secrecy to check your partner's phone?

I think it depends. That's where you and your partner need to figure out what's comfortable for you.

So if a client comes to you and says, I'm really concerned, I'm not sure, I'm getting like my spidey senses are up, I'm not sure if there's something weird going on. Let's keep going with like the office conversation. I'm not sure if something is going on. I would really like to check my wife's phone. What would you advise? Hmm.

I would say so. This is an individual coming to me and there's—

yeah.

Have you and your wife had any other instances where you've looked at each other's phones would be my first question?

Well, as spouses, I'm sure we all pick up our spouse's phones. Like there's your mom is calling and want to find that picture that you took, right? But there's a difference between that and checking WhatsApp DMs. Texts, deleted. Do you know what I mean? So have you— I don't even like if you have a best friend, you probably have picked up your best friend's phone before. So I'm just wondering, like, how do you help your client identify breaking their boundaries to see if they're breaking your boundaries? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I go back to communication, to talk to your partner, to ask, hey, Honey, I'm feeling something. Is it okay if I check your phone? And then I would also gauge her response on that. You know, I think if there is— if, you know, I've been in this situation too. If I have something to hide, I'm going to hide my phone. If we don't have things to hide, then, you know, it's kind of like their proof is in the pudding kind of thing. At the same time, I think there's a certain— when I talk about privacy, I think, again, I think our phones now are this very interesting companion in a way for all of us, you know? And when I talk about privacy, I do think that when it comes to relationships and phones and being with each other, they're, you know, I always go, I don't wanna be prescriptive, but I tend to think that yes, having that kind of open, honest communication, I believe, you know, asking for what it— you have it so well, Marina. You have a phrase. I screw it up sometimes. Asking for forgiveness. And permission, like you'd rather ask for—

I wish it was my phrase, but yeah, it's, would you rather ask for permission or forgiveness? Yeah, some people operate from one versus the other. So interesting, on my social media, I focus a lot about betrayal. And the one that I posted that actually had a lot of people reaching out to me, I don't know how many views it got, was the whole pickleball thing. So from my own personal experience, my husband and I Uh, wanted to learn how to play pickleball. He's athletic. I'm not. He started— he picked it up really quickly, and now he has a pickleball wife. And I've met the wife. She's lovely. I've met her husband. He's great also. And so I posted on social media, like, is it a micro betrayal to swap your partner out for a better partner? And a lot of them are doubles, like some are Co-ed, some are not. For mixed doubles to progress in this, I'm going to call it a hobby. And interesting, like, what people said. But if we would expand that, and Jasmine, I'm curious, what are some of micro betrayals? Like, in my mind, by the way, I didn't— I was like very happy he has a pickleball wife. I'm good. But a lot of people said like, My husband or wife are not training to be in the Olympics. Like, why, why am I not enough for them? You know? And like that feeling of like, I'm not enough comes up. But outside of pickleball, what other things would you say are micro betrayals?

I think even what comes to mind, the first thing when you said that was kind of like lying by omission and not disclosing information that you know is important or may impact your partner in some way.

Okay.

And as a defense mechanism and to protect yourself, like, not disclosing that information. I think that can be one, and that's one that I sometimes see in therapy. Even sharing things like something that your partner may have shared in confidence from a place of safety with you about something that they've experienced, something that's coming up for them, and then one spouse sharing that with someone else outside of the relationship. And then maybe that person that they disclose the information to comes back and brings it up to the spouse, you know, the spouse that was more vulnerable and disclosed that, and then they're feeling betrayed, like you shared something that was sacred and personal to me with someone outside of our relationship.

Yeah, the oversharing, definitely. Yeah, the omission piece. I had an interesting encounter, one of a couple that I'm working with. He sometimes struggles with being fully transparent, and she needs full transparency. And so he's gotten much closer to being— to sharing more. But the other day, she felt like he was lying. And he's like, is imprecise relaying of information lying by omission? And I'm like, Well, let's talk about this word imprecise. So I feel like sometimes when people are splitting hairs, Mm-hmm. I, I ask them, I'm like, do you feel like you're giving up power? Because information to me is power. So do you feel like if you're imprecise in your com— in your communication, is that you kind of finding a loophole to preserve power and autonomy and agency and not giving it up to your spouse? And as a spouse, how much information do you really need to know? And so, Sean, I would love to get your take on what do you think is healthy? And I know you talked about secrecy versus privacy, but just generally, like, what are your thoughts about like what is healthy to share and what is like maybe oversharing even with your partner?

I think looking at intent and impact, you know, especially to also tie into the secrecy component, you know, privacy is one thing when you're secrecy and hiding. Uh, I think that you're, are you hiding something intentionally trying to misrepresent something or was there, you know, was there an understood boundary that you inadvertently violated? You know, I think that's kind of where we got to look at that, you know, are you intentionally hiding something or are you maybe again hiding something because you are nervous about the impact that might have?

Yeah.

Or, you know, and that's, that's something to be teased out. Um, but definitely look when it comes to, cause I want to delineate that the, you know, secrecy, privacy, where privacy is, I think a healthy amount of it, but then secrecy when you're intentionally hiding stuff. Um, that's what I would look at, you know, the intent and the impact in the relationship.

That's a really good point. So the Gottmans talk a lot about, uh, benefit of the doubt. So if you approach that, I sometimes struggle in working with couples or even individuals to be like, continue giving a benefit of the doubt, to be like, maybe we need to look at this a little bit more. It's kind of like, it's great to be positive, but toxic positivity is also not a, not a good thing. So the other topic I wanted to segue a little bit to is related to infidelity and betrayal is, can you prevent it? Can you affair-proof your relationship? So when I work with individuals or couples in terms of premarital counseling, this comes up a lot. And so I have found a couple of things that research supports helps to affair-proof your relationship. One of them is actually seeing your partner as an extension of your family versus your spouse. Second, um, that helps with affair-proofing is a lot of check-ins. The Gottmans talk about a 15-minute ritual to connect and really implementing that as a daily ritual. So checking in like with gratitude, appreciation, words, uh, and physical or verbal affection, and then state of the union. But simultaneously, when people ask me that, all the research shows Good people cheat. There is a book written by a local author, and she wrote, Why Do Good Men Cheat? People cheat even when they're happily married for a lot of different reasons. So I'm curious, when people come to you as individuals, they're like, I met this really great person, but I've been cheated on in the past. I feel like they're going to cheat on me. How do you advise them?

I'll go, I'll speak on this. I like to use an analogy, a metaphor, a fire, a building a fire metaphor, Because I also think where we came from anthropologically, we were, we were building fires and hanging around the fire. And I think therapy is a response to this, you know, that we really should be out hanging around on the fire. And we've, we have to now carve out time to communicate with each other. And I think that this fire that we're building with a partner is a, is built on a foundation of trust. I think most of our relationships are built on a foundation of trust. And if you have a really strong foundation, Whatever happens, it is a journey. You're going up the mountain, you know, I think you're dancing around the fire, you're cooking, you're playing around the fire, but life is complicated. Things happen. If infidelity is something that happens, again, as you're saying, people cheat for a lot of different reasons. If that foundation is strong, you're going to be able to— I do— I don't think that trust can't be rebuilt. It is difficult. It can be difficult to rebuild, but I'm not a believer that it cannot be rebuilt, especially if you work on that foundation. And the kindling is the communication. If you put too much communication on a fire, too much kindling or wood, it's going to blow up in your face. I would say that's a codependent relationship. If you don't put enough kindling, then you grow apart and become these kind of people just sharing space with each other. So I always go back, there's communication and healing and healing and connection. And so I would just encourage to, like, you know, to build that, really building a strong foundation of trust.

So you're saying to reduce the chances is to start making sure you're going to a relationship and really trusting each other and talking about trust and sharing boundaries. Jasmine, do you have any thoughts about if people ask you, can I make sure this relationship lasts and my partner will never cheat on me? What can I do?

I think they're expecting like a guarantee going into it, wanting a guarantee. And they struggle with uncertainty in life. And so holding space and being hopeful is something that we can work on. But I think more so trying to get to the root of what do they feel like their needs are, because I think a lot of infidelity occurs because one partner or both partners' needs are unmet in some way. So whether or not that's been vocalized, whether or not that's been communicated, and I think that's where the You know, open and honest communication and the regular check-ins are helpful because it helps to kind of address those things early on before it turns into, okay, I've been unfulfilled in the relationship for 5 years and my needs haven't been met. I don't feel seen. I don't feel heard. I don't feel supported. They're not assisting with the kids or whatever the case is, you know. Or I'm doing all the provision. I don't feel like they're, you know, pulling their weight within the relationship or within the family system or household. But I think that getting to the root of before even entering a marriage, like, what are your needs? What do you feel like you need in a partner? How do you feel supported? What makes you feel loved? I think all of those things are important to explore, as well as what are your values? Do we have, you know, similar values? What are your non-negotiables? What are your boundaries? Is this person respectful of your boundaries? How do they show up in relationships with other people? Are there common themes that came up in their previous relationships where you're like, okay, that's absolutely a red flag for me? And I see that, you know, even does this person take accountability for their actions in relationships? And that can even be within their family. And so paying attention to kind of those patterns, starting to ask yourself those questions as well as your partner those questions, and are you able to have open and honest dialogue with them? Because if you're not able to even before getting into the relationship and even bringing up what are some of the concerns and reservations that you have about getting married, Based on your past, based on the relationships or marriages you've seen within your family, based on your friendships. You know, if your friends have had some failed marriages, you know, it's okay to bring up those concerns and talk about, okay, if this were to happen, or if I was sick or something and I wasn't able to have sex and be intimate, how would this impact our relationship? How do you think that you would respond in a situation like that? And really having those honest conversations about life events to see How does this person respond? Is this someone that I can actually do life with long term?

Both of you have brought up really great points. Let's talk about this myth. Once a cheater, always a cheater. From my experience, my actual personal experience, my dad cheated on my mom, married his affair partner. And from my understanding, and I believe them both, has been extremely faithful to his second wife. And I've also had other clients who confessed to betraying their partners and either staying in those marriages and never betraying them again, or moving to other relationships and not betraying them. So I'm just curious, what are your thoughts? Is a cheater always a cheater or not necessarily?

I don't think necessarily, because I've seen instances too with people who with previous partners, and it could have been several partners, that they actually cheated, but they were able to do like self-exploration. They were able to get to the root of, you know, what are my needs that I felt like I wasn't lacking? How was I showing up in the relationship? What are ways that I know that I wasn't loving my partner properly? And what are some things that I want to do different so that I don't inflict that same hurt on the person that I actually do want to do life with? And then they made those changes, you know, but they made them prior to getting into another relationship. So they didn't just jump into another one like, this relationship ended, I'm with someone else.

Okay.

Someone else another week, we're getting married. It wasn't that. It was, okay, they actually took time, you know, a year plus to really work on themselves and get support. Some people sought therapy, some people didn't, but they just did their own self-work and then made sure that like a wholer version of them was entering into the new relationship. And then they did what they needed to do to, you know, have that open dialogue with their partners and really do what it takes to make it work.

Yeah, and Sean, what about your thoughts?

There's got to be a maturity component or a growth component like Jasmine was saying. I work a lot with, with younger, you know, I think when we're in our teens and 20s, I think we're figuring that out. I'm not saying that a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old is not capable of having that kind of growth and maturity and learning from a previous experience in cheating. I think it's harder though. I think it's more difficult. I think it's easier As we get older to learn, oh, I'm disrespecting somebody by cheating on them or not being honest or having blurred boundaries. I just, I would say as we're younger, 'cause I do see a lot of younger clients, um, that conversation would be different than I would if I was seeing somebody 40 or 50 or older. I think life experience has a lot of, of factors in how we behave and how we learn and how we grow. So like Jasmine's saying, I think it, you know, there's typically, if you were cheating in the past, there's gotta be some kind of learning growth component. Uh, in order to prevent cheating in the future. That's my, that's my framework.

So another topic that comes up a lot, you find out your friend's spouse is cheating on your friend. What do you do? How do you advise a client what to do? Like, what are you supposed to do? That's a thing that I also, I, between adult children, Trying to figure out what position they take when they find out that one of their parents cheated on the other parent. I guess what position do they take? How do they interact with their parents who cheated on their other parent? Seeing friends finding out like, oh, my friend is cheating on, let's just say, her husband. Do you let them know? Do you let your friend know that your wife is cheating on you. Those scenarios actually come up a lot for me, and not always about cheating, but just finding out that somebody stepped out of integrity. And do you— how do you respond when someone you love is acting out of integrity, not in integrity? And so my suggestion— and also, by the way, as therapists, if our client is cheating on their wife, let's just say. Do we advise them to let the wife know? From my training, when I was in school, that would transfer anxiety. And so I usually encourage them to end the betrayal, to let's figure out what happened, but not necessarily to go and tell their wife that they cheated. And sometimes when I'm working with a couple and I see each person individually, and majority of the time I do hold secrets, not always, but majority majority I do. If I find out that there's been betrayal, I obviously work on ending the betrayal. And sometimes we talk about like, should this be disclosed or not? So I'm curious about your thoughts on, do you advise your clients to come clean?

That's a, an interesting one because I think it goes back to my point earlier about kind of lying by omission. And I get— I'm glad that you do support them and encouraging them to end the betrayal.

Of course.

But I think it feels like a touchy one for me with not supporting them, or with at least coming to a place where they feel comfortable disclosing that to their partner. Because for me, it feels like there would kind of always be an elephant in the middle of the relationship with them, even if they change the behavior, they never cheat again. But I feel like it's still going to be something that's impacting their ability to be as vulnerable as they can be with their partner, have, you know, kind of like unrestricted intimacy with them, and always not just physical. And I feel like it would always be something kind of like in the midst of the relationship that's still a barrier, even though it's not present. And has that been your experience with clients that, you know, may have stopped and decided not to disclose?

You know, it's interesting to me, depends if they loved their affair partner or not. If it was like a one-night stand, they're on a business trip, the transgression happens. By the way, I'm not condoning the transgression, but then I haven't seen it be an issue because it was like one and done. But I have, and this has been the hardest part when I'm working with a couple and there's an affair and there's a love affair, like they're in love with their partner. And they to mourn that relationship, they have to mourn it before they can really work on repairing with their spouse. And that grief of this relationship and then has to, it takes its toll. And that's been the, that's the hardest thing that when I work with a couple and everything is out in the open, everybody is aware of everything and their partner is not showing up as regretful, as remorseful, as Let's just go with the husband is like, why is my wife not even regretful or remorseful? Like, what? I'm getting this version of her and she's mopey. And I'm like, she's grieving. And is it unfair to you? 100%. And simultaneously, should we pause couples counseling until the grief cycle is over? But then you're in the dark. Should you support your partner while they're grieving? Do you show anger at them? It is— I really cannot say now, like, how I help couples navigate it because it is so nuanced.

Right.

But that grief, you're right, Jasmine, is that I see as an elephant in the room. Like, you have to disclose because your partner's like, what is going on? Like, I'm feeling something. You're not available. You're not present for me. The one that is like, there's no emotions. It's not— there's zero entanglement. It's not somebody you work with. So there's like none of that messiness. I usually default to, you're going to feel better because you're letting your partner know, but now the partner has to make a decision. What do they do with this information? And so that I'm all— I'm like very hesitant about. Sean, thoughts about this?

That is a very nuanced— yeah, like I go back to the intent and impact, you know, it's definitely the impact on this one. Uh, and I do like, it's, you know, what is the impact going to be? I haven't really been in this situation where I've had to hold secrets, so I don't really have a, you know, I just haven't had that, uh, I guess fortunately or unfortunately, uh, been in that situation. But yeah, I would imagine that I am, I am a big believer in like putting all the cards on the table kind of thing. Open, honest communication. Let's see each other as raw and as real as we are, you know, all our warts, all our, all the great, all the bad kind of thing. That's kind of where I'm at as far as like, as we're moving forward in the healthiest possible way. Like you're saying, like there's gonna be residual guilt coming up. But again, it's such a complicated thing. Like you're saying, sometimes it doesn't mean anything at all. It's going to depend on how that partner's response is. Harm has been caused. Are the— you know, I do believe when harm is caused, there needs to be repair efforts to make repair. And so if this partner that's caused harm is not making any efforts to repair, that'd be a really difficult situation to navigate. And like you're saying, do you tell this partner to support their partner in grief? I mean, I would— I don't think I could do that. You know, I don't think I could tell, you know, that'd be— it's kind of like, I— yes, uh, very complicated, Marina.

Uh, well, I'm happy I could stump you both.

I know.

And this would be a good place to maybe pause. I really appreciate both of you talking to me about a topic that I think indirectly or directly affects everybody who's ever, um, Whether you've been in a relationship, are afraid to be in a relationship, went on one date or not. So thank you so much.

Thank you for having us.