#40: Surviving infidelity: is it possible for your relationship to recover from an affair?

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Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. A little place where we get to get together, explore fresh perspectives and eavesdrop on juicy conversations and uncover the mysteries that nobody talks about but absolutely influences our relationships. If you are struggling in a marriage, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and know you've got to do better next time, this is the show for you. I'm Stacy Bartley and I'm here with my co host and lover, Tom. Together for the past decade, we've been loving on people from around the world with the sole purpose of helping us humans get better at creating what we call love for a lifetime.

Yeah.

And thank you so much for spending some of your most precious resource which is tonight time with us today or if you're listening at the podcast, wherever you are. Again, thank you so much. We're gonna, we do every show, every week to do our very best to add value to your life. Specific to relationships, all things love, sex and relationships.

And today we're going to be diving into a really juicy topic.

Almost feel like we should play the Jaws song.

No, no, no, no, no. Surviving infidelity. Is it possible for your relationship to recover after an affair or some modicum of infidelity? And we're going to talk about those two differences. Like what's the difference between adultery and infidelity? Is there a difference? Oh, yeah, there is. And when infidelity happens in our relationships, most of the time we as a society have a very pre programmed social response that happens automatically. It seems the person who discovers infidelity is what we term the victim. And the person who committed the act is undoubtedly the monster. If we're the victim, our friends and people who love us most, family members, start to say things like, you're going to get out of there, right? Like you're going to leave them. You deserve better than this, right? You don't need to let them do this to you. You don't have to stick around and tolerate this thing. And what we tend to forget about relationships is that there are co creation between two or more people. And so as much as we would love to think that just simply getting out of the relationship or terminating the relationship would solve all of our problem problems, it seems like it would, but it's really not that simple. So we've got to have the conversation around how do we navigate through these things that are difficult. Like this is probably the thing that in committed long term lasting relationships we fear the most is finding some form of infidelity or betrayal happening in the background that we didn't know.

Would you say in all the private clients we've worked with over the years, babe, would that be one of the largest reasons why people come see you, come see us?

Absolutely. And the reality is there are three core emotional drivers that create the desire for us as human beings to be unfaithful in our committed relationships. But the rehearsal of the social narrative will be upheld unless we start to dive into other options and possibilities as well as how to talk about this very difficult thing. And then we can step into new places. We can step into true healing and creating good out of outcomes that started what seem to be tragically so we invite you to stay tuned and join us for this very different and important conversation that must be had about surviving infidelity. There are important aspects to this very, very painful experience that we need to understand to truly know the best solutions for the people in our lives and the families that are affected. So we're going to invite you to get your favorite beverage, check your judgment at the door. We're gonna do a little emotional weightlifting here and we'll tell you all about that too. If you're just joining us for the first time. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back, everyone. We are your host, Tom and Stacy Bartley, along with our awesome engineer Eric Ryder at the helm at spaceship KKNW up in Seattle. Also going to remind you, we are going to open up our phone line so you have a burning question or something that just doesn't feel right or something specific to this pretty intense topic of infidelity. Infidelity. Excuse me. You can call us 425-373-5527 and I'll just encourage you. Remember, we really, really take confidentiality and privacy very seriously here. So you can just simply call in. You don't need to say who you are or where you're from. You can just simply jump right into the question. And Eric will pass that on to us. Absolutely.

We're going to be jumping into a very important conversation today called Surviving Infidelity. Is it possible? And how do we start approaching this difficult conversation that literally makes our armpits sweat? Like, this is the most terrifying place that we want to make sure we never, ever, ever go in our relationships. And yet it's so common because we don't talk about it, because we can't explore it, because we don't know where to even begin. If it's something that we experience in our relationships. And the social narrative is so huge, it's such a strong driver that knowing how to get support and how to navigate our way through something of this nature usually becomes the only option, which is leave. Get the heck out of dodge, make them pay. They're a monster. Right? You're the victim. And there's so much more to it than that. And the reality is infidelity happens because we don't understand really how relationships happen. And you might go, yeah, whatever. I know exactly how relationships happen. A boy meets a girl or a girl meets a girl, a boy meets a boy, and they, you know, have a little thing and, you know, everybody's off to the races. No, no, no, no. I want to help you understand. If we were to begin at the beginning. A connection with another human being happens because I pour into it, meaning I share a little piece of me with you, and you share a little piece of you with me. And if you think about it, if I'm even meeting my neighbor that lives next door, we're going to start with, hey, what's your name? Where do you come from? Right? You have kids, right? You move in from this place? Did you grow up here? We're going to have some conversations like that. And as we share little bits and parts of ourselves, there's a connection or a familiarity that actually starts to take place. Now, when it comes to intimate romantic relationships, it's the same, Right? The same principles apply. And this is important as we jump into the conversation around infidelity, because it seems like, especially sometimes for the person who accidentally finds themselves in a place of infidelity, it seems like it just happened naturally and normally. And then all of a sudden it turned into this thing and I was stuck and my hands are in the air and I don't know what to do. And then, because I don't understand what's going on and I don't know how to handle it, I don't know what to do. The social narrative is strong. I tend to kind of start keeping it a secret. I tend to start creating opportunities and other places where this person I've started connecting with and sharing more of myself with, it takes on some momentum. And then I don't know what to do about that. And so as we start this conversation, I just want to point that out to you. That connection is created when I share a little piece of me with you and you share a little piece of you with me. And it's inevitable as we crisscross with human beings in our lives all over the place, whether it be through work, through our health routines, our neighbors, friends of friends. We're going to meet people that we've never met before. And so we know this. We know that there's some inherent risk there, but we don't know how to protect ourselves in our committed relationships.

Yeah. Unless for context. Let's. I think an important question, actually, I just learned this in our pre show prep. What's share with us? What's the difference between infidelity and adultery?

Oh, very good question. Infidelity is a broken commitment or promise that I have with my person, with my special somebody. And infidelity usually is speaking to the emotional nature of ourselves. Right. The act of adultery is actually having intercourse with somebody outside of my relationship.

So that, that would be the textbook definition of the, of the context between those two.

Most things start as an infidelity piece and then they maturate through that process. I was just talking about sharing a little more of myself, a little more of myself, a little more of my. It's normal and natural. And if you would think about, you know, the relationship that you're in right now or relationships that you have been in, just notice the natural normal momentum or places, progression, progression that happens in relationships. I share a little piece of me. We decide to go on a second day. Gosh, I really like you. I can't get enough of you now I'm texting you all the time. When are we going to get together? And as we spend more and more time together and as we share more and more of ourselves with each other, the natural progression is at some point in time we want to share ourselves not only emotionally, but physically. And these two things are constantly playing out in relationships.

So would you say that again? Not, not drawing on any specific research or statistical data, but would it be fair to say that a fair amount of infidelities, relationships that start as infidelity, maturate and mature and move into adultery?

Yes, absolutely. If we allow them to go that far, sometimes they don't. Sometimes we can catch them and we understand and we sever it because we don't want to risk the commitment that we have with our special someone in a long term relationship. But sometimes it gets away from us and we find ourselves in a situation we weren't anticipating and sometimes we, we seek it sometimes. I'm so depleted emotionally in my relationship, in my long term committed relationship, that an opportunity crops up and I take it because I'm needing some emotional, like ka chunk, like bringing me back to life. So I'm not saying all of this is okay or not okay again. Remember when we started the show, said, check your judgment at the door. We want to look at this as objectively as we possibly can. And I know that's really hard. So through this conversation today, this is not going to be a conversation about who's right and who's wrong when it comes to infidelity and adultery, we have to check that conversation at the door. And by the way, if you want to better and benefit, if by chance you're dealing with infidelity and adultery in your relationship, you must find somebody who has the ability to do that. Because I'm going to tell you right now, if you find help and support in a place where you're going to size up who was right and who was wrong in this conversation of infidelity. It is not going to go well because there are things that are afoot that we don't understand and that we don't know how to talk about that absolutely need to be uncovered. And believe it or not, I'm going to say this boldly right now. Infidelity could be the best thing that ever happened to your relationship because all of a sudden it gets everybody's attention and we get to assess, oh, wow, this relationship is really important to me. I really am willing to put in to work harder, to learn, to grow. And there's a motivation that happens inherently if the relationship that I'm in is really valuable to me.

So a true, a true wake up. I would say so similar to when you hear sometimes hard to believe someone maybe that has experienced a really, really significant health challenge and they've gone through that and we do. We hear that when you read, read books and hear people being interviewed that they'll. They' it seems to be very honest and earnest that that's the best thing that ever happened. I'm like, wow, how could someone, because of the wake up of the clarity of the realization that there aren't that many things that are truly important in life. So you get real clear real fast.

You know, Tom, that's a really great analogy. And we use those analogies a lot in our teaching and in our frameworks where we compare and look at the, the physical and how we show up in the physical world versus the emotional world. And unfortunately, we don't talk about our emotional bodies or our emotional cells or the emotional world enough to truly understand how to take care of these things happen. And so they just seem to like, happen out of thin air. And that's not true because when we start to understand the principles of our emotional bodies, it all starts to make a lot of sense, which is what we want to gift you here today. And so you're spot on it. Just like a health challenge, right? We know that there's a problem, we know that it's going to need our attention. But we keep thinking we've got time. We keep thinking it's going to work ourselves out. And man, it's going to take a lot of effort and energy. And I know they love me and I know they love me and I love them. And so we're just gonna let this go, even though I know I'm not getting my emotional needs met, etc. Etc. And I'm gonna dive into those three biggies right now. And then when the wake up call really does come, like all of a sudden we are given a diagnosis of diabetes or cancer or something. All of a sudden there's a whole new level of appreciation for my life, for my health, you know, itself. And that's very true when it comes to a relationship as well. And relationships, by the way, are the most emotional experience as human beings that we embark on. It is the highlight of the emotional body. And so when we talk about relationships, we're typically talking about the emotional side of ourselves through the physical aspects of life. And that's what makes it so complicated. We don't know how to share the emotional. That's fluid, dynamic, invisible. And the darn thing can time travel on you. And we really don't understand that. I do pour in, I do create these connections that are very, very real. And I know when they're present. I know when we feel connected to somebody. I know when. Right. I got you, you got me. And I also know when it's slipping through my fingers and it's beginning to atrophy like a muscle that hasn't been used in a long time. And in long term relationships, the sharing of ourselves, especially from the emotional side, sure. We'll talk about the logistics of life. Who's going to take the kids to the soccer practice and who's going to pay this bill and who's going to make dinner tonight and oh, remember trash nights on Thursday. You're going to take care. We talk about relationships through that lens instead of how I feel in the relationship, what's going on for me, what works for me and what doesn't. And that's part of what contributes to the breakdown. When we first come together, it's all about the emotional. Hey, oh my gosh, you love that. I love that. Oh my gosh, you want to dream that I do too. This is going to be great. It's the sharing of our emotional selves that creates that connection or that sense of connection between us.

So I was gonna say, so rather than what sometimes we initially think has just kind of happened out of thin air, we would challenge you. And we do that with great love and respect. I love that Robin Sharma is the first person I ever heard that from. You know, with great love and respect, we're going to challenge. They don't happen again. You can always throw the outliers out. And true statistical nature, throw the outliers out. But look at the median where most of these type of situations happen. We're Going to give you the reasons, at least from our experience working in the last nine years, 10 years, with many, many individual singles and couples. What are the reasons why? What are the reasons people have affairs when they are in a committed relationship?

The three emotional drivers that creates this experience. And we're going to invite you to right now, look at where you're putting in your emotional time. Like, where do you go when you truly share yourself emotionally with another human being? Is it in your relationship, your committed relationship, your person? Or do you find it's easier to share your emotional self outside of that?

And I, and again, I want to just affirm and confirm with what Stacy shared. The reason why we bring these, what may be viewed as pretty intense topics, is because no one talks about them. And if no one's talking about them, nothing's going to happen. Stacy always like, say, look, we can handle anything as long as we understand what's out on the table. So there's no judgment here. Look, this is the life journey. This is a relationship journey. But to not speak about infidelity and adultery in our vantage point would be irresponsible because it's all over the place. So let's talk about it. And there's no winners and losers. There's no right and wrong in our body work. We're trying to be as objective as a neutral as we can possibly be, helping you take your next step, best step. And if you're in this place, it's very difficult, and there aren't too many places and people that you can go to and even share it.

And so because we can't talk about it and share about it openly, it prevents us from being able to successfully navigate through it, work with it, and know where to even begin. And so let's highlight the three emotional motivators that creates infidelity that ultimately leads to adultery. Not always, but that's, that's the trajectory, right? Sometimes it can start the other way around with adultery. And then I build an emotional relationship, right, Just to kind of get a thrill. But that's very atypical, right? It's very atypical. So let's start with number one. Okay. The number one thing that happens is my emotional needs are not being met and I don't know how to get them met. And I start to make up as a human being a lot of things about myself that simply aren't true. But we human beings come with a lot of self doubt, a lot of insecurities that we're wrestling with. And there's A reason for that. That is the something that we push against in order to become who we have the capacity to be. Which has got to be a conversation for another time. But most of us, if we're going to make up something about ourselves as to why my person is doing X, Y and Z, it's going to be some form of self doubt or deprecation. I'm going to think I'm less than. It's because I'm not pretty, it's because I'm fat, it's because I wasn't educated. It's because of my upbringing. It's because fill in the blank and we can go so many crazy places and come up with so many great things to fill in that blank. And so that prevents us, this less than prevents us from showing up in our relationships. And so when things aren't working for me, I have a tendency to not state it. Hey, you know what? My emotional needs just aren't being met in this relationship. One of two things is going to happen. I'm either going to get my face ripped off and there's not any place or any room in our relationships to talk about it because we haven't been taught that that's okay. The person that you're sharing this information with, right. I'm not happy in this relationship. I'm not getting my emotional needs met. We need to do something about this. Their self deprecating and doubt is going to kick off and they're going to challenge that, saying, what are you talking about? That's crazy, that's not okay. And so it never really gets addressed and we have a couple of rounds of that and then we decide to just not address it at all. I'll handle it on my own. So we have to understand that's the first challenge.

So what if you could interchange another word for those of us that are not as sophisticated as you and say if my emotional needs are. So what else might be said between partners, between people in a, you know, committed relationship where their needs aren't. What could you substitute for emotional?

So yeah, I, I feel stuck. I feel lethargic, I feel bored. I feel like you don't care. I don't feel like you value me. I don't feel like this is important to you. Right? I'm not emotionally doing well here. I'm, I'm, I'm not feeling struggling, I'm not feeling it.

Not feeling it.

You know, it's just kind of flatlined. It was really great. And this is the typical narrative. It was really Great in the beginning and it was so amazing. And then we flatlined mind we like and I don't know what to do.

Starts off well and tapers down.

We kind of bought into that's normal. Just because we don't talk about.

There's a bright picture, right?

Who's signing up for that? Well, nobody wants to sign up for that. Which is why when it starts to flatline, which is inevitable by the way, people, it's going to flatline because emotional is energy and energy ebbs and flows. It's a natural order of the universe. Again, a conversation for another time. But as it ebbs and flows, we start to panic and don't know what to do about it because we don't have these kinds of comments.

Rather than building and understanding. That's exactly like Stacy shared. That's how the universe works.

Yes. Okay, so number my emotional needs are not being met and I don't know how to do it.

Gotcha.

And I don't know what to do about it. And if I try and talk about it, it doesn't go well. We end up fighting. And then I feel worse. So I just don't. And that puts me in a place where I'm going to start to deal with my emotional needs on the backside. And I'm going to start to get involved with things that feel my emotional self. Where I feel successful, I feel wanted, I feel like I can do it right. And that tends to take us into places of volunteering or getting involved in the kids or a new hobby or getting a promotion at work or a girl's night or a guy's night out so that I can feel or fuel, not feel, but fuel my emotional body. I don't realize that's what's happening. But we all need to fuel our emotional selves. Otherwise we flatline. We don't realize that my emotional body can tap out long before my physical body does. Right. And a lot of us can see and understand people in our own lives, friends and family members that are emotionally dead on the inside, but they're just waiting for the physical body to catch up. Well, that's a heck of a thing. We don't want to put ourselves in that situation, but we do because we don't know what else to do to take care of this emotional self. So when my emotional needs are not being met in the relationship, it's going to prime me for seeking something outside of the relationship to get that recharge to refuel myself. Right. And most of us won't say Anything about that, or if I've tried, it hasn't gone well. So I'm going to go ahead and just try and handle it on my own. And then I might find myself in a pickle. I might find myself connected to this emotional person on Facebook or in the office or where I volunteer. I sit on a board or I met at my coffee shop, right? And there was a something there that I don't get at home. And so all of a sudden, I'm starting to focus in on and build that connection. And I'm not putting in the time and connection, the sharing of myself with my person anymore. I'm doing it with this person outside of the relationship. And that's what we would call an emotional affair, which is a form of infidelity. And now if we catch ourselves there, it's okay. I really want to highlight. I know it sounds terrible. It's okay. It's normal. It's going to happen. Tom's a pretty handsome guy. He's a pretty awesome person. And when he goes out and about, right, which he does without me, I can't follow him everywhere, nor would I want to. That'd be too emotionally exhausting. But we tend to try, don't we? I know for a fact, because he shares this with me, we have that kind of safety and permission, our relationship, where if he were to meet somebody, that really created some kind of a spark, right? He knows what to do because he understands the emotional body and how this whole thing works. He knows that if he were to meet somebody and that spark's gonna happen, we can't do anything about it. He's attractive, he's awesome, he's wonderful. But Tom knows that if he feeds that, as opposed to our relationship, all of a sudden this relationship is gonna start to atrophy and he's gonna start to strengthen the connection with the other person outside of our relationship now. Because he wants it, Right, Tom? You want it?

Absolutely.

He continues to say, no, I don't want that. I want this. And so, hey, it's been great. It's wonderful. This is so fun. There's nothing wrong with that. That's normal. You are really amazing. I appreciate the connection. I'm going home now, right? That's how that works. It's going to happen. We are going to find ourselves connecting with or feeling a spark with human beings outside of our relationships. And when our relationships are struggling because our emotional needs are not being met, or we don't know how to meet those emotional needs, that single little spark that's inevitable could take us down a place where all of a sudden we find ourselves having an affair.

And I would say the more grounded you are in your own Persona, who you are really, really have spent a lot of time, which Stacy and I am blessed and grateful to say that we have to really, really appreciate who we are and how we show up. More of those opportunities are going to be present. So it's not that you can't appreciate running across other wonderful human beings because.

They'Re all around us.

But like Stacy just shared, you know, you have to understand where the boundaries are and what you truly are invested in. So it isn't that you want to just say, oh, no, no, I couldn't talk to you. No, you want to celebrate that human as a human. But again, Stacy, I think was very clear where. How far do you take it? How much investment do you put into that? That's the difference.

Yeah, exactly. It reminds me of a place where I was at a conference, a business conference over in San Francisco in the Bay Area, and we with a group of girls from the same.

I wasn't there.

I wasn't there in San Francisco at the Marriott Hotel. They have a beautiful bar there. And we decided we were going to go and get some lunch and sit at the bar and get ourselves a glass of wine. And it just so happened that I was the end girl. So there was probably five of us, and I was the end girl on the left side, and then there was lots and lots of females and then of course, the end girl on the right side. And as we were sitting at the bar, it just so happened I sat down and there was a pilot, very handsome pilot, very successful pilot, flew in and out of San Francisco all the time. We ended up just that spark we were just talking about, right? And we must have sat there and laughed. And we got so into the conversation that the other four girls ended up going and leaving me there, right? Because they didn't want to interrupt our conversation as we were laughing and talking and carrying on. And it was delightful and we both had a great time. And at the end, I thanked him so much for the time. And he says, hey, to thank you, I'm going to buy your dinner and your drink. And I said, thank you so much. Hey. And then he says, can I give you my number? And I said, that wouldn't be a good idea because I'm committed to my guy back home, but thanks for a lovely time. And I came home and talked to Tom about it. Obviously, we're talking about it live on air to the Internet and the powers that be. Right. It's not something I feel ashamed of or guilty of because I know I handled it well because I disclose and it's okay to celebrate that. And this is by the way, one of the reasons why it is we want to keep our partners small because we know that as they shine brightly, as they become old, that they can be, they become more attractive to others. And we want to cheer everybody into becoming all that they can be. But that doesn't mean you can't have a long lasting relationship that's based in committed foundations of love. We constantly choose in here. So if we are struggling with your emotional needs not being met, this is an opportunity for us to disclose it in a safe environment which is probably going to lead you just needing some support and that we explore how to get those emotional needs, methods and we practice doing it because it doesn't just happen. It's something that we need to practice because we've not been taught how to share those kinds of things. And like I said, we typically, if we do, it doesn't go well. And so then that shuts us down again or right. We're trying to control and manipulate others because we're terrified that they're going to find somebody outside of myself. And that what, that's what leads to these unspoken conversations. Let me just add here. In my emotional self, I show up as good as I feel. And if I don't feel so good about myself, then I'm going to naturally want to prevent my partner and my special somebody from becoming all that they can be because I'm afraid I'm going to lose them. So you start to see the dynamic. If we can't talk about it and explore it and have a different conversation, it's inevitable that some form of unmet need is going to show up in our relationships.

And I would say it's very, very threatening. If you see your partner choosing to really, really grow and expand and you know, become all they can be and you're not, you know, that's, that's a very, very threatening place. You know. So again, there's a lot of moving parts here and typically if you choose to try to step into one of these difficult conversations and you've not had some practice and learn some new skills how to do this, it's probably not.

Going to go well. The second emotional driver is I know I need to grow and I feel like I'm suffocating this relationship. I've gone along with what didn't work for me for a really long time. This could also be a progression from, number one, my emotional needs are not being met. And now I've given all I can and I need to grow, or I can just feel like I need to grow and I can't do it here. You know that there's more for you. You believe that the person that you're with can't grow or won't grow with you, and you long to be free to explore more of who you have the capacity to be. Again, if we could talk about these things. We make up assumptions that the person that you're with will or won't do a lot of things. And then we show up as though that's true without ever saying, hey, I feel like I really need to grow or explore more of who I am. Are you supportive of that?

Let's say one. Let just write on this, because I think this could. This could really apply to a lot of.

A lot of.

Because again, we're. We're. I mean, we're. Stacy and I've been together 10 years. We're both very different than who we were 10 years ago. So if you've even been together longer than that, you're not the same people you were when you came together. So let's say one partner is really into growth, personal growth, expansion, trying new things, and one partner isn't. If you can get to this place to really, really explore what's going on, is it still possible? Let's say the one partner still is not too excited to grow, but really in support, and we'll try to make it work with this other partner. Is that possible?

Yes. Well, we forget that it's the pull, the push and pull that helps us become who we are. Sometimes I'm growing. And Tom goes, okay, okay, okay. This is important to me. I'm going to show up. I know I got to do this. I know this is important to you. I'm going to do it. And sometimes the roles are reversed. Sometimes I say, okay, okay, Tom. I know, I know, I know. I'm lagging behind. And these are in all the different chapters of our life, whether it's business, professional, financial, health, wellness, exercise. Right. Growing. Our mentality, our dancing. Dancing, yes. And I have a really great story of a client that I want to share with you that I think it'd be really appropriate to kind of highlight this. So that's natural and normal. We're going to be growing at different points, and that's not a bad thing, because me growing Inspires somebody else to kind of grow with me. And that's how relationships work. That's one of the benefits of them. But we make up a story that if I'm growing and you're not, then you don't want this, that you don't want to come along for the ride. And sometimes that's true, and we need to vet that out. We need to have a conversation about that. But because it's just as likely that they're like, I don't know how. I'm scared. I don't know how to step in, but I want to. And some of us tap out there because I don't want to go where you're growing into, and that's okay. And we need to have that conversation. But understand that if we can have that conversation, then you're coming from a place of understanding, a place of completion, and not a place of who's right and who's wrong, which is a very important distinction. Okay. When we just cut things because we're hurt, because we feel betrayed because of this egregious thing, you're the monster. I'm going to make you pay. Everybody's going to pay. And there's not the healing and the moving forward that's so important.

So it looks like we have a question came in from the comments. Eric, you want to let us know what the question is? Oh, I have a question. If someone cheats and you decide to stay, does it mean they will cheat again?

No. That's a really great one. No, it doesn't mean that they'll cheat again, but it does mean there's time and need for a conversation around these things. We need to explore what promoted and what was the emotional driver for the cheating and what is it we can do as a couple to get everybody's needs met, to ensure that we're growing forward and stronger. And therefore, the need for the cheating subsides and doesn't exist anymore. If I don't address the issue, it's likely that it could happen again because I'm going to go to a place where I get my emotional needs met, whether I like it or not. Look, guys, the emotional driver in our lives is everything. We want to approach life from a logical place, but it is not the driver. We do all kinds of things that don't make any sense logically, but we can't help ourselves, right? I know I need to spend more time in the gym. I know I need to spend more time caretaking my finances. I know that would be the very Best thing. And if I read all the books and the research, they're going to tell me.

Yep, yep.

Logically, that's. That's the deal.

Well, and I would say the emotional.

Driver is the one that rides life.

Well, I.

One that I show up according to.

And I would say that look at, at some of these stories that we all know and we can point to like, wow, so and so I can't believe they did that. And I would assert, you know, I love that word. If you've listened to me before, A S S E R T, by the way, a little bit of words, but I just love that. Assert. I would assert that that's just a confirmation that we will go to incredible extremes. Like people like God. I didn't believe. I never thought Jim would do that. Well, yeah, because we're bleeding out the backside emotionally.

Our emotional bodies are flatlining. So we do crazy stuff.

Believe me. Stacey and I, we, we've heard some amazing stories and clients that have come to us be and like, wow. Well, it just shows you we will go to tremendous extremes to get our needs met. And to say otherwise, we're being, we're being naive because it's going to happen.

So the cheating is just the flag waving, if you will. Hey, we got something here we got to address.

So great question.

Somebody. Somebody's emotional needs are not being met or somebody feels like they can't grow, or somebody just made a mess and got themselves into a situation and they reacted and now they regret it. So how are we going to move forward? We've got to put a plan around.

So you would say most to Brooke's question, you would say yes, a potential. If someone cheats and things aren't handled in the way that we're advocating and sharing and inspiring and teaching, there's a good chance that that particular person may choose to cheat again because again, they're flatlining and there's energy's going out the backside. But if.

And it works so well the last time, I'll just reach for it just this one more time and then I'll be okay. And then we'll figure this thing out.

Right.

It really is like that number three is I'm going through the motions, but my heart's not really in it. I stay because of the marriage vows. I stay because of the religion. I stay because of the kids. I stay for the money. And I stay because you're going to make me pay. We can't turn this around.

Or all of the above.

Yeah. And that's a Heck of a place too because we can't have the conversations that are going to actually get us engaged emotionally into our relationships. So we check all the boxes and just hope that this is going to go well and we get our emotional needs met on the back side of our relationships. Meaning in secret, would you say, I.

Mean marriage vows, religion, kids, money, going to make me pay or all the above, would you say that that would be the reason why sometimes people think that what I would have to, what I have to navigate is too insurmountable. So I'm just going to take care of things kind of on the backside.

Absolutely. Happens all the time. Absolutely. And there is a fourth and I don't want to spend a lot of time on the 4th. But it's our greatest fear. Okay. It's kind of like everybody thinks somebody's psychotic when they make a mess as a human being when the reality is psychosis is a very, very small percentage, I think like 2% of the whole entire 7 billion of us on the planet. So you know, in comparison it's a very, very small number. And this is like that we think that everybody is doing this when they cheat or they're unfaithful in their relationships. So I'm just going to mention it here so that I can give it credit. But this is probably not going on in your situation. And if it is, it's, it's very, very rare. Number four is a human being feels so insecure with inside of themselves that the validation of somebody finding them attractive or having sex with somebody on a consistent basis, they can't maintain long term relationships. But having the, the attention, having the interaction with the opposite sex or, or somebody you find attractive is something that I just can't get enough of. That's what we are all afraid of is happening when somebody cheats. But the likelihood of that being the case is so, so, so, so small. It's likely one of those three primary emotional drivers that we just touched on. So there's a couple things that before we wrap this up, I want to cover here. Doesn't mean that your partner never loved you if they cheat on you. Absolutely not. In fact, more times than not it has nothing to do with the partner and everything to do with the emotional driver that's inside of the person you're in a relationship with. That's what's playing out. Me myself had a partner of 15 years. He ended up taking me on a drive to the canyon. And when he got there, I thought we were going to have a romantic Little interchange and interlude because our 13th anniversary was coming up. And instead, what I got was information that he had been involved in prostitution. And he wanted to assure me that it wasn't about the sexual, but the thrill of the hunt that was driving this. Not that it felt any better to me, but it did to him telling me that. And as we worked through that, I realized it didn't have anything to do with how I showed up in the bedroom or how beautiful I was. It had everything to do with the fears and insecurities and doubt and lack of confidence with inside of himself that was the driver. And so he needed that in order to feel fuel, to recharge his emotional body. And didn't feel like he could do that in our relationship because he didn't know how to show up and ask for it as an example. Okay. Very rarely does it have anything to do with the partner. The partner itself, if you're the. What we'd say the victim. It very rarely has anything to do with you. What I would encourage you to look at is do you make it safe for them to share what's truly going on for them emotionally? That's the piece you can do. You can support those conversations and make it safe to have those difficult conversations. And that's probably going to take some practice, because to hear things that we've never heard before that are hard to hear, we as human beings tend to go to those horror pictures that we talked about earlier.

And I would just interject like I do all the time. Safe would mean when you receive that information that Stacy shared, if you're hearing things that are very difficult to hear it, they don't trigger you, and you don't respond in a way that's not going to lend itself to have that person continue with that conversation. So you. You have to train yourself and learn new skills and ways to have be the receiver. And also their share of these places of difficulty. It is possible, but it's not how we're born from the womb. We don't know how to do that unless we take some time to learn.

How to do it. Yeah. Call it emotional weightlifting around here. And is ending the relationship the only option? No. In fact, if you end it without the completion and the healing and the understanding about what brought you to this place, you're likely to find yourself in an even more interesting position.

So might that be a situation if you chose to do that, didn't have any closure, completion, then the same behavior that. That led you to that place may be repeated again?

Well, yeah, because we, we don't feel like we can show up and disclose it, take responsibility for it, clean up a mess, understand it, get closure so that I can move on from a place of feeling good about who I am. Remember, we show up as good as we feel. And if we don't feel good about how we've shown up or some of the things that we've done, which is really the real butt kicker of commitment, it's not really about the other person and the price that they've paid. It's about, at the end of the day, I know when I've broken a commitment myself and my ability cover that up or avoid that or not take responsibility for it causes me to feel bad about myself. So I show up in that way, trying to cover it up, trying to be something I'm not, et cetera, et cetera. As I get further away from myself, I'm trying to describe this as simply as I possibly can. And this is why it's not really the partner that's being cheated on. It's the person and what's going on inside of them that's driving them to do what it is they're doing. As the partner, my opportunity is to understand that and to decide how and if we're going to work with it. And so if we take the time to uncover those things, the way forward will always be revealed and it will come from a place of understanding and completion. Knowing what we need to do. It's either going to go, wow, we've cleaned. I understand you so much better and I understand where we got off track. Let's, let's go again. I'm talking about our lease option. Contract for love here, folks, folks. Or it's going to be, oh, I see. I understand why this isn't going to work. We can't go into the same direction. I understand you want this and I want this. You're not willing to meet that need emotionally, physically, mentally. Right, intellectually. So I guess it's time to say goodbye.

But I would, I would just remind everyone that even if that is where you find yourself, it still can be done in a way that serves everyone. And this is a place of great passion for me, especially if you have children. And guess what, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't matter what the age of the children are, because Stacy and I have children from 40 down to 20, 21, and our children are always looking to you. You're always being their guide. So if it you have children, it's very, very important that it goes well. Whatever your choice is.

Yeah. So let's. We gotta land this episode. We could talk about this for the next half hour, but it's time to wrap this up, unfortunately. We'll come back and talk about this again. There's a lot here, so take it slow and listen to this episode many times. But let's give you three takeaways, which we love to do at the end of the heart of the matter. The first takeaway is you've got to understand our emotional selves are the driver of everything that we do. So rather than take things personal, understand the other person's emotional drivers. That's the opportunity. And when something like this happens, it highlights. Oh, right. There's something here we don't understand. There's something here we're not talking about. And there's something here in our relationship that needs to be addressed. And if I can understand that, that then I can move forward with it. Anna. And however we choose. But I'm going to feel complete with it. What would be yours too?

I would say. Yeah, just to stack on that. You know, there's so much Stacy shared societal narrative. I would say to someone's going to be right, someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Again, look, ladies and gentlemen, we're not trying to dismiss the pain that happens when you're in this place, of course, but paint it. Remember, that's the four letter word that no one guesses. That's part of every relationship that we've ever been in, will be or in the future. But rather than trying to make someone right or wrong, it's like it's so important and difficult to say, okay, well, let's understand what were the ingredients that facilitated this. That's always the case. Everyone's got to retake responsibility. The victim as well as the person.

That you know, there's something for everybody.

Something for everyone. And that's a big one. It's a big goat moment.

And let's leave, let's leave them with it. You can get through anything in a relationship up to and including infidelity and adultery. But these three things have to be present. The two or more people in the relationship, wink, wink, have to want it, genuinely want it, just because you want it. Two, we have to be willing to let the past go, or at least try to let the past go so that we can build a brighter future. And number three, it's going to require you to learn and practice some new skills and mentality and understanding about relationships in order for you to go in A new direction. And if you've got a yes on all three of those on both sides, I promise you you can get through anything. So let's take a quick break here, a minute or so. We'll be right back and we're going to dive into some fun and a little bit of spread some love. If you have a question, go ahead and throw it in there. We'll see if we can fit it in. We'll be right back.

Here's what one of Stacey Bartley's clients says about working with her.

Working with Stacy has been life changing in a very magical way. I wanted to work with Stacy when I left a long term marriage because I didn't want to repeat any of my relational, how would you say, unhealthiness.

This.

I'm so amazed how she has taken her experience and wrapped it into her own program. A program that is designed specially for you. For anyone that moves forward with her. She's unique, she's profound, she's, she's magical. She has a love for others that is unmatched and it would be a gift to yourself to work with Stacy.

To book your 30, 45 minute or 60 minute session with Stacy, go to stacybartley.com checkup.

Welcome back. We are your host Tom and Stacy along with our engineer up at the spaceship kknw. Thanks for being with us. We just gave you a lot to chew on if you just joined us. If you just joined us. Now go back and listen to the, the, the, the heart of the matter. It was, it was intense but it's important and now we're going to step into some. Follow the fun. What do we have?

Mrs. Bartley, we've given you something to think about and now we need to give you something to kind of bring back in some fun.

Just bring a little balance back into this whole. Stacy's our fun coach of our relationship and she does a great job with it.

And today I want to encourage you to make a favorites list. Now. A favorites list.

A favorites list.

And the reason why I chose this is because of the truth.

You would be on my favorites list.

Oh, I'm so glad. That's very sweet of you to say so. And you would be on mine.

Well, good to hear.

We can't talk about the things that are our favorites as simple as they are without putting a smile on our face or somebody else's. I mean, just go ahead and try it.

I just, just saying it makes me smile.

I know, I know. We can't talk about our favorites because we're identifying how we see ourselves and what lights us up in this moment. And that's why this, this opportunity to have a little bit of fun is so delightful. Delightful. So I want to encourage you to become familiar with your favorites. Like, and I'm going to give you a list of them and rattle a bunch of them off or to memorize and come up with and understand the favorites for somebody that you want to connect to. Because I promise, if you let them share their favorites with you or you promote or give them something or create an experience or mention what's their favorite, they're going to love you for it. Like, they're going to smile and go, oh, my gosh, you get me. Or, oh, my gosh, you love me. Or anything is so fun. Either side of that equation, you're on. It is so fun to know that you know what my favorite color is or my favorite flower or my favorite band or my favorite activity.

This kind of reminds me of last week's Follow the Fun. This a little bit.

Yeah.

Well, we talked about, we went on. You go on a little shopping spree and you fought and you, and you, you choose things that, you know, remind you of your partner.

Yeah. And you could do that. If you know some favorites, you could go and, and do that same thing from last week and combine this week.

And I was thinking that, that, that you asked me what I, what I got for you, and I got you the, the bottle of wine, the first bottle of wine that we had in Italy and also a really, really good Colombian coffee.

Yes, you did.

My name is Juan and I am from Colombia.

So. Okay, quickly, color. Here's favorites. I want you to, to get familiar with these for yourself because if I say, oh, yeah, that is my favorite color, it validates me, makes me feel good, puts a smile on my face. And if I know these for my kids, the people, my lover, my best friends, my besties. Right. And I act on these. I bring them into the picture, or I can make them a part of a special surprise, or I mention them in conversation, it's going to put a smile not only on the outside, but on the inside of everybody, I promise. So here's some favorites to consider. Color. Your favorite number, flower, perfume, Your favorite authority book, fairy tale title, children's book, your bible passage, perhaps a quote, a song, your favorite singer, sport team, pastime, your favorite ice cream, your favorite food, favorite movie actor, actress, your favorite comedian, your favorite pet, your favorite foreplay, your favorite position, your favorite season, your favorite time of day, your favorite Hobby. Your favorite piece of jewelry, your favorite vacation, your favorite dream, your mastery. What is the thing that you are most proud of being masterful in? And what's your favorite wine or liquor or miscellaneous? There could be a favorite for anything, but at least that gets you thinking. So before we transition to spread some love, babe, your favorite color is what?

Oh, my favorite color? Oh, come on. But I was all around my favorite vacation.

Oh, that's so sweet.

So Italy.

He doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about what his favorite anything is. And if I want to get his favorite something out of him, I really gotta wrestle him to the ground.

I have an orange shirt on today. I think it's not pretty cool.

It's my favorite color.

Oh, okay. My favorite vacation by far, Italy.

Yes. We had a great time there. Are you stuck because there's nothing to be done? Or are you stuck because you won't allow yourself to try anything different? This is why we do the follow the fun. Because if you'll just follow along, you'll have a little bit of fun, and I promise it will recharge your emotional body. And after the conversation we just had, you're starting to understand that's pretty important stuff. So if you're not already, get on the fun list. We'll give you some ideas weekly as well. So let's step in to spread some love. We have a really fun spread some love today from Joshua Shea. And Joshua is going to be joining us here in the Love Shack next week. Oh, and it's going to be a juicy conversation.

We have another big one. Another big, big kind of gold Big gulp topic and conversation.

Now. I think we should tell them now. It's all about porn addiction.

Okay.

Because it needs to be.

Here's what Joshua had to share.

Yeah, here's what Joshua had to say today. For all of you out there, a relationship tip for you.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, however they measure time on your home planet. This is Joshua Shea. I am a certified betrayal trauma coach. I am also one of the country's leading experts about pornography addiction. And I am looking forward to being with Tom and Stacy on July 22nd in the Love Shack, we're going to have a conversation about the ins and outs of pornography addiction. I have a feeling there'll be a lot of information that will absolutely shock you. When I look back, what I've learned from my own relationship journey is that you need to ask for help when you absolutely are at your lowest. People can't always tell how you're doing, especially if you've been denying that you need help for a long time. So make sure you ask for it in the relationships that you have in your life. I think that's one of the ways you actually nurture them. Anyway, we'll talk about that and so much more on July 22nd. I am looking forward to being back with all of you soon inside the love shack. Until then, you have a super, super day.

He's such a great day. I mean, a great guy. He. He calls himself the Johnny Appleseed of conversations around porn addiction. He's a recovering porn addict himself. And he's also, by the way, had a long term relationship with his beautiful wife and family that has supported him through this journey for more than a decade. So I can't wait to have him share his story with you. And I wholeheartedly 100 agree. My gosh. Asking for help helps nurture your relationships. Absolutely. That's where we can grow together and get.

So join us next week. Don't miss that one.

Yeah. So let's wrap this up with a little can you feel it? We always leave you with a song because we've given you a lot to think about and we also want to give you something to feel because we are always building that physical and that emotional body. It's important and it matters. There wasn't a better song that I could come up with than Ruth B's situation. Why? Because in this song she sings about, please just be honest with me, tell me what our situation is so that we know how to go forward. We know what we've got here or don't have here. And so listen to it. Let it speak to you from the emotional side of things. And you know, Tom, you always love to say if you want to do this episode in the reverse, right? Yeah.

Listen to the song first and then listen to the heart of the matter. That might be a fun way, I think might maybe try. Of course, I'm part of the creation of it. But no, this is. We have a lot of fun, Stacy and I and our team to. To what song would be the most powerful again, because. Why? Well, if this is a feeling experience. So you know what? I think it's the time to wrap this one land this episode. Thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. If you, wherever you're listening, you know, live YouTube, Facebook, you know, streaming through KKNW.

And a special thank you to Joshua Shea. We look forward to having him on the show next week. Thanks so much for your super tip at, which was spot on. I can't wait to have him in.

Thank you to our incredible engineer. Makes us look and sound so good. Eric at the spaceship at kknw. And until next time, we'll see you.

Yep. See you next week, guys. We're Thomas Stacy Bartley, host of Love Shack Live. Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next week.

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack. We hope you came away with something that major toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to staceybartley.com podcast. Love the show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though and join. Join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacey Bartley.