Once A Cheater, Always A Cheater? Here's What You Should Know...

If you are an 100% secure human being, if such a person exists, and someone says that to you, you may not be coming from a place of saying, I feel unsafe. You might be coming from a place of just saying, I don't trust you anymore. Welcome, everybody, to the love life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey and Audrey Hussey here.

Hello, everybody.

We have a great episode for for you today. We're gonna be talking about what to do when someone has hurt you or betrayed you or lied to you in a way that has made you feel unsafe. Before we get into that, yesterday we did a big live event called the First Principles to Getting Commitment. It was an amazing event. We had tens of thousands of people register for this event. It was extraordinary. We had so much advice packed in for people in this event. I also did something very special on this event that you missed if you weren't there. But the good news is we are airing a replay for the next 48 hours, which you can watch at www.loveliferplay.com Like I said, it's only available for the next 48 hours. If you want a serious relationship this year and you're tired of hookups and casual dating and meeting people who aren't ready and not knowing what to do when you do meet someone who's not ready but you really like them, this session is for you. It's available now at loveliferplay.com. head over there and make sure you watch it in the next 48 hours before it disappears. Okay, on with the episode. We wanted to talk today about what happens when someone does something early on in a relationship. And in fact, I think we can actually widen this to lots of different moments in a relationship, even if you've been in that relationship for some time. But when someone does something that breaks your trust, that makes you feel unsafe emotionally, makes you feel like if you continue with this relationship, you could get really hurt, and therefore throws you into the dilemma. especially if that person would like to keep going of whether it's wise to keep going or not. And the example that we were talking about, because this came up for us recently in one of our coaching sessions, is when someone has lied about how their last relationship ended. They told you one thing, But then one day they come clean and tell you the reality, which is that they cheated in that relationship. And that's why it ended. Oof.

Yeah, oof.

No?

No, I know that's a pretty, I would find that a very unsettling truth to uncover.

And I suppose the fact that someone didn't tell you in the beginning, is one of the hard parts, right?

It's one of those things where if you have always had a very black and white view on cheating, it's something that would make you feel uncomfortable anyway, if somebody even sort of came clean about it in the beginning and was open about the fact that they had done that and regretted it. I think, as you say, especially if it was said afterwards, that would be if it was lied about and then uncovered and revealed later down the line. I think you would almost see some of those characteristics in that behavior. The lying and the cheating, because lying and cheating are very sort of interconnected. So you would see them lying to you about it as a kind of, you know, a continuation of that behavior that's that's concerning.

And when something like this happens, the typical thing is to go to your friends and to say, what should I do? You know, and usually the story goes something like, I really like this person. You know, we've been getting on great, but they've just kind of given me this information, or they've just done this thing. And it's not always that, right? It could be something else that's made you feel unsafe. It could be that they, you know, just. disappeared for a week and you had been speaking regularly and then all of a sudden they ghost you and then come back again after that week and just expect to kind of go on as normal, even though they went completely dark. You talk every day and then all of a sudden nothing for a week, even when you texted them, they didn't reply. And then a week later it's back on. There's this dilemma that people face where they go to their friends and they say, this happened. What should I do? And of course, especially with the cheating one, there's people are very quick to jump on things and be like, oh, my God, giant red flag. You know, that's scary. You shouldn't be with that person. You shouldn't keep going with the cheating one. The classic thing that's said by people is once a cheater, always a cheater. if they did it to that person, they'll do it to you. So you're getting all this information that is also on some level, it's just not what you want to hear because you want people around you to validate that, well, maybe this is different and maybe, you know, it's not so bad because of this. And, you know, you may even found, find yourself justifying it on some level, going, well, you know, in fairness, you know, they, they have been having a hard time at work, and this has been happening. And so, you know, that's, you know, that, that probably explains why they were having a hard week and couldn't text back and, and ghosted me in that week. It's not as bad as that. And technically, did they even really ghost me? Because they did kind of come back after a week and then start talking to me again, you know, or it's the cheating thing. It's like, well, you know, they, they were afraid that they were gonna lose me if they said something. And, you know, they said they liked me so much that they were really scared about So we have our justifications that we insert, but deep down, some part of us is hearing what somebody else has said.

Yeah.

The thing with cheating, I think, is, you know, if you recognize, if you've cheated on someone and you recognize that is not the kind of behavior that you agree with and you're, you know, you're ashamed of yourself for having done that, there would have been an element of work that you would have had to do on yourself in order to forgive yourself for having done something like that. and as we all know, when you do that kind of work, you part of it is being able to recognize with yourself and with others that you made those mistakes, right? You know, things you feel shameful about, the best way to bring them to the light and have them disappear is to actually talk about them and voice them out loud. And I remember actually a therapist of mine saying this to me once, she said, You know, the things we don't talk about are the things we're worried we're going to repeat. So let's use the example for a minute of an alcoholic. Somebody might not want to admit they're an alcoholic because deep down they want to keep drinking. And they're not prepared to declare that about themselves because they don't trust themselves. They don't have that self-trust to stay away from that specific behavior. and I kind of see it the same way with cheating, which is somebody coming up front and, you know, in the appropriate time, whether that's date five or date 10 or whatever, or even date two, if it comes up naturally, is able to go, this is how my marriage ended. I was unfaithful. I'm not proud of it. It's one of my biggest regrets. I've had to do a lot of work to forgive myself on it. And just so you know, that is so far away from my values today. And, you know, I'm just a different person. I would never do that again because I've learned a lot from that situation. That's actually to use, you know, current terms. That's a bit of a green flag, right? That's like somebody has made a mistake, but they're taking ownership of it. They've grown from it. And actually, you know, they're probably a more reliable person because they've actually felt the guilt and shame and pain of having done that and worked through it and forgiven themselves. Whereas I think someone not talking about it is a bit of a red flag because it suggests a kind of a fracturing of yourself. You are keeping that darker side of yourself that you're ashamed of tucked away in this drawer and you don't want anyone to find out about it. Not to mention a lot of people have very personal experiences around cheating. They might have had family members who have cheated, you know, divorces might have happened, they might have had, you know, just very dramatic things for them. And to not have the compassion of offering them that information to begin with, for them to decide whether they want to proceed with you, I think is unfair. Because somebody might go, I appreciate that you're, you know, saying this, but I also, for me, like that's just something that I'm not comfortable with. And you have to give people the opportunity to make that decision. But to that point, as you say, that can excuse the kind of, you know, the reason why people wouldn't want to share it because they wouldn't necessarily want to lose you. So it's really complicated.

I suppose it does bring up the question of how early someone should disclose something like that to you, right? Because it's not exactly first date talk. Like someone on a first date isn't necessarily entitled. to know how your relationship ended the last time, which is because it's very personal information. Just because you did something wrong doesn't make it not personal.

That's true.

Then again, asking someone why they got divorced on the first date probably also isn't a first date question. So, you know, I think I'm only playing with that idea because there's probably a time during which It, you know, it wouldn't be appropriate to have those conversations. Then again, you know, on a first date, people do sometimes ask like, no, I, on a first date, asking someone why their relationship ended wouldn't be a very, that would be a strange question to ask on a first date.

Boundaries, but definitely possible.

But I think anyone, anyone is entitled to say, you know, well, that's, it's, It's, you know, that's a story for another time. Yeah, it's a story for another time. It's kind of, you know, it's very personal, that story. And we'll absolutely talk about it, you know, if we see each other again.

And.

But I think even that might make too much of it. I'm trying to think what you would say in that, what would be like a good answer?

I think it's a story for another time.

Yeah, but it for sure makes someone want to like be like, well, wait, hang on. what is, it's like, I feel like a lot of people will, but you would say that even in normal situations where it's just been a very heavy, if you'd been cheated on, you wouldn't feel it was someone's business to know that.

You would also say that's the story for you. Exactly.

Exactly. Well, first, I feel like we should deal with that idea of is it true once a cheater, always a cheater. And you said some really important things, which is, that there's an enormous amount of work that someone would have to do on themselves to make it so that they didn't fall into that same pattern in another relationship. Assuming it wasn't just some kind of truly like, you know, whatever the circumstances, like there was something truly extenuating about the circumstances of that relationship. It's something that someone would have to do a lot of work on themselves not to fall into again. Because you don't just, you can't just, you can't just hope that the next time you have an urge, you'll do better. You have to actually do the work on yourself. You know, Robert Green, I've heard him say that nobody ever does anything once, and that if someone does something once, you can assume that it's something they do in general, because people are, the people follow patterns. And, you know, I, I mean, I say this in my new book, but it's, there's a truth to that that I think is valuable. Like, if I was giving someone a survival manual for life, that wouldn't be a bad rule to go in there that, you know, don't assume, never assume anyone's doing anything once.

Like, if you, if aliens landed on the planet and they were like, Tell us about you humans and give us some like first principles of how to navigate understanding you guys.

Yeah, if they went into, if they say, if you go in to get a coffee today and the person serving you your coffee is really rude and dismissive to you, they probably were like that last week.

Yeah.

It's unlike, it might be true, but they're just like that. This is the one time in their life they're like that, but it's probably more true that what you're seeing right now is a pattern. in their life. But it's also, there's something about that idea that is extremely damning, not just for the person who cheats, but for all of us. If all of us, if it's said about all of us that, you know, we never do anything once and that whatever our, essentially our past equals our future, then we're all screwed. 'Cause every single one of us has done things that we regret, things that we would change, we've hurt people in ways that we would take back if we could.

And you learn by making mistakes in life. You know, I think the guilt that someone can feel for cheating once, you're not talking about a pattern, not talking about doing it five times, you know, someone makes a mistake once and they feel an enormous amount of guilt is a lesson. that teaches you not to do that again because you go, I felt really, truly terrible when I did that thing. And now I know in my heart that I never want to feel that way again. I never want to make someone else feel that way or feel that way about myself. So I totally agree with you. There's like a, it's complicated because you don't want to be unnuanced about something like this because it's, it is damning.

But this goes back to that point you were talking about where if someone has lied about it, and then they come clean. Something's going on there, right? It could be what you said, which I think is a great point about we don't talk about things that we're scared will repeat. It could also be that they haven't forgiven themselves and that there's still just a lot of work that they have to do there. It could be that they think that this thing makes them truly unworthy and that no one is ever going to want them again, which again is not, we may have sympathy for that place that someone has arrived at, but it still suggests a lot of work that someone has to do on that particular thing.

And so if somebody is in that situation, in your opinion, you know, what happens next? So, you know, somebody lies to you about having cheated on someone, They then either come clean about it or you find out about it in circumstances. Circumstantially, I should say.

And certainly the former is preferable.

Well, yeah, for sure.

But yeah.

What next? Because obviously that would leave the person who's been lied to, that would leave that person feeling, I would imagine, pretty unsafe.

I'm a huge proponent of a kind of radical honesty. in situations like this, because I think people keep a lot in. They're like, oh, I like this person. Shall I keep going? They've apologized. They've, which is obvious. If they can't even apologize for it, then run for the hills. Right. Because if, if they're trying to make it like they've, you know, I've done nothing wrong, blah, blah, blah. That's a whole other issue. And that's really, I think that's really hard to even, there's Until someone can even acknowledge that that was wrong, what they did, that they lied to you about it, and you have a kind of insurmountable issue there. But let's say someone apologizes. Let's say they apologize right off the bat. I'm so sorry. I was afraid that if I told you, you wouldn't be interested, blah, blah, blah. Now you have a dilemma on your hands. Do I continue or do I say enough? I don't need this headache. This is too, It's made me feel really unsafe and I can't be here. That dilemma that you're experiencing internally is one that can actually be voiced externally. In other words, you can say to someone, this is really made me feel unsafe. And you can even cite why. Not just that, you know, if you are an 100% secure human being with no trauma from the past, no issues, nothing. And someone says, if such a person exists, and someone says that to you, you know, they lie to you, and then you may not be coming from a place of saying, I feel unsafe. You might be coming from a place of just saying, I don't trust you anymore.

Yeah.

But on top of that, many people do come to relationships with deep wounds. And for a lot of people.

Having.

Been either cheated on in the past or having experienced a certain life growing up with their parents and the way they saw their parents relationship, which may be modeled unfaithfulness, betrayals, big and small, you may, in your adult life, be someone who struggles to trust people. you may be someone who doesn't feel safe easily and you have to work hard to feel safe in a relationship. So when someone does something like this, it might really, really rock you on a deep level because it's now this thing that is hard won for you, this safety that you have to work hard to get has been compromised.

Yeah.

And voicing that to a person, not just that you feel unsafe, but why you feel unsafe and even talking about your life a little bit to the extent that you feel comfortable doing it can be a very powerful thing, because what you're doing is you're using it as an opportunity to talk about who you are and that this is, this is really hard for me because, you know, this is what I experienced in my childhood, or this is what I've experienced before in relationships, and you you know, when I trust people, it means a lot, and it takes a lot for me. And this has, it's jeopardized that for me. It's made me feel really unsafe. And I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. I'm saying that because that's a genuine challenge for me now, because someone needs to understand something. They need to understand that if they actually do, care about you. Well, a, if they care about you, they should want to know you and they should want to understand your triggers. They should want to understand who you are as a person. If for no other reason, then, well, if I know you, I know that there's certain things I do need to be sensitive to with you. There's certain things I need to be careful of with you because this is your stuff, just as I have my stuff. and we need to be mindful of each other's stuff. But if they want to be with you, they need to know what the path back is. And if you're not honest with someone, they don't really know what the path back is. If you say, I feel really unsafe. And, you know, I. I need to slow things down.

It.

I need. There's certain things that. will certainly help me, like whether it's consistent communication or whether it's you talking to me more about your, where your headspace is with your own journey on that mistake or that regret. How do you feel about it? Help me understand where your mind is, like, so that you can actually learn about whether they've really, you know, when they speak, do they speak convincingly about Does this sound like someone who's truly been humbled by this and come out the other side of it? Or not? Do they admit the work that they still have to do? Because clearly someone who is lying to you about it is still... There's something going on within them that isn't accepting themselves. And so explaining all of that tells someone that there's a It's not just you said sorry and now we're back. It's that there's actually a path to me feeling safe again. And until I feel safe again, I'm going to struggle to be 100% me in this situation, in this relationship, whether it's early days or whether you've been there for a while. And the key thing, I suppose, I want people to understand is that.

It'S.

100% our job to make ourselves feel safe in life. And one of the ways you make yourself feel safe when it comes to dating and relationships is by always reserving the right to protect yourself and walk away.

Right?

That if I ever feel unsafe for long enough in my situation, I can leave. And if I leave, I know I'll be able to take care of myself. that's a key form of safety I believe everyone should take responsibility for, is feeling safe themselves. I can make myself safe if I have to, inside or outside of a relationship. And if I can't make myself safe inside, I'll have to leave, but I know I can make myself safe outside. But what we can't take responsibility for.

Is.

Making ourselves feel safe about someone else. That's their job.

Yeah.

When someone screws up, lies to us, cheats, betrays lies. In this case, we've been talking about lies about having been, about having cheated on someone else and how their relationship ended. Ghosts us for a period of time and then comes back and expects everything to just be okay, even though they've really unsettled us in that situation. It's not our job to make ourselves feel safe about another person. That's their job. And if they didn't want that job, then they shouldn't have done the thing that has made us feel unsafe.

Yeah, that is such an important framework. I love that.

I think that I, and I see this all the time, not just in romantic relationships, but in you know, people who have a narcissistic parent or a narcissistic sibling or someone in their life that has caused them a lot of pain. They may not even be narcissistic. They're just someone who's caused them a lot of pain and has patterns that routinely cause them pain. And then they distance themselves from those people because they feel like they have to in order for their own protection, in order to emotionally feel good.

But.

Then they start to feel guilty for being out of touch with them, or they feel guilty for not being as close to them. They feel guilty for having created a boundary with that person. And that kind of pleaser mindset comes out of, I should, you know, I really should, like, work out how to feel better in myself so that I can be closer to that person again. But again, that's missing the point. You already protected yourself by creating distance. That was the part. That was the ownership part. The ownership you already did by creating a boundary and saying, I can't have this person as close to me, or in some cases, I can't talk to this person at all. That's a way that you've already successfully protected yourself and made yourself safe. what you can't do is say, I just need to make myself feel safe about this person so that I can be in touch with them again. That's you taking on their job. If someone in your life, your family, your friendships, your workplace, whatever, if someone has made you feel like you are not in good hands in that relationship and that you are at risk of constantly getting hurt or being betrayed or being misled or being manipulated or being lied to, then all the work is ahead of them in showing you that something in them has shifted since they made you feel that. And I think it's a very tragic thing. for so many people where they feel like I should really reach back out to that person when that person hasn't done anything in the meantime that has made them feel better or more safe than when they parted ways. It is not your job to make yourself feel safe about someone else. It is only your job to make yourself feel safe that you've got your own back and that you can take care of yourself.

Yeah.

In the absence of this relationship.

And in addition to that, I think a very important, if that pleaser mindset is kicking in for you and you're going, but I don't want to lose them. And if I assert too many boundaries here, they might just take that as a rejection and walk away. Because that's what we think, isn't it? We think like, oh, I'm just going to put them off and they're going to be like, oh, you know, I, this person can't forgive me, so I'm just going to walk away. And so we try and forgive quick, more quickly than we're actually able to in order to keep that person around. I think it's important to remember that if, if that's the case, somebody needs to learn that they can't lie to you and that if they lie to you, there are consequences. because that's what life is about, right? You pay for the mistakes you make and that's okay. I'm not saying that in a horrible way, it's just we all make mistakes but we pay for them, we should pay for them and it's important in a relationship to understand where someone's boundaries are and where you will have to, you know, if you make a mistake it's important to pay for it so that you remember not to do it again. The same way as I said earlier, if you cheat on someone and you feel guilty about it, that's you paying for that mistake. There are very important processes to teach you not to do these things again. And I think that when we are in those stages, when we're dating people in early days in early relationships, if we forgive too quickly and we let people breach those boundaries, we're just teaching people that it's okay to do it again, which is a very dangerous thing to do.

Well, I think if you're the person who has hurt somebody else, It's really important to take that guilt and to channel it into proactive things you can do to help that person feel safe. Instead of sort of dwelling in your cave, how can I channel this into energy that actually makes this person realize how much I value them and how can I listen to them on the things they say they need? in order to feel safe. And when you have had to earn back someone's trust, as you say, you really value that trust. You do not treat it lightly next time. As you said, if you win it back that easily, then you do not value it in the same way. The other thing I just want to finish this off with is people get caught in the trap of trying to figure out whether someone else is good or bad based on what they've done.

And.

My experience, there's not so many bad people in life. There are some bad people, but the world isn't full of bad people. I don't think it's 50% bad people.

No, definitely not.

But there's plenty of good people who do bad things, and there's plenty of well-intentioned people who do incredibly hurtful things. and there's plenty of not bad, but oblivious people who do plenty of destructive things.

And.

Trying to figure out whether, you know, because they lied to you about this, they're a good or a bad person, or, you know, they're badly intentioned or whatever, I think often very much misses the point. The point is to find someone in a relationship who is good at handling you. if you found someone who, let's say, lied to you about something, but then they said sorry, and now they're just like, hey, like, let's get past this now. And they don't have any care for the things that you're experiencing, then that person, especially if you're someone who's got trauma from the past, especially if you've got you still are working through being able to trust people, being able to believe in relationships again. And if someone has that context for you and they're not able to give you what you need in those situations, then that's the wrong person for you. It doesn't make them a bad person for not being able to give that to you, but it does make them wrong for you. because the right person is the person who is good for your healing, not someone who aggravates it and then doesn't care about what it is you need in order to heal. And I'm not saying in this that this isn't a mandate for us to behave really badly and for us to dump all of our worst baggage on somebody else and say to them, it's your responsibility. It's not that it's, if we're a person who's honestly on the road to trying to heal and feel better in our relationships. And we have the best intentions of trying to bring our best selves. But we are like everybody else. We struggle sometimes to make those changes. We need someone else who. Who knows how to help us heal. And if someone doesn't. If someone aggravates you on that journey and then is dismissive of that and doesn't do the things that help you heal in the wake of it, that is not the right person for you. Guys, before you go, reminder to go over to loveliferplay.com where we are airing the replay only for the next 48 hours of the first principles for getting commitment. I cannot wait to hear your feedback on this. It was an immense session. We packed so much practical advice into it for people and I did something extra special on this one that I have never done on any webinar in my entire life. And Lord knows I've done a few webinars, so go on over there now. Lovelifereplay.com is the link. I'll see you over there. That's only up for the next 48 hours. All right. Thank you for listening to the love life podcast, as always. And we'll see you next time.

Bye, everybody.