Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Infidelity: Doesn't Happen As Often Or For The Reasons You Think
Transcript
- 0:05Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
- 0:07Psych mom show today. I'll be discussing infidelity,
- 0:11just an overview of a couple questions that I got and there's
- 0:15a whole section of my blog devoted to infidelity and
- 0:18actually did A continuing ed for other clinicians on infidelity,
- 0:22which is huge power point. That took me three hours, I
- 0:26presented that at my state organization Association years
- 0:30ago and most recently for a private C company.
- 0:33Tzk seminars, If there is somebody who wants to hear me
- 0:38talk for three hours on infidelity straight, then you
- 0:42can message me and I'll link you to where you can purchase that
- 0:45for $65 for this company. But anyway, otherwise I'll just
- 0:49give you more of a brief overview here.
- 0:52And before I do that, please do subscribe because I have loads
- 0:56and loads of great episodes. Most recently was how your child
- 0:59is watching? How you treat your significant
- 1:01other? Your partner.
- 1:02So be careful. All right, so infidelity
- 1:07infidelity is, you know, it's a Hot Topic because people think
- 1:12that there's more infidelity than there is particularly a lot
- 1:16of the guys who come to me through various manosphere
- 1:20channels, think that women are just cheating all the time.
- 1:23They're not women have low rates of cheating compared to men.
- 1:26I tried to say this on Tick-Tock and I got all these dudes who
- 1:30were like, no way women are like cheating at rates of 95%.
- 1:34No, that's not true. I'm sorry that happened to you
- 1:37but it isn't it unusual. Women have lower sex drives
- 1:41there more often with small children you know they don't
- 1:44usually cheat. The rates are about twenty
- 1:47percent for men and 13 percent for women that's across the
- 1:51whole lifespan. So not most women are not
- 1:55cheating 87% or not cheating, who does cheat?
- 2:00Well, it doesn't really have to do as much as people think with
- 2:03whether you're happy in your relationship.
- 2:04And Chip 56 percent of men. The cheat are in happy
- 2:07relationships and 24% a woman. So, it seems like women do cheat
- 2:11at much, lower rates, but they may do it because they are more
- 2:16unhappy, that would give them the push.
- 2:19Like, they don't have that natural testosterone.
- 2:21Walking around in monogamy, as I say all the time, they don't
- 2:24walk around. Once they're in a serious
- 2:26relationship, like, aroused all the time, you know, like a guy
- 2:29might, you know? So therefore they have to
- 2:32actually be pretty unhappy. Be in the relationship to cheat,
- 2:36but, you know, 24% of them, the cheetah quarter are still happy.
- 2:40So, that's something to be said. So, then, why do people cheat?
- 2:43Because they want to feel alive, I said this in another podcast
- 2:46and it's in the Esther perel State of Affairs book which you
- 2:49should read that's a great book on Affairs.
- 2:52And you, you would think that in our culture, there's like, you
- 2:57know, people act like people who cheat or like the devil in our
- 3:01culture. This is only a real recent sort
- 3:03of thing. It used to be A given that men
- 3:05would cheat you specially if they were traveling or they were
- 3:08traveling for extended periods. It was kind of known that men
- 3:12had like workplace Affairs and things like that and the only
- 3:15time that that would be so horrible would be if the wife
- 3:19was humiliated and found out about it.
- 3:21And you could see some of this, if you watch The Sopranos with
- 3:25Tony Soprano and Carmela, how he cheats on her.
- 3:27But it really only gets humiliating if he somehow, I
- 3:32mean, you know, obviously she doesn't love it, but it It's
- 3:35considered something that they that is going to happen.
- 3:38But if it were to come back and bite her some way, and she were
- 3:41to be publicly humiliated, that would be the very bad part.
- 3:45But nowadays, as I've talked all the time about how marriage is
- 3:49supposed to be everything. People are supposed to be each.
- 3:51Other's complete soul, mate. Best friend co-parent, you know,
- 3:54on the same page with every value now, it's thought of as,
- 3:58as really very terrible and that's okay, culture changes,
- 4:02you know, and now There's like, post and Fidelity, betrayal and
- 4:07all sorts of things where people experience real PTSD symptoms
- 4:10from infidelity. And that is because the culture
- 4:13has changed, you know, I mean, so, yes.
- 4:16Now it is it is a trauma to find that out more.
- 4:19So for some people than for others but especially people who
- 4:22have been betrayed and treated badly and their childhoods.
- 4:25If they have another, you know, trauma of any sort relationally,
- 4:30it's going to feel worse than it will further people.
- 4:32But the majority of people nowadays, take it extremely
- 4:34Extremely bad. And there's a lot of interesting
- 4:37books on how different this is and those are all in the
- 4:41bibliography of my continuing ed presentation.
- 4:45So the one that I always cite because the title is so great.
- 4:49Is the erotic Silence of the American Wife.
- 4:51That's a pretty good one too. To read if you're looking for
- 4:55kind of, why do women cheat that?
- 4:57Isn't that they're unhappy? It's this feeling of, is this
- 5:01all, there is in my life. And now when you find somebody
- 5:04That you're attracted to that's attracted to you back, you feel
- 5:07young again, you feel like there's possibilities, you feel
- 5:10a sense of adventure, you feel basically?
- 5:13Like you're not half sleepwalking anymore.
- 5:16You feel alert and alive and very different than you do when
- 5:21you're just kind of going through your life.
- 5:23And of course there are multiple kinds of Affairs, but emotional
- 5:30Affairs happen. A lot more now than they ever
- 5:32did because of the And, you know, because of texting and
- 5:36social media and everything. A lot of the people that I see
- 5:39are people who had emotional Affairs, some of them went
- 5:41physical, some didn't, but the majority of Affairs especially
- 5:44that women have turned out to be emotional Affairs where they
- 5:47were really close to somebody. Let's say at work, work is a
- 5:50real common one and they're talking to them on slack then
- 5:53there's talking to them on text and they're talking to them and
- 5:55talking to them and talking to them then they start talking
- 5:57about their relationship and they're not happy and you know
- 6:00it goes from there. So this is why I counsel people
- 6:05in the aftermath of infidelity you if you really want to stay
- 6:08focused on your relationship and you know, you're somebody that's
- 6:11already done this once before don't have any opposite-sex
- 6:15friends, just don't you know do not get together with people of
- 6:18the opposite sex that you may be attracted to because if you
- 6:22start talking to them about things, individually one-on-one
- 6:27and the topics of become increasingly more intimate than
- 6:30you already know. Once before it happened, that
- 6:33you got involved with somebody, where you were Supposed to so
- 6:35keep your boundaries very strong.
- 6:38You know this is sometimes people don't like this advice
- 6:42but I mean if you want to if you're in the aftermath of
- 6:44infidelity and you still are saying that you ought to have
- 6:48all the same friends and all the same leeway as before then you
- 6:50really want to work on your relationship.
- 6:52Probably not, because you're still putting yourself In Harm's
- 6:54Way. So some the person who asked me
- 6:58to do the infidelity thing, the subscriber also asked, are there
- 7:01any times when having an affair is like a good idea?
- 7:04So, For a good idea. I mean, I could make some
- 7:06Lifetime movie stuff up, like I don't know.
- 7:09Your wife is in a coma, you know, and like you've been
- 7:13faithful for 20 years and then you know, but like that's not
- 7:17the sort of situation that people are in.
- 7:19It's really never a good idea to cheat on somebody pragmatically.
- 7:22It's a terrible idea. Your kids, if they find out
- 7:25you're going to hate you. Your divorce is going to be
- 7:28acrimonious on horrible. Your if you reconcile with your
- 7:31spouse, they're never going to talk to you on the truck.
- 7:34In the same way, again, it's never a good idea and you could
- 7:37get an STD, that's happened to some of my my clients who've had
- 7:42multiple Affairs because I work with a lot of guys with sex
- 7:44addiction, they get an STD then they have to tell their wife and
- 7:47it's a whole fucking thing. So, know you should really never
- 7:50have an affair. If you find yourself drawn to
- 7:53having an affair, you should quickly go into therapy and try
- 7:56to work through whatever this attraction is and figure out
- 7:59what you want the thousand times better to get out of the
- 8:02relationship, if you really are dissatisfied.
- 8:04As fide or nowadays? Holy shit.
- 8:07Look, there's a loophole that a lot of people have, which is
- 8:10poly, you know, if people try Polly and this is what everybody
- 8:15was saying, on my tic tocs, it's a very different demographic.
- 8:17I'll take talks a lot younger people.
- 8:19So everybody was like, oh, did you never hear about Polly?
- 8:22I'm like, yeah, I fucking did. Hear about Polly, okay, I have a
- 8:25lot of poly clients now, more and more and more, but if you
- 8:29really cannot exist in your marriage without screwing other
- 8:32people, well, then, at least do it.
- 8:34SLI and say that you want to have an open marriage, I had a
- 8:37podcast on Polly for anybody that cares.
- 8:40I should have linked. Those Tick-Tock people to that,
- 8:43didn't even think about it. But anyway, yeah, you can't
- 8:46really lie to your spouse and think anything good is going to
- 8:49happen because you never slick as you think, and you're
- 8:52probably going to get found out and even if not, you're going to
- 8:55feel like a piece of shit. So like, you know, the guilt,
- 8:58you know, she's not going to be a good scene.
- 9:00So, because this is not the Madmen or Sopranos sort of
- 9:04Society where most men can just do that.
- 9:07And then, it doesn't, you know, bite them in the ass and it
- 9:10doesn't make them feel guilty or anything, because this is just
- 9:13what we do, it's not just what we do.
- 9:14So you would be the guy with a huge secret, and I'll tell you
- 9:17nowadays, even other guys are not cool with hearing this.
- 9:20Like, if you say it used to be. If you're a guy, you say to
- 9:23another guy, I'm having an affair.
- 9:25They're like, okay, now we will be like, oh my God, man.
- 9:28What's wrong? Are you sure you want to risk
- 9:30everything bla bla? I mean half of them.
- 9:32Probably tell your wife. I mean just like Don't have an
- 9:35affair like not that listening to this podcast, going to make
- 9:38anybody stop. If they're really good about to
- 9:40have an affair but it can fuck you up.
- 9:43And the your divorce will be a thousand times worse than your
- 9:46partner. Hates you etcetera.
- 9:48But what if somebody is asking, is it a good idea to have an
- 9:52affair with the question probably is is if I am
- 9:54incredibly dissatisfaction with in my relationship but I do not
- 9:58want to end my relationship. Is there any way to have a free
- 10:00lunch? And y'all know what I think
- 10:02about free lunches already. You can't have any there's no
- 10:05free lunch. So in this case it should
- 10:08mobilize you to say. Since there's no free lunch, I
- 10:11got to get out of my relationship or I have to work
- 10:13on making it better. Those are really my only options
- 10:16having an escape Affair is not an ethical option.
- 10:20In terms of who has Affairs, that was another component of
- 10:23the question. I was asked people with insecure
- 10:25attachment have affairs more that should come as no surprise
- 10:28to any of you who have been listening people.
- 10:32It's interesting men with avoidant attachment so And that
- 10:34are like, you know, no constrictions on me.
- 10:37I Want to Be Free, are more likely to have a fair.
- 10:40Is that one's pretty fucking obvious, right and women with
- 10:42preoccupied attachment. So not the avoidant attachment
- 10:45women, they are more. So the avoidant wives and the
- 10:48avoidant wife podcast is so funny.
- 10:50Actually I should like, you know, put this data on a blimp
- 10:55for all the guys that come to me that are super preoccupied
- 10:58attachment with avoidant wives and they're like, oh my God,
- 11:00she's cheating on me and I'm like, no she just want to fuck
- 11:03you like that's different. You know, it doesn't mean she's
- 11:05fucking someone else. It means she's fucking no one,
- 11:07you know, because she is so irritated by you and your
- 11:10neediness that she doesn't want to fuck anyone.
- 11:12She just like done, she's monogamous, she's done, she's
- 11:15focusing on her friends, her career, her kids, that's what
- 11:18she's doing like, for you to think that because she's not
- 11:20fucking you mean she's talking to someone else is stupid.
- 11:23It's not real. And in obviously, at least
- 11:26eighty, seven percent of cases, it's not real.
- 11:29But the women who do cheat more, interestingly, are the
- 11:32preoccupied woman with and this LED research Bears out with
- 11:36avoidant men who are coupled with avoidant men?
- 11:38Why? Cuz they are not getting their
- 11:40closeness needs met. So the guys at work, the guys at
- 11:44golf, the guys at fishing, the guys doing all these things, he
- 11:46doesn't give much of a shit. And so what does she do?
- 11:49During that time she talks to her ex-boyfriend on Facebook or
- 11:52whoever else? And so moral of the story is if
- 11:56you are preoccupied attachment die, which is most of the guys
- 11:58who are going to be listening, you're avoiding wife, probably
- 12:01not cheating on you, you probably already installed
- 12:03trackers on you. Others phones and you probably
- 12:06know she's not cheating on you but don't go down a rabbit hole
- 12:09of. If she's not fucking me she must
- 12:10be fucking somebody. That's not real.
- 12:13People say that about men, it's not even real about men.
- 12:16As you all know, every man is soliciting does not having sex,
- 12:19you're not having sex with anyone else, either the great
- 12:21majority of you but some of you are most of you aren't so.
- 12:25The way that marriage goes currently is, if unfortunately,
- 12:30is if you're not fucking your spouse, you're not having sex.
- 12:33I mean, like that's how it goes. The majority of people are not
- 12:36having Affairs. Let's and the incidence of
- 12:38infidelity goes lower and lower and lower with education level
- 12:42income, Etc. So there's that as well.
- 12:46So a lot of the people, the women that are cheating are
- 12:49women with, like, you know, who are like 18 years old, because
- 12:52it goes from all adults. So, you know, and also, by the
- 12:56way, it's interesting, there's women that are cheating that are
- 12:58older again. This is out of a very small
- 13:01sample size of women that are cheating.
- 13:03But the years, We're Men think they're cheating, which is like
- 13:07the years of having small kids, barely any women are cheating in
- 13:09those years. They got to be really unhappy
- 13:12and or really emotionally disregulated to be that kind of
- 13:17volatile and kind of to risk to risk a divorce to risk being
- 13:22found out to risk. Not having full custody of their
- 13:25kids. If they were to get found out
- 13:26it's like a whole thing. So most women with small kids
- 13:29which is when you know they start not having sex with their
- 13:32husbands, they're not having sex with Body.
- 13:35So that's just the reality. But, um, the people that are
- 13:39more likely are the people with insecure attachment, they don't
- 13:41trust others. They did not learn stable
- 13:43templates of relationships growing up so that you have
- 13:47trust issues and people with trust issues or intimacy issues
- 13:50are not going to be trusting. And it's a bit within their
- 13:52primary relationship at the same rates as people who did have
- 13:56secure attachment growing up in terms of the the statistics
- 14:02behind. Like, I don't know.
- 14:04How many somebody has to? How many Affairs?
- 14:07Not the same person? Somebody asked, how many Affairs
- 14:09actually get found out? I don't know.
- 14:12Like, there's not statistics like that, but that I could find
- 14:16at least, but from what I see, you know, a lot, a lot of people
- 14:20get caught, I mean, that's just the truth and people get caught,
- 14:23especially with long-term things.
- 14:25Do I know if everybody gets caught that sleeps with a
- 14:27stripper at their friend's bachelor party, I don't know
- 14:29those statistics. But from what I observe
- 14:32generally the longer that an affair goes on.
- 14:34The more evidence you're leaving.
- 14:36So you know, that's how it is. I had this years ago somebody
- 14:39wrote in and asked about their husband had a one-night stand
- 14:43years ago. Do I think that the marriage
- 14:45could be solved? He actually came to her and
- 14:47admitted it was years later? Yes, I think the marriage can be
- 14:50worked on and be resolved. I do of course I work with many
- 14:53couples in the aftermath of infidelity.
- 14:55The only couples where it's not resolved or the people that are
- 14:58literally actively in the affair.
- 15:00While they're coming to see me because they refused to give up
- 15:03on it because they love that person.
- 15:04So that's obviously, you know, doesn't doesn't take a licensed
- 15:08psychologist to say, that's not a very good sign.
- 15:10But people who people, of course, get through Affairs,
- 15:13they recover from infidelity, I've written about this on my
- 15:16site and of course what predicted if you have a stronger
- 15:20relationship more motivation, often children are very good
- 15:24motivator and if you can both understand each other sides.
- 15:28So the one who got cheated on can understand, kind of why.
- 15:32They don't love it. They don't even like it.
- 15:33They're very Add. But at least they understand how
- 15:36the other one felt that the other one, you know, felt that
- 15:39they got this attention and then they got kind of drunk on the
- 15:41attention. They made these bad choices and
- 15:44meanwhile, you know, we weren't having sex like they can put it
- 15:46together like pieces of a puzzle and then the betraying partner
- 15:51first in the order of operations also.
- 15:54But first has to empathize with the Betrayed partner, I mean
- 15:57they got to be really, really apologetic and get past that
- 16:00defensiveness and then the marriage can be worked on.
- 16:03And as a Apparel says in State of Affairs can move on to
- 16:06marriage 2.0. Meaning like it's never going to
- 16:09be the first marriage in the wake of infidelity, but with
- 16:12work, it can be an even stronger marriage if you because it can
- 16:15lead to conversations where your deeply understand one another
- 16:19for the first time and in fact there's usually a hysterical
- 16:21bonding phase which means that people have a bunch of sex in
- 16:25the Discover in the aftermath of the discovery because they are
- 16:30very dysregulated by the news. Everything is new A partner even
- 16:35though he did something terrible least, he did something new, you
- 16:38know, or she and and you're trying to make guard them.
- 16:43And you're also kind of like you're competing.
- 16:46So made guarding means you're competing against the potential
- 16:49of their party. By engaging in this hysterical
- 16:53bonding, this very sharp uptick in the amount of sex that you're
- 16:57having. So, on the one hand, there is
- 16:59one upside that usually transpires, which is that people
- 17:02start having sex. So, Some people if we're talking
- 17:06about Mister missus divorced in spirit, you know, my couples you
- 17:09meet in counseling, number three, in the Loveless marriage,
- 17:12if there's an affair. Well, then it's bye-bye, you
- 17:15know, like it's like not even a it's not even a thing that could
- 17:20potentially lead to reconciliation.
- 17:22Because there's so divorced from one, another really in spirit,
- 17:25as I say, but for couples that have more engagement with one.
- 17:30Another, if Anna Faris found out frequently there is this Time
- 17:34where the maid is trying to get you away from your Affair
- 17:37partner, which leads to this uptick in Sex and interest Etc.
- 17:42And of course there's also like horrible, horrible, things that
- 17:45happen lasting betrayal, trust issues, forever conversations,
- 17:50till 4:00 in the morning. Going through everything that
- 17:53you did. You'll have to give access to
- 17:54your phone in many cases. I mean, it's just a world of
- 17:58shit, so, you know, don't do don't have an affair in order to
- 18:01get the hysterical bonding face because frequently people break.
- 18:04Up. Anyway, after the hysterical
- 18:05bonding phase is done. But you know, this is something
- 18:08that happens when you're thinking about how things go.
- 18:11But, yes, couples can definitely work on repairing after
- 18:15infidelity. They do that all the time.
- 18:17That's what loads and loads of couples counselors work on with
- 18:20clients. I mean, infidelity is a really
- 18:22big one nowadays. It's like if you find out that
- 18:25your spouse is having an affair, it's like almost the first thing
- 18:27you do is call a couple's counselor.
- 18:29So we see lots of it. And if the couple is committed
- 18:34and Strong and wants to work through, you know, the hard work
- 18:38and the person is committed to understanding this was a mistake
- 18:41and they want to be done with the affair.
- 18:43That's pretty key. Then you can repair.
- 18:46Of course, there are situations where the person does not want
- 18:48to relinquish the affair partner.
- 18:50And then another question which I did not get but, you know, I'm
- 18:53here here. All night is, is the, is it ever
- 18:58the case? That people leave for their
- 19:00Affair partners and it works out.
- 19:02Yeah, I'm as hear this all the time.
- 19:04I'm I don't know how this became something that people don't
- 19:07think, I think it's like a tooth fairy kind of, you know, like
- 19:10it's reassuring thought that people have all.
- 19:12It's never going to work out. If you marry the affair partner,
- 19:15I see it. I mean, I see it having people
- 19:17will say to me. Oh yeah, my stepmother.
- 19:19That's the woman that my father cheated.
- 19:21But like, I mean, it just happens because the reality is,
- 19:24is that most people are monogamous in their heart and if
- 19:28they are, these are the people that are not happy.
- 19:31The people that end up leaving for the affair partner.
- 19:34So, In this ongoing love affair. Literally not just sex but A
- 19:38Love Affair and then eventually they can choose to leave.
- 19:41It doesn't usually happen that they are very ambivalent and
- 19:44then the spouse kicks them out. And then they go to the affair
- 19:46partner. But frequently people choose to
- 19:49leave for the affair partner that does happen.
- 19:51It doesn't happen like all the time or anything, but it also
- 19:55doesn't happen, none of the time.
- 19:56So, I mean, it is a thing that I hear and when I started out, I
- 20:00didn't think I would hear it as much as I did because I had
- 20:03thought, you know, the same as the lake.
- 20:04A person thinks that doesn't happen a lot, but it really you
- 20:07hear it more and more people stories about their parents and
- 20:10my parents are divorced and that, you know, one of them
- 20:12remarried, the person that they cheated with, so it does happen
- 20:15and it happens, I think because people love love and they fall
- 20:19in love frequently has not, you know, an affair.
- 20:23It's very hard for people of both genders to just put sex in
- 20:26a specific category. This is why when I have clients
- 20:29who are like on are going to go on Tinder because tinder's just
- 20:31for hooking up. Everything is for me.
- 20:34People. There's no man that's going to
- 20:36have awesome sex with you and gets along with your personality
- 20:40and then he's like, Matt. But you know what?
- 20:41I meant you on Tinder, so I'm not gonna pursue anything.
- 20:45People can click on a people, click on field.
- 20:48That's the one for just sex, like, literally just sex, I
- 20:52mean, people click and meet significant others in all kinds
- 20:55of ways. It's just if the two people
- 20:57click, you know, like there was a real housewives that she met
- 21:00her husband on a sex ad on Craigslist.
- 21:03I mean, this shit. It happens.
- 21:05So there's no such thing usually unless you're literally visiting
- 21:08a brothel you know where you are completely shut down to the idea
- 21:13of a sexual partner ever, no matter how awesome they are
- 21:18becoming love partner. I mean, you're not going into it
- 21:21with the same expectations, but love can always happen in any
- 21:24sort of situation, which is why nobody should have an affair if
- 21:28they're at all, committed to their relationship because you
- 21:30may think your wife doesn't have enough sex with you.
- 21:32So you're just going to go on the side.
- 21:34And fuck this girl at work. Yeah.
- 21:35Well, guess what, you may fall in love with the girl at work
- 21:38too. And then, you know, a hold, then
- 21:41first, you have problems, you know, and you going to leave and
- 21:45this and that. And then your kids May hate the
- 21:47girl at work, because they resent her, because she's the
- 21:49whore that took you away. From our mother.
- 21:51Don't get yourself down this Rabbit Hole of hell.
- 21:55So anyway, that is the overview of infidelity.
- 21:57If anybody dying to hear me talk for three hours on it just hit
- 22:02me up and I will Thank you to where you can do that or and you
- 22:06could also send me some more specific questions about
- 22:08infidelity and devils are written about it.
- 22:10Extensively on the infidelity section of dr.
- 22:13Psych mom and I will talk to you all soon.