How Cheaters Justify Cheating – The Psychology of Betrayal

Lora Cheadle [00:00:01]:
You're listening to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. Have you been betrayed by life, your body or someone that you love? You're not alone no matter what you've been through. Naked self worth helps you regain confidence, joy and enthusiasm so you can create a life you love and flourish. Tune in weekly and learn how.

Lora Cheadle [00:00:28]:
To.

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Lora Cheadle [00:01:04]:
Hello welcome to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I am Lora Cheadle and I'm a betrayal recovery expert. And in case you're wondering, like Lora, what the heck is a betrayal recovery expert? I'm I am so glad you asked. What I do is I work with people, primarily women, in identifying where they have been betrayed. And believe me, there is so much betrayal out there. And you might be thinking, are you kidding? My spouse cheated on me. I know where I was betrayed.

Lora Cheadle [00:01:44]:
Therein lies the problem. Betrayal is such a layered thing. It's not just that somebody cheated on you. It's the emotional aspect of things. There's the physical aspect of things, there's the financial aspect of things. There's the betrayal of your childhood dreams, there's the betrayal of your self worth, there's the betrayal sexually. There's so many different layers betrayal. And that's what I really am an expert in.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:16]:
I'm an expert at helping you identify all of the expectations and dreams that you had that were violated, that were crushed. Because unless and until you can identify all of the different ways that you were betrayed and the impact of that betrayal, then you're never going to be able to move on. And so many of the people that I work with come to me saying things like I'm stuck, I'm stuck in a loop and I can't move on. And that's why you're stuck, because you haven't identified and addressed all of those different layers of betrayal. Now, I recognize that this show is primarily for people who have experienced infidelity But I also want to be clear. There are so many other different kinds of betrayal that also get stirred up in an infidelity situation. For example, my infidelity situation also triggered my corporate betrayal. It triggered betrayal pain from mean girls way back when in elementary school and high school.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:37]:
It triggered in me all of the other times that I had been betrayed. And instead of working to identify and heal all of those other betrayals, I just moved on. Moved on, you know, figured it out, got busy, got distracted, and moved on. And that is really what this show is about. And what I am all about is uncovering it all layer by layer, piece by piece, and then processing each of those layers individually so you can come back to life as the full expression of all that you are. So you can reclaim your power, your potential, and make the rest of your life exactly what you want it to be. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. You can download my betrayal recovery guide@betrayalrecoveryguide.com you can email me laura@lauracheadle.com it's spelled l O R A at L O R A C H E a d l e.com and I would love to meet with you one on one for free, no obligation, for 20, 30 minutes just to help you figure out what's going on with you and if I can be of assistance in helping you move through betrayal or not.

Lora Cheadle [00:05:20]:
Now, all of that being said, I am really excited to get on with today's show. Today's show is all about the psychology of cheating and how cheaters justify cheating. And the topic of this show came about during my last Sunday night support call once a month. For the. For those of you who don't know, I have an online support group. It's only $10 to show up. We meet once a month on Zoom and we just talk about anything and everything. And at the end of our call last Sunday, I asked, what are some of the topics that you all want me to address? And one of the topics that came up was, why is it that when I ask my partner about the affair, they say, I never thought about you hurting you didn't really cross my mind.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:22]:
I didn't think you'd be hurt by the affair. No. No, I didn't. I didn't think about our kids when I was doing this. No. I didn't think about the impacts on our families or our friends or the community or even on my career, especially if they cheated with somebody at work. And I know if you're anything like me and the women that I work with and the women who are in my monthly support group. That's hard to believe.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:55]:
It absolutely defies all logical belief that somebody could intentionally have an affair, set things up, go have sex, hide things, and say that they never thought about you. It doesn't make sense. And that's what we're going to be addressing today. Why that happens, how it's even possible for that to happen so you can get an understanding of what was going on in their head. And I think, most importantly, why that is not a lie, why it's entirely possible for somebody to cheat on you and to have you and the impact on you or your family or your kids absolutely never cross their mind. But before we hop into that, I want to say if you want more information on our $10 monthly meetup group, you can either go to meetup.com you can search it up on eventbrite, or you can again email me Lora L O R Aural R A C H E A D l e Lora cheadle.com and I will give you all of the information because sometimes on eventbrite and sometimes on meetup, those things get. Are kind of hard to find. Anyway.

Lora Cheadle [00:08:35]:
Let's start by talking about the mindset of a cheater, about compartmentalization in particular, and how people can cheat on you, men can cheat on you and honestly not think about you or the impact that their cheating will have on you or your family. Now, while compartmentalization is normal, it's healthy, and it's a really useful skill because otherwise it would be so hard for our world to function because somebody is always dealing with something, it can reach unhealthy levels. It goes too far. Okay, so let's start out with the mindset of a cheater to give you some insight as to what's going on inside a person's brain, inside their mind, when they cheat and how they can honestly say they didn't think about you. I'm not sure if you've ever heard the term compartmentalization, but compartmentalization is a psychological defense mechanism that enables people to suppress thoughts, emotions, difficulties happening in their reality so they can move on, so they can function successfully in life in the moment. It's like if you're having a bad. If you've had stomach poisoning and you're not feeling well, there's that moment in time where you're like, ooh, can I manage this? Can I not manage this? Do I have to leave work? Is this okay? And you kind of play that game in your head like no, everything's fine. And you might be able to finish up a phone call or finish up an email or two.

Lora Cheadle [00:10:30]:
And then at some point, you're like, nope, this is really impacting me, and you have to leave. Compartmentalization is normal. It's healthy, it's useful. Because of things like I just mentioned, if you're having food poisoning or the stomach flu, you can't just instantaneously respond to everything that's going on around you or within you. You have to, at some point, compartmentalize. Oh, I'm not sure if I'm feeling well, so you can move on. But the problem is compartmentalization can also reach very unhealthy toxic levels if it goes too far. Now, before we go in to some of the situations about where it goes too far, cheating is one of those situations.

Lora Cheadle [00:11:18]:
I want to backtrack to a few different scenarios just so you can get a really good understanding of compartmentalization, what it is, and how it works. Okay, I want you to think back to several of these situations. Have you ever driven during a blinding storm where you really have to use all of your energy to focus on your car, the drivers around you, navigating the weather, the splashing? That's an example of compartmentalization. As you are navigating your car through that difficult blinding storm, you're not really aware if you're too hot or you're too cold. You're 100% focused on, I've got to take care of driving. I've got to figure this out. Another example of compartmentalization is if you've ever had to, like, dig deep during a sporting or a fitness event in order to excel or just to finish, like running a 5k, running a 10k, running a marathon, whatever it is, it's hard. And things, you get things like blisters and bruised toes, you might get a stitch in your side.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:34]:
You kind of have to compartmentalize that pain. You have to start focusing on the finish line, on the joy of winning. Sometimes I do hit high intensity interval training videos. There's usually a little tight video. They're DVDs or they're streaming. I'm showing my age here, but usually there's a timer that kind of runs along the bottom of the screen. And sometimes I'll look at that timer and I'll be like, come on, Lora, dig deep. You can do it.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:09]:
And even though I'm huffing and puffing, I compartmentalize my physical distress, if you will, so I can finish, so I can get through that interval, that's compartmentalization. So is something like muscling through a funeral of a loved one, not breaking down, screaming, sobbing, rolling on the floor, but biting your tongue, swallowing your pain just because you know in that moment, it's inappropriate to let it all out. Those are all examples of a healthy compartmentalization of ways that we move in and out of different situations in our life. We don't let every single emotion or feeling or thought or discomfort control us in every single moment. We compartmentalize. We dig deep and we take care of what needs taking care of in front of us. So that is how compartmentalization works in a normal, healthy way. But here's the problem.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:21]:
When you're compartmentalizing something, it is essential to go back at some point in time and to feel those feelings, to process what you need to process, to process all of those things that you momentarily repressed. I gave the example of a funeral of biting your tongue during the funeral because it's inappropriate to completely fall apart during the funeral. That's a very appropriate, healthy, normal thing to do. But at some point, you've got to feel that pain. At some point, you've got to grieve, you've got to let it out. Same thing like in the fitness scenario. I can dig deep and I can push it through to get through a hiit interval. I can ignore my blisters or my bruised toes when I'm running a 5k or a half marathon.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:14]:
But at some point, I have to address my bruised toes, I have to take care of my blisters, I have to get off my feet, I have to start breathing, otherwise I'm going to be injured, I'm going to pass out, I'm going to die. I've got to address the pain that I have momentarily disconnected from. Suppressed. Here's one of the problems. Men's brains are wired differently than women's brains. Men's brains are wired differently than women's brains. It is more common for a man to compartmentalize and then to never go back and address things than it is for women, because their brains are literally wired differently than women's brains. And no, that is not pseudoscience.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:11]:
There's. We have a lot of science that backs that. We have PET scans, we have all those different brain scans. We can literally see physiologically that a man's brain is more wired for compartmentalization than. Than a woman's brain. I'll do a link, give a link to the research, if you're interested. But the upshot of this whole thing is when a baby is developing in utero, when it is a boy baby, there's a flush of different hormones, like testosterone and things like that. And that hormonal flush is what causes a man's brain to be wired differently than a woman's brain.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:54]:
What I want you to think about is a chest of drawers. That's what a man's brain is like. It's got different drawers, different compartments for all of the different places in their life. They have a drawer that is work. They have a drawer that is sports. They have a drawer that is family. They have a drawer that is parents. They have a drawer that is spouse.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:20]:
They have a drawer that is garage. They have a drawer that is yard. They have a drawer, whatever. They have a drawer for every different area of their life. And this is the reason why, when you're talking to a man, it is so common for them to be like, huh? What? And for you to be like, are you kidding me? We've been talking. You haven't heard a word that I've said. And for the man to be like, huh? No, it's not that the man is stupid. It's not that the man is ignoring you.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:55]:
It's that they were in a different drawer. They might have been in their work drawer thinking about things at work, and you talking wasn't registering because it wasn't related to work. Now, if you would have said something about work and they were in their work drawer. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It would have connected, and their brain would have lit up, and they would have been like, oh, I got it. I'm thinking about work. I'm in the work drawer. You talked about work, and I made the connection.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:24]:
If you want to talk to a man about relationships, he needs to be in his relationship drawer first, which might look like prepping them. Hey, I'd like to talk about our relationship. What's a good time that we can talk about our relationship? And then, quite literally, the man can close all the different drawers up in his brain, and then he can open the relationship drawer and then be like, oh, now I'm ready to talk about relationships? It sounds really simplistic, and I get that it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. There's less neural pathways connecting the different hemispheres in a man's brain. Men are more linear thinkers because they don't intermix the contents of those drawers, Whereas a woman's brain is a big. I don't want to say it's like a mishmash because it's not a mishmash. It's very organized. But there's no clear boundaries between drawers.

Lora Cheadle [00:19:23]:
Women understand that the relationship with her kids and her friends and her partner and people at work and people in the global community all impact each other and that they're all related. If a woman is thinking about work and you come in and you want to talk about your relationship, all of those connections, she knows that she'll be happier at work if she has a healthier relationship at home, and she knows, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and everything is connected and flowing. So that's the first reason why compartmentalization can go horribly wrong, especially in men and especially in the cheating scenario. It's so much easier for men to compartmentalize, to have an affair drawer. The affair drawer in a man's mind doesn't have anything to do with life drawer or family drawer or kid drawer or fatherhood drawer. It's a separate drawer that they access and they go into when they're cheating, closing all other drawers. And then when they're done, they close it and they go home and they pull out family drawer, wife drawer, and everything seems fine. I cannot tell you how many times people have said, I look back on our whole relationship, and I don't understand how he could have behaved that way.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:51]:
But once they understand the drawer concept, the compartmentalization concept, it makes it easier to understand that, yes, your man was lying. Yes, they were engaging in ethical behavior, but they did not have that intermixing. It didn't seem as painful or as difficult to them because they were in a different drawer. It's kind of like when you're in vac on vacation and something happens at work. Sometimes it's hard to, like, care because you're on vacation and work is working, vacation is vacation, and they're separate and distinct in your mind. So that is the first thing that I want you to understand when you're looking at the mindset of a cheater is compartmentalization and how for men, it literally is different than it is for a woman because of the biological differences in their brain. The second thing that I want to explain, and this is really goes to how men justify cheating, and that's by talking about culture, the masculinization of disconnection, and how instead of taking the male brain that is already wired for compartmentalization and teaching men how to integrate, how to see the connections between drawers, how to have the ability to be in multiple places at the same time, how to go back and process something in one drawer instead of keep burying it. Instead of teaching men how to do that and instead of working with their inborn biology and helping them to become more healthy, whole, integrated, connected people, our culture does just the opposite.

Lora Cheadle [00:22:52]:
And how we teach men to disconnect and to compartmentalize even more, creating more than just toxic behavior, toxic cheating behavior, but also creating a lot of discomfort and unwellness for the man himself. I want you to think about some of these phrases. Walk it off. Man up. Don't be a wimp.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:24]:
Pull it together. Get a grip.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:26]:
Get a hold of yourself. Big boys, don't cry. Those are all phrases that are commonly used on men and boys. And if you think about what those messages are doing is they're really encouraging men to compartmentalize. Walk it off. Put your pain in one drawer and you go out there and you make that touchdown. Man up. Put whatever you're feeling aside.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:57]:
Be a man. Don't feel it. Just get the job done. Just get the job done. Solve the problem. Pull it together. Don't be distracted. Don't be distracted by crying toddlers, dog vomiting on the floor, bad drivers.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:12]:
Get a grip. Pull it together and do what it is you need to do. Those messages give men and boys the idea that they have to be even more segmented and more compartmentalized than they naturally and innately are. Those messages teach men to suppress their discomfort, to suppress their tears, to suppress their emotion, to not see the connections between things and to just do what they are task to do. Be the provider, make the play, stuff it down, and just be a man. Do what you need to do. Okay? If those messages weren't damaging enough on their own, couple that with how men's brains are naturally compartmented and how they struggle to see connections between things, and you can really start, I think, to feel sorry for a lot of men, to see how disconnected they are, how they don't recognize their own pain, how they don't understand emotions, how when they do feel emotions, they don't know what to do with it because they're always told to disconnect. Our culture encourages men to compartmentalize, to disconnect speakers.

Lora Cheadle [00:25:40]:
Stoicism is a hallmark of masculinity. Men are proud of their ability to take pain, physical, emotional, all of it. We teach our boys that being a man means you should be able to compartmentalize, disconnect from all of your painful feelings and just get the job done. So is it any wonderful that a man first will not be able to express or understand if he's sad in a relationship. If he feels disappointed, if he's having self esteem or self worth issues, if he needs extra validation or love or support or whatever it is, he's not even going to know what's going on. All of a sudden he finds himself, not necessarily finds himself, that sounds too passive. All of a sudden he is engaging in cheating behavior. He's not clear why he's really in this cheating behavior because he was never in touch with what was lacking within himself or within the relationship.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:52]:
He's not clear with the guilt or the shame around cheating because he's used to suppressing emotions. So we've got this whole conglomerate of icky, messy emotions and instead of feeling any of them, instead of admitting to the shame, the guilt, the horror of the cheating, what do men do? They suppress it even more. So not only do you have a man's guilt and shame over cheating that's totally suppressed, that he's not in touch with, but, but you have going back disappointments and sadness and self esteem issues and self worth issues, probably going back to childhood that a man has never processed because he's always been told to shove it down. And then he's never had the chance to go back and feel his feelings and identify. So then all of a sudden this affair gets exposed and a man is flooded, emotionally flooded. And again, I'm not saying this to just create all this sympathy for the man. Oh, the poor cheating man. That's not what it's about.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:03]:
It's to help you understand why your partner can say I never thought about you and that that is a true statement. They are flooded. When it's D day, discovery day, and you learn that they have cheated, bam. All of the drawers fly open and the man starts getting flooded. Everything that has been buried, all the guilt, all the shame, all the messages from childhood, all the disappointment in life, in career, in relationships, past relationships, everything is suddenly open and the man is completely flooded. And they don't understand what's happening or how to deal with it all. So they say, I don't know, I never thought about you. But it's true.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:59]:
Because they were in the cheating drawer. They were in the affair drawer. And when they were in the affair drawer, everything else, as per usual, got suppressed. Because they have been trained for their entire life to man up, to get the job done, to deal with what needs dealing, and to do it despite their own discomfort, despite their own sadness, despite their own pain, despite whatever it is. So that's why men can honestly, and some women too, but mostly men can honestly Say, I didn't think about you because they didn't. Based both on their biology and on their upbringing and on their culture. Now, I know it's still hard to put together in your brain. If your brain is anything like my brain, I could understand some things, like in my headspace.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:09]:
Okay, I get it. I get the biology. I get the cultural upbringing. But are you freaking kidding me? My heart doesn't get it. I'm going to give you a couple of examples that really helped me bridge that gap between my cognitive understanding of men's brains versus women's brains, brains and the way men are raised and my heart and how could you do this to me? I am a mom of two boys. They're in their mid-20s now, but they were 22 months apart. And I really prided myself on being a good mom, a kind mom, a loving mom, a connected mom, all of that. I really prided myself on being a good mom.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:58]:
And yet there were times when I was exhausted, when I was frustrated, when I had been home alone for a week because my husband traveled all the stinking time. And I would absolutely lose it. I would lose my cool. I would scream at my kids. I would act like an absolute idiot. Now, I don't identify as a mom who yells. I don't identify as a screaming, out of control, psycho person. But I did that on a few occasions.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:40]:
Similarly, I am a calm driver. I don't tend to tailgate. I don't roar around people. But there have been times again where there's like a slow driver in the left lane and it's almost like he or she is intentionally doing the same speed as the driver in the right lane. And I'm late and nothing is working. And I'm like. And I start getting all keyed up. They're in the left lane, they're in the left.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:07]:
This is ridiculous. And you slow down and you speed up and you start tailgating and then you get your brake and you're like, you roar around him. Now, just like I don't identify as a screaming, out of control mom, I also don't identify as an aggressive driver. So if somebody says, what are you like, Lora? I'd be like, I'm super calm, I'm super happy. I'm really patient. I love my kids. But my behavior at times has demonstrated something completely different. My behavior in those moments has demonstrated that I'm a screaming, crazy, out of control mom, that I am an aggressive, risk taking driver.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:56]:
But to myself, in my own mind, I still identify as a good person, a calm person. It's my guess that you have had similar lapses in your behavior, that you have done things that are very out of control for you more than once, yet you still don't change that internal perception of who you are and what you're like. And that's how it is for the person who cheats too. In their mind, they're doing something that, yes, it's out of character, but they justify it as well. Yeah, I was tired. Yeah, I was frustrated. Yeah, I was. Whatever.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:40]:
It's the justification. They don't see that it is a facet of them. They don't see it as being a part of them. It's just like when we do something that's out of control, we don't identify it as being a part of us. Now, taking that one step further, something I hear so often is how could you have not seen the splat? How could you have not seen the long term damage, the impact? How could you have taken behavior that would risk your whole family, that would risk your marriage, that would risk your job? I'm going to flip that around by asking you a question. When you have tailgated or roared around somebody, or have taken some aggressive driving action, how often in that moment were you thinking about the possibility of causing a horrific car accident? How often have you thought about the damage to your car, other people's cars, the fact that maybe there is a child that just unbuckled their seatbelt in the car that you're racing around that would be killed by your behaviors? That somebody has their dog, their elderly parents in the car who could not stand that kind of an impact? Have you thought about the grief and pain of people losing somebody in a car accident? No. My guess is no. None of us, and I will say none of us think about the consequences to all of our behavior.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:18]:
The moment we don't do that, it is too overwhelming, first of all. And then second of all, I don't think any of us would leave the house. Another example is like when you're eating food, how often do you really think about the long term consequences of the food that you're eating? I mean, if you start really studying nutrition and diet, oh my gosh, you know, meat causes so many problems, sugar causes so many problems. Fat, cholesterol, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you really were mindful of every single consequence of everything that you ate, you would probably eat plain salad, maybe with some olive oil every single day, and that you would only drink purified water. Nobody thinks about the consequences when they're eating a dessert. Nobody thinks about the consequences when they're frustrated by a driver and they roar around them. Nobody thinks about their child's fear in the moment when they just lose it and go off and yell at their kids because they're frustrated.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:23]:
Because if you did, it would absolutely cripple you. It would absolutely cripple you. Absolutely cripple all of us. Even things like getting pregnant. Oh, my gosh. If you start looking at all of the risks that can happen to a baby. Nobody would have a baby. Nobody would do that if they were really aware of everything that could happen.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:49]:
Look at the number of successful marriages versus the number of unsuccessful marriages. Would anybody even enter a relationship if they fully looked at all of the consequences? No. And that's human behavior. It's kind of strange human behavior because so often we do look at the glass as being half empty instead of half full. But in situations where we're taking risky behavior, it's more common that we see the glass as half full instead of half empty. It's just one of those strange conundrums, those strange things humans do. And again, it's not meant as a justification because the bottom line is cheating is never justified. It's meant to help you, the betrayed partner, have an understanding of what was going on in your partner's mind.

Lora Cheadle [00:37:44]:
What was their thought process like, and why they are probably not lying to you when they say, no, I never thought about. You never thought about the impact on our families, the kids, anything like that. I do like to joke about it, too, because laughter is definitely healing. And betrayal recovery is a tough subject. But if you think about it, and this is kind of funny, if you read the paper and there's been a horrible, you know, murder or some awful crime, you know, sex abuse, murders, drugs, war criminals, any of those things. And then they interview people. The people that they interview always say something like, oh, my God, I never saw that coming. He was the nicest man before he hacked up his wife.

Lora Cheadle [00:38:43]:
She was the best, most caring person in the world. I can't believe that she was luring in young kids and abusing them. Even, like in the clergy, with all of the, you know, abuse around young boys and things like that, people can say, how could that happen? He was the best priest. He served for years and was nothing but kind and loving. Yes. There's also so many situations where somebody will, like, pass away and then you'll, you know, learn that, oh, they were a Nazi war criminal and. And they escaped, you know, and they just Let out the rest of their life in obscurity. And they were loving and they were kind and they were peaceful.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:29]:
And people will say, I never saw that coming. I never saw that coming. That's common. That's. And I'm using air quotes here. Normal compartmentalization is a normal thing. All people do it. Yes.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:48]:
It could go to unhealthy levels. Those are all examples of unhealthy levels. And why I say it's kind of funny is. It is kind of funny because you never see somebody on the news saying, oh, yeah, I totally suspected them. They were evil, they were awful. Their house was dark and dank and it was awful. And we all thought, oh, I bet they're luring in children. I bet they're sex trafficking.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:10]:
I bet they're axe murdering people in the basement. That doesn't happen because people compartmentalize those behaviors. Again, I want to come back to Cheating is never justified. Cheating is always wrong. When a person is unhappy with themselves or in a relationship or whatever it is, the correct steps to take are connecting with that pain, discussing your pain with the other people you know that you're involved with, getting help from a counselor, a therapist, a coach, something like that. Cheating is never justified. My intent in the show is to help you, the betrayed partner, understand what was going on on in your partner's mind. As you may know, my partner cheated for 15 years with five different women.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:16]:
And like I said earlier, I don't totally get it. Like, in my head, I can understand, okay, it's the compartmental, compartmentalized thing. I can understand the way he was raised. I can understand how he was out of touch with his emotions and his pain, blah, blah, blah. In my heart, I. I don't really get it, but in my head I can fully explain it. And how that helps me is I know that he is and was a good person. He's not an evil monster.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:49]:
He's a good person who compartmentalized and who was raised with some very toxic ideas in our toxic culture, with his toxic family. How those two things in part led to him cheating and to him not thinking about me. Wherever you are at on your journey, it's my hope that you can find some understanding around your situation. And because here's the thing, understanding brings a level of peace. Unless you understand why this could happen and how it could happen, you're always going to have those obsessive thoughts circling around in your head. And understanding does bring peace. And then once you have that peace, you are on the road to forgiveness. To healing, to truly moving on.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:53]:
I will say that until you understand, you will not be able to have peace, you will not be able to forgive, and you will probably not be able to heal and move on. Because there's always going to be that open loop in your brain seeking understanding. If you haven't already heard my show on obsessive thoughts, I encourage you to find that show or to go back and to read my blog on overcoming obsessive thoughts. Because that's all about the loop in your brain. And once you have understanding, it can close a loop in your brain and you will no longer have obsessive thoughts about that one topic. Reach out. Like I said, if you have any questions, I'm happy to meet with you for free. No obligations so we can break down some of the stuff that's going on in your situation.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:50]:
Download your Betrayal Recovery guide@betrayalrecoveryguide.com Check out my website. I'd love to work with you one on one. If you're really truly stuck, I promise I can get you unstuck. Have an amazing week as usual. Always remember to flaunt exactly who you are, because who you are is always more than enough. Wait a minute.

Speaker D [00:44:21]:
Before you go on, I've got something for you that you are going to love. It's the Sparkle After Betrayal Recovery Guide, a downloadable guide that shows you exactly how to untangle yourself from the past, powerfully reclaim your sexy and re choreograph your future one step at a time. The best part? It's free and downloading it gives you access to our monthly support calls as well. What are you waiting for? Break out of the pain and get your Sparkle on today. Go to nakedselfworth.com that's www.naked selfworth.com and get your guide today.

Speaker C [00:45:16]:
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Lora Cheadle [00:45:52]:
Tune in next time to Flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal with radio host and life choreographer Lora Cheadle every Wednesday at 7am and 7pm Eastern Time on syndicated Dreamvision 7 radio network. Develop naked self worth and reclaim your confidence, enthusiasm and joy so you can create a life you love and embrace who you are today. Download your free Sparkle Through Betrayal Recovery guide@nakedselfworth.com.