Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Your Parent Cheats On Your Other Parent

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When Your Parent Cheats On Your Other Parent · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom, show today. I'm going to talk about when
• 0:11
  your parent cheats on your other parent, or honestly, at the
• 0:15
  parent cheats on a stepparent or a boyfriend or girlfriend, or
• 0:18
  just basically, when you see a parent cheating as a kid, how
• 0:22
  does that impact you? When you get older and you start
• 0:25
  having your own relationships? And even before that really, how
• 0:28
  does it impact your attitudes about sex about trust about
• 0:33
  male, female? Whatever female male male, I'm
• 0:37
  it doesn't matter the orientation.
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  How does it affect your feelings about relationships?
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  You know, and even how does it make you feel about marriage?
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  And about kind of who you can trust and honestly the spoiler
• 0:53
  alert is it doesn't impact it. Well, you know, like there are
• 0:56
  bad ramifications of this and so before we get into that, of
• 1:01
  course, I'd like to tell you to subscribe so you could listen to
• 1:03
  all of my We paid only episodes and also join my Facebook group
• 1:09
  because this like many of my other topics was inspired by a
• 1:15
  discussion in the secret Facebook group where you do not
• 1:18
  get the podcast for free, but you got a lot of extra
• 1:21
  discussion about these topics and a private group.
• 1:23
  So nobody can see what you're talking about.
• 1:26
  Okay, so I work with a lot of people, obviously with insecure
• 1:30
  attachment, refer back to the attachment Theory episode and
• 1:35
  Which meant can be either secure or insecure and within insecure.
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  It's two types of void and preoccupied as I discuss in that
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  episode. Now, if you are securely
• 1:45
  attached, then you had a really positive secure stable kind of
• 1:50
  home life. Usually and you witnessed a
• 1:53
  positive marriage and even if you had a single parent, you at
• 1:57
  least didn't witness any terrible shit happening, you
• 1:59
  know, to anybody in the relationship sphere, because if
• 2:03
  you do, then that really does Impact, your attachment style
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  generally and it also renders, your parent less able to be
• 2:10
  fully present for you if they're undergoing so much crazy stuff
• 2:14
  such as being cheated on and so I don't really see anybody who's
• 2:17
  securely attached in my office. I see more of the, what is it?
• 2:23
  Like, 30% of people because 70% are securely attached, so 30% or
• 2:28
  not. And I see more of that third of
• 2:32
  the world and these people, some of them I've had a parent who
• 2:36
  was unfaithful to either the other parent or as I said
• 2:39
  somebody else and this really messes up how kids think about
• 2:44
  relationships because here you are.
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  Everybody knows, it's bad to cheat.
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  It's bad to lie, right? I mean, you know that from the
• 2:52
  time that your little people tell you don't cheat on tests.
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  Don't lie. Don't do these things.
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  That's dishonest. If you're raised religious, it's
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  even worse and then you see a parent doing it and this is your
• 3:02
  parent is your role model. For either your gender or the
• 3:07
  other gender. And so you start to think holy
• 3:11
  shit. Like if a parent would do this,
• 3:13
  like what else is going on in the world, you know, I mean if
• 3:17
  this would happen like this is a mind, changing view about
• 3:25
  everything because you are raised to believe that your
• 3:28
  parent is good. That's evolutionarily, you adapt
• 3:31
  to think that whatever your parent does is good because you
• 3:34
  have to Dress them like they are without your parent.
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  You're going to die like as a mammal.
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  So you are programmed to think that your parent is probably
• 3:43
  good and to try to get their approval and their attention and
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  their love because if you don't have those things then they
• 3:49
  don't feed you and you die. So that is why a little mammal.
• 3:53
  Would try to reach out to its parent and be loved and get
• 3:56
  approval at cetera because of the parent loves you.
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  The parent, keeps you close and keeps you protected and fed and
• 4:02
  warm, Etc. So you're programmed to think
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  think that your parent is good. But then here you are in this
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  crazy situation where your parent is doing, like, literally
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  the worst thing ever, you know, in terms of what you see on TV
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  and what you see, you know, I mean, obviously they're not
• 4:16
  murdering anybody but they are lying and cheating and on top of
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  that they're doing it to have sex with somebody else.
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  So then this makes it all seem even worse.
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  It's not like they're stealing a bunch of money and using it to
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  like feed your family. They are doing something only
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  for pleasure. That's how it seems to the child
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  only for pleasure. And because they're really
• 4:36
  selfish. And so it's really hard to come
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  back from seeing a parent as purely self motivated and not
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  trustworthy. And when a parent finds kid
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  finds out that a parent had an affair.
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  So like even if like, let's say a man, like was beat his wife
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  and did all these terrible things.
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  If the sun finds out that at the end of the 10 years of that,
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  horrible marriage where the man was bad in, you know, I mean,
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  it's never just like villainous. Like this.
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  But if like the man that whole bunch of bad shit and then the
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  woman cheated, the son will probably identify with his
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  father. Even if his father was such a
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  piece of garbage before that the fact that the mother cheated
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  will kind of equalize it if not make her worse.
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  So why? Because again, as I said, this
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  feels like the ultimate selfish betrayal and very premeditated
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  and you know, it's worse, you know, obviously murder versus
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  manslaughter. To feel that like, while your
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  mother was like planning, your birthday party.
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  She was also planning to text message this guy.
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  She was going to hook up with later.
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  That makes you feel terrible. It was the age before text.
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  So it had to be even crazier like code names on a telephone
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  or something. But I mean, it's just really a
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  mind. Fuck.
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  And it makes you think terribly about whichever gender parent
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  cheated and makes you feel like sex is pretty shitty overall and
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  it just makes people do bad things and it also Also makes
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  you feel like you in a relationship later or not, going
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  to ever really be able to trust the person that you're with.
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  And now, if you understand about Imago Theory, from other things
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  that I've talked about in podcast, like, about talking
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  about why people pick people that are bad for them.
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  So, when you've had a parent that cheats later on, you're
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  likely to find yourself more attracted to people that will
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  cheat and these are more avoided people frequently avoid Lee
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  attached people. Find intimacy difficult and are
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  more prone to look elsewhere. So guys that, for example, had a
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  mother who cheated will think that lots of women cheat anyway,
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  which isn't true. By the way, those rates are very
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  low there like something like 13 percent for women, 20 something
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  percent for men and less really for college-educated women.
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  I mean, there's all sorts of Statistics, but pretty much it
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  slow like Eighty to ninety percent of people.
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  Never cheat and that's men and women.
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  So the point here is though that if you grew up with a parent who
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  cheats, you think everybody cheats because that's what you
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  saw growing up. So you're probably going to be
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  drawn to a partner who's likely to cheat and if you say well how
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  could I know that they were going to cheat?
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  It's so interesting because frequently they cheated it's
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  like the craziest thing. Like when people go back,
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  they'll be like, oh, yeah, like my wife, you know screwed around
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  and whatever whatever what was your early relationship like?
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  Well, I never really trusted her.
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  She had this ex-boyfriend, she would talk to, and she would go
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  out at night and not really tell me where she was going, and I
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  caught her in a couple of Lies, but I never thought that once we
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  were married, she would cheat. Yeah, you kind of did on like a
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  subconscious level because like, that is what she was doing
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  probably and you recognize this behavior.
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  And you almost assume everybody's gonna do it.
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  Anyway, you know, so it's like not even something to break up
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  with somebody for necessarily now.
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  When women see men fathers who cheat frequently, they end up
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  with a lot of body image issues, especially if the father was
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  cheating with somebody who was sexier younger, Etc.
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  If he was was strippers hookers. I mean, there's like a lot of
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  stories, you know, people have. So the woman may always feel
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  that her mother God screwed over because she wasn't young pretty
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  Etc. And she'll feel terrible for her
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  mother and hate her father, but then she Self will vow never to
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  be like her mother and to be more of like a sexy attractive
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  woman and to stay thin and to stay young looking at cetera,
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  Etc. This could give a lot of body
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  image issues and a lot of deep-seated insecurity about how
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  to be a female in the world, you know, and so women who see a
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  father cheating, they will have a lot of deep insecurities
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  because when they think of a man, it isn't Buddy, who's going
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  to be trustworthy and loyal and take care of them?
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  It's somebody. Where if, the man loses
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  interest, he's going to hurt them and step out on them and
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  humiliate them. And this is really hard.
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  So these kinds of women will assume that all men are going to
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  cheat. So again, it's just like my
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  prior example, they're setting themselves up for failure,
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  basically by like, assuming that everybody's going to cheat.
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  So they either ignore red flags or their insecurities in both
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  cases both. Genders, their, their
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  insecurities. And their constant surveillance
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  will actually drive somebody away, you know, so it's like I
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  said in my pockets, it's either you find the partner.
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  That is your Mago. That is the one that you are
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  deeply familiar with, or you create them, you know, and so
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  either you find somebody who kind of does have a history of
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  being shady and you kind of find that familiar and you assume
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  nobody's really any different you marry them.
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  And guess what they are, or you find somebody who does not in
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  fact cheating but because of your Our own history, you assume
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  that they always could be you're constantly checking up on them.
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  You're constantly being insecure.
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  You're asking them a million questions, you're going through
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  their phone and either they end up leaving cheating because fog
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  might as well might as well, like they're acting like they're
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  doing it. Anyhow, or they will just be an
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  unhappy conflictual relationship that, you know, eventually,
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  their ends are dozen, but is unhappy, no matter what.
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  And of course, children pick up on this, which is how that,
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  trauma, gets passed down to yet, another Duration of children who
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  feel that marriage is not good, that people cannot trust each
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  other. That people are always fighting
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  that marriages are chaotic difficult, contentious
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  suspicious and so forth. So, if you find that, this
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  description resonates with you because you, in fact, had a
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  parent who was unfaithful and by the way log, there's lots of
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  ways to be unfaithful. So you may not, for example,
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  like like, there are men that remember, a father always
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  Flirting with women, in front of them like winking or acting like
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  this was somehow cool and they don't know what the father
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  actually did, or didn't do, but they learn from the father that
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  this is a way to be powerful. That this is what it means to be
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  a man, is to flirt with other women when your wife isn't
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  looking. And that this is something to
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  bond over. So whether or not that father
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  and that situation was actually Unfaithful slept with another
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  woman or not. He's teaching his son that this
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  is a way to be a man is to Basically lie, implicitly
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  because he's doing something in front of the Sun that he
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  wouldn't do. If the mother was standing right
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  there, so flirting with other women.
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  And so it's real hard to learn a way of masculinity or I mean,
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  there's women that do it to that flirt with men when they're out.
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  And even though they're not actively cheating, the female
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  children learn. This is what it is to be a woman
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  as you're trying to get as many men when you go outside, you're
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  trying to get as much male attention as possible.
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  So as you may guess, a Lot of infidelity Conchords with traits
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  of narcissism and borderline personality.
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  These are the the more dramatic personality disorders and the
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  and people who require constant streams of attention in this way
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  frequently have traits of borderline or narcissistic
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  personality disorder. And if that resonates with you,
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  vis-à-vis your parents and there's many good books to read,
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  that could really help you understand your experience
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  better. It shows the book Children of
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  the self-absorbed, is a good one.
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  And so, what I'm trying to summarize here is that the way
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  that your parent engages in the world, with sex with with
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  honesty, with relationships with marriage.
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  This deeply shapes who you are, what you look for and really
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  what, you expect to get out of relationships.
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  It is so hard to trust somebody. If you've learned at home that
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  people are not trustworthy. Because your parents should be
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  the most trustworthy person to you.
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  And if they, in fact, turn out to have been living a double
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  life. It is extremely difficult than
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  to one day. Open up to the opposite sex, you
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  know, or the same sex, if that's how your if that's who you're
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  with or really to even a best friend.
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  I mean, quite honestly it's hard to open up and trust anyone if
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  you have learned at home that a parent isn't trustworthy.
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  So there. You can obviously really help
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  you to process and to deal with the anger and resentment.
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  Even if you are at a stage where you're like, yeah, whatever.
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  It's my parent was their life. They fucked it up.
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  Whatever. There are very few people that
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  do not have resentment and anger at some level toward a parent
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  for bringing in drama and Chaos into the home with this sort of
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  behavior. And there's, by the way, plenty
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  of parents who are both cheating.
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  And whether the kid knows that or not, like, I mean, they have
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  felt the chaos, the accusations, the jealousy, and this is
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  extremely Be stressful for child.
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  I've talked about how marital fighting is really toxic for
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  children and releases so much cortisol in their blood and
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  wires them to be hyper-vigilant and distrustful.
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  This is compounded by a million. There are so many stories that
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  I've heard of parents, taking the children in the car to go
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  conduct surveillance on the other parent, and frequently
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  bring them in to confront an affair partner.
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  This stuff sticks with you. This doesn't just go away.
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  Like, if you are ever In this sort of situation where one
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  parent was trying to have you Ally with them, or do their
• 14:40
  dirty work or spy, or whatever. Then your relationship with the
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  other partner with the other parent was poisoned.
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  And I mean, it's really a situation where it is hard to
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  grow up in any sort of healthy emotional way vis-à-vis
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  relationships, right? Because you are in a constant
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  Maelstrom of stress and suspicion and drama.
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  So and by the way, I'm not saying I'm by saying about the
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  narcissistic borderline traits or anything.
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  I'm not saying that anybody's parents are bad.
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  I'm not saying anybody's got to stop talking to their parents.
• 15:15
  If this happen or anything, everybody's behaviors
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  understandable within their context like somebody, who what
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  somebody who's a man, who cheated on his wife and still
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  kept bringing home a paycheck and was pretty nice to.
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  His kid is probably doing a lot better than his own.
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  Childhood was where maybe he got the shit beat out of him, right?
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  So most People try to do better than what they were raised at.
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  And if they still fuck up, then it's like an individual decision
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  of like how you want to think about your parent and your
• 15:43
  relationship with them, moving forward and obviously therapy
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  can help with that. And I'm not saying that it is
• 15:49
  like a bad thing that a person has an affair.
• 15:52
  I was a bad thing, but honestly, there are bad human being.
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  That doesn't deserve any sort of empathy or Grace.
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  And it certainly, by the way, easier to give a parent this.
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  If they ever talk about what happened and apologize for the
• 16:04
  Turmoil turmoil that it sent the family into.
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  Unfortunately many people feel so deeply ashamed of what
• 16:11
  they've done that. They never bring this up to
• 16:13
  their children, either in childhood or in adulthood.
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  And they certainly never apologized which makes it harder
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  for the adult children to have, you know, close relationships
• 16:23
  with these parents moving forward.
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  But anyway, this is just really a tip of the iceberg of all of
• 16:30
  the ways that a parent's infidelity can make a person
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  feel so it can You feel like you don't trust anybody like your
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  own femininity or masculinity is is in question and can only be
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  this certain way that you're learning how to act from a
• 16:45
  parent. You also learn to cut yourself
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  off from your emotions because there's just too much drama in
• 16:51
  the house. It's just swarming around you
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  all the time. So you just kind of go away in
• 16:55
  your own head and dissociate from it.
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  And it's really hard when you've learned dissociation as a coping
• 17:01
  tactic as a child to then just open up and you Easily like
• 17:05
  emotionally attached to other people know you've learned how
• 17:09
  to cut yourself off. So you you know, how to do that
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  at a moment's notice and you may do it way way more than you want
• 17:15
  to. You may be triggered.
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  You may be suspicious of a spouse who isn't doing anything.
• 17:21
  And you may have subconsciously been attracted to a spouse who
• 17:25
  everybody said was kind of treated you bad from the
• 17:27
  beginning. And you just think that every
• 17:29
  that that just happens and people are just all cheating are
• 17:32
  Unfaithful. So you might as well stick with
• 17:34
  who you are. So there are so many ways that
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  this impacts people and not to mention all of the fighting that
• 17:43
  may go along with the infidelity on its discovery, which is often
• 17:47
  then replicated in your own marriage because you didn't
• 17:50
  learn how people can like just talk in a peaceful way.
• 17:53
  Everything was always crazy dramatic, fighting crying
• 17:56
  castigating. So this is what you see two and
• 18:00
  there's always a, not always but there's often substance abuse
• 18:03
  that goes along with infidelity. And, you know, and people who
• 18:07
  are impulsive than one realm and addicted.
• 18:09
  In one realm can be impulsive and addicted in another realm.
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  And this is frequent with men who are serial cheaters that
• 18:14
  they are addicted to sex the same as they're addicted to
• 18:16
  alcohol or whatever else. And if that is the case, then
• 18:20
  the the home life is even more chaotic.
• 18:23
  And or eventually the man, usually a man in those cases
• 18:28
  that I've seen, who is addicted to both substances anti-sex will
• 18:32
  remove himself from the family entirely and The kid won't
• 18:35
  really have much of a relationship with him, and this
• 18:38
  can also lead to obviously tremendous abandonment issues,
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  anger sadness, Etc. So if you are, in this case,
• 18:46
  don't say, oh wow, I should have gotten over this already.
• 18:48
  Why am I still thinking about this ever?
• 18:50
  Why should the still impact me? It's shocking.
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  If you don't think about it frequently, honestly and it's
• 18:56
  shocking. If you wouldn't have any of the
• 18:57
  consequences that I mentioned. So therapy can really, really,
• 19:01
  really help people come to terms with this history and there.
• 19:04
  Life as well as move forward to be a more emotionally open and
• 19:08
  present partner in their current relationship, or to heal
• 19:11
  yourself, so you can get into a healthy relationship and future
• 19:14
  if you're single. Alright guys, hope this was
• 19:17
  helpful. If it was, please do subscribe.
• 19:19
  I'll talk to everybody soon.