The Mindset of a Cheating Man: Why Men Cheat & Their Justifications

Man with arms crossed
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“Pain may explain behavior, but it never justifies harm.” — Lora Cheadle

What’s really going on inside the mindset of a cheating man? Why do men betray the ones they love—and then create endless justifications for cheating? In this episode, betrayal recovery coach Lora Cheadle exposes the truth: cheating is never about you. It’s about their fragile need for validation, their desire to numb pain, their sense of entitlement, and unresolved trauma.

By breaking down the difference between reasons and justifications, and unpacking shocking statistics about infidelity, this conversation frees you from shame and isolation. Because while cheating may be explainable, it is never justifiable.

 

 

Top 3 Takeaways:

  1. The shocking truth about justification: Cheaters don’t give reasons—they invent justifications to make themselves feel okay about doing something they know is wrong. This changes everything about how you interpret what he says.
  2. Cheating as numbing, not desire: Affairs aren’t about attraction or sex. They’re often about avoiding failure, loneliness, or unresolved pain. Cheating is a maladaptive coping strategy—another way to not feel.
  3. The delusional mindset revealed: From childhood trauma to fragile egos, many cheating men live in a self-created fantasy world where betrayal feels “necessary.” Understanding this breaks the shame cycle and helps you reclaim your power.

Favorite Quote:
“The mindset of a cheating man is simple: he’s not looking for truth, he’s looking for a justification.” — Lora Cheadle

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I'm Lora Cheadle

I’m Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt—a betrayal recovery expert, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal. After uncovering my husband’s 15-year affair, I turned my own pain into purpose, helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy. As a trauma-aware coach and somatic therapist, I blend legal clarity with emotional and spiritual healing to guide women toward full-spectrum recovery.

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Flaunt! by Lora Cheadle
It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive

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Get the Transcript

  • Lora Cheadle [00:00:01]: You’re listening to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after Infidelity or Betrayal. A podcast for women who’ve been betrayed by their intimate partner and want to turn their devastation into an invitation to reclaim themselves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside, no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free betrayal Recovery toolkit@betrayalrecoveryguide.com. Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]: Is cheating ever justified? What is really going on in the mindset of a cheating man? If you have ever asked those questions, oh, my goodness, you are not alone. In fact, millions of people type questions like that into search engines every day. And what’s really interesting about that is that reveals the taboo behind these questions. Nobody talks about infidelity and betrayal openly. We suffer in silence. We feel like we are the only ones that this has ever happened to. And we are horrified because we wonder, why am I not enough? Why did this happen to me? I thought I had done everything right. Today I want to break that silence because the answers aren’t just shocking, they are freeing. Lora Cheadle [00:01:46]: So let’s start right at the very beginning with a start. Blunt question. Is cheating ever justified? And what is going on in the mindset of a cheating man? First of all, as I’d mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of taboo around cheating. It’s not something that our culture takes lightly. It’s not something that many people even want to admit doing or thinking about or having done to them. It’s not just the betrayal, but it’s the secret on top of that, that secret fear that it’s our fault that we’re the only ones this has ever happened to. And that fear that what if people find out? That makes betrayal even more devastating. So what I want you to do right now, put your hand on your heart, lean in, let’s breathe. Lora Cheadle [00:02:59]: Let’s breathe into truths that, while they might hurt, also liberate and set us free. One thought, one breath, one moment at a time. A time. Because the information contained in this show is going to shift the narrative for you. It is going to help you understand what happened in your life, in your relationship is not anything. That is because you did something wrong. It is because the cheater made a decision to cheat. That has nothing to do with you. Lora Cheadle [00:03:53]: Okay, let’s talk about that cultural narrative around cheating and infidelity versus reality, kind of versus that whole taboo shame. If I were to ask you, who cheats, men or women, what would your knee jerk Response be well, men. Men cheat. If I asked you why. Why do men cheat? Well, there’s a few reasons. Because they’re pigs, they’re jerks. They’re entitled. They can. Lora Cheadle [00:04:21]: Men have a higher sex drive. Men this, men that. It’s the, you know, the locker room talk. It’s. They’ve been accultured to do this. It’s. It’s all of these different beliefs, right? But have you ever stopped to ask yourself which of those beliefs are true and which of them are just narratives? Do men really want and need sex more than women? Do men really want and need variety more than women? Do men really need taken care of by women? Because once you start breaking down your beliefs, you, like me, like so many of the people that I have worked with, start realizing those beliefs aren’t even true. Here’s another one. Lora Cheadle [00:05:16]: The femme fatale woman tricked him into it. She manipulated my poor husband. She put her claws into him. Right again. Is that really true, that this poor henpecked husband was manipulated away by a femme fatale who seduced him? Think about those narratives for you and just spend some time questioning what they do to you. Are they helpful? Do they hurt? And are they even true? Because it’s only when we start talking about these narratives, start talking about these beliefs, that we really set ourselves free to find the truth. And until we start talking and breaking down some of those narratives and beliefs, we feel isolated, we feel humiliated, and we feel alone. Now, if you look at the statistics, around 20 to 25% of married men have admitted to cheating, and 10 to 15% of married women have admitted to cheating. Lora Cheadle [00:07:00]: But here’s my question for you. Would you admit that? Would you admit that? Or do you think you would hide that? Because it’s my guess that based on all of this cultural shame around infidelity, most of us might hide that on a survey because we’d think, well, what if somebody finds out? Or we’d think, well, that really wasn’t cheating. What I did was. And we would justify it for ourselves, right? There are other studies out there that say between 33% and 53% of Americans have cheated. And in the dating world, they say it’s about 30 to 40% of dating relationships include at least one incident of sexual infidelity. So I want you to sit with this not from a place of hopelessness, like, why am I even bothering? Or why does this matter? But I want you to sit with this from a place of, wow, I’m certainly not alone in this. I am certainly not Alone in this. And I really doubt that all of those other people who have been cheated on, I doubt that they are at fault. Lora Cheadle [00:08:25]: And if they’re not at fault, maybe I am not at fault either. Now we’ve got this little foundation of statistics and what I want to say based on that, because what I feel like I have done is I’ve kind of normalized the experience. But I want to be very clear that I’m also not normalizing and condoning cheating. This is a very common experience, probably more common then the statistics are even leading us to believe. But it is not. Okay, I’m not saying, well, because everybody does it, no problem. Let’s just all do it. I want to normalize it so, you know, you’re not weird, you’re not alone. Lora Cheadle [00:09:22]: But I also want to be very clear that it is not justifiable ever. It is never justifiable to cheat. Let’s talk about the mindset of a cheating man, which I think will really help explain why I can feel fully confident making that statement that it is never justifiable to cheat. Okay, so we’ve got as the background, the numbers of people who cheat, how common it is. We’ve got some of the myths and misperceptions around who cheats and why they cheat and what it means. And now let’s move inside the mindset of the cheating man. You, like me, have probably spent many sleepless nights being like, what the heck drove him? What happened? How did he make this decision? Where was I in the process? Where were the kids in the process? Where was the family in the process? Where was his reputation and career? How could he make this decision? What was going on in his mind and what was he thinking? He was thinking he needed validation. He was thinking he was in pain and he wanted to numb or avoid the pain. Lora Cheadle [00:11:01]: He was thinking he was entitled and could get away with it because he’s a man or he’s powerful or he. He deserves it. Or he could be protecting himself because of his past, because of the trauma that he experienced. Now notice that none of those top four mindsets of a cheating man have anything to do with because you’re not enough, because we’re not having enough sex, because you have gained weight. Notice that these real reasons, these real mindsets behind why men choose to say yes and lean into cheating. Notice that none of them have anything to do with you. I know right now what you’re probably thinking is. But wait a minute, Lora. Lora Cheadle [00:12:09]: When I confronted him, when I asked him what was going on here, are the things he said. He said, it’s because you never paid attention to me. It’s because you let yourself go. It’s because you’re not interested in me physically. It’s because I love you, but I’m not in love with you. It’s because he gave me all these reasons. And what I’m going to say to you is, he didn’t really give you reasons. He gave you justifications. Lora Cheadle [00:12:36]: And we’re going to talk about this a little bit later in the show. But there is a difference between reasons and justifications. And anytime a man says it’s because you’re a witch, it’s because you’re awful. It’s because you don’t love me. It’s because you pay more attention to the kids than me. It’s because whenever they throw something mean and spiteful at you, it’s a justification. It’s not a reason. And even more, it’s a justification for their own mind so they can feel okay about what they did. Lora Cheadle [00:13:15]: Sit with that for a second. All of the mean, awful things your partner has said to you is not to you or for you. It’s for them. It’s the story that they have to concoct in their own head in order to justify to themselves that they are entitled to do this. Think about when we’re on a diet, we’re trying to lose a few pounds, and then our favorite dessert goes by. Think about all the reasons, oh, my gosh, I’m at a party, I’m at an event, I should eat it. This is something I would never buy for myself or make for myself at home. I should eat it. Lora Cheadle [00:13:58]: I worked out extra hard this week. I was good all week. I can eat it now. Those are all justifications. They are all excuses. When the bottom line is if we want to lose weight or stop eating sugar, we need to stop eating sugar, right? And how often do we say, I need to stop eating sugar and I’m making a bad decision right now? No, we don’t. We come up with all these justifications, all these rationalizations why it’s okay and why we should do it. We all do that, too. Lora Cheadle [00:14:36]: This is not a character flaw. This is what humans do when they want to justify behavior. They justify it very infrequently. Do we sit with the truth and say, I’m choosing to make a really bad decision right now? We just don’t do that. We have to make ourselves the good person in our own mind. So we do this little tap dance all around and Create this scenario that justifies all why we did it. So when you ask what is the mindset of a cheating man, that’s easy. It’s the mindset of justification. Lora Cheadle [00:15:17]: It’s the mindset of can I pick a fight with my wife and then have her get so mad at me that she kicks me out that I’m justified to go cheat? It’s all of the different things that he can do to justify his behavior. So that’s what his mindset is. It’s how to justify it. It’s not how to take care of the root issue that is making me feel bad. It’s how can I justify this? And then the mind scans the environment and looks for things to pick on, looks for fights to make, looks for all of these different grievances so they can feel justified in their own head, in their own heart, in their own body. To go make what they know deep down inside is a terrible, hurtful decision. It makes you mad. Doesn’t is infuriating to think my partner’s mindset when he cheated was not about me. Lora Cheadle [00:16:28]: It’s not about the kids. It was about how can I justify this. But that’s one of those things that the deeper you get, the deeper you get and then the more justifications you need and the worse and the worse it gets and the further and further away from reality they get. So what is the mindset of a cheating man? A how can I justify this? Layered upon and now how can I justify that? And then how can I justify that and that and that and that and that. And pretty soon they are in so deep they don’t even know what reality is. Add in some limerence, some sexual attraction, some thrill, because what they’re doing is taboo and their secrecy and oh my gosh, they are not in reality. Their mindset is in some fantasy world, Whether it’s a James Bond spy thriller or a romance novel, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the mindset of a cheating man is not in reality. Lora Cheadle [00:17:41]: Now, I talked about the core motivations and how those core motivations had nothing to do with you. And I want to break them down a little bit. Those were the validation seekers, the avoiding the entitled and then the trauma protection response. Okay. The first core motivation to cheat, number one, is seeking validation. The number one core motivator for men to cheat is because they want to be validated. Eye roll. Right. Lora Cheadle [00:18:12]: You know, it’s interesting because one of my. I think my first, most popular blog is on the justification of cheating. And I think my second Most popular blog is on the fragile male ego. And this dovetails right in with seeking validation. Men cheat to get validated. And I know for the next few things that I’m going to say, like the next few sentences, you’re probably going to want to pull out and play your tiny violin. And. And I validate that, and I acknowledge that, but stick with me. Lora Cheadle [00:18:50]: Life is hard for everybody, right? Women tend to be stereotypically more in touch with their emotions. Men tend to be stereotypically less in touch with their emotions. So when they are hurting, they are less likely to say things like, oh, that hurt my feelings. I really feel bad about that. Ouch. I’m feeling very tender. I don’t feel like a manly man. I don’t feel like I’m living up to your desires for who I am and what you want me to be. Lora Cheadle [00:19:24]: I don’t feel like I’m excelling in my career. I feel old, I feel frumpy, I feel overweight. I don’t feel like I’m successful. I don’t like all of their fears that are normal human fears they’re not in touch with. So they are less likely to be able to verbalize it where you or I might call a sister, a mother, a girlfriend, a therapist, and be like, I’m feeling so defeated and I’m feeling so old and so ugly, and I can’t do this, and I’m stressed out by that. We can identify what’s going on and then express it, so then we can have that feedback from other people that help from other people. Whereas with men, oftentimes they can’t even identify what it is in their body that they’re feeling in their mind that they’re feeling, let alone communicate it. And then most men don’t have other males around them that they can talk to on an emotional level. Lora Cheadle [00:20:24]: It is the locker room talk. It is the caveman stuff. So men have this different level of pain inside this different level of emotional buildup, and they will seek somebody to validate them. Not somebody to really problem solve. Because answer this. Do men ask for directions? No, they don’t. Sometimes they really don’t want their problem solved because they haven’t even identified it as a problem. They just want someone to validate them. Lora Cheadle [00:20:57]: Oh, you’re so big and strong and handsome, and I’ve been thinking about you all day long. Instead of stepping up to the partnership, stepping into life and being like, yes, we got to figure this out with the budget, with the kids, with the house, with the cars, with the in laws. Life is hard. And you know how it is when you’re already worn down. Sometimes it’s like I just can’t handle one more thing. So often when men get to that place, they don’t have a lot of tools. They can’t identify or communicate their emotions. So what they lean into is who can stroke my ego? I want to make a joke about stroking different things, but I’m not going to do that right now. Lora Cheadle [00:21:46]: But just know that my mind did go there. They want their ego stroked. They want somebody who is not going to ask them them difficult questions. They want somebody who is not going to and hear this, feel dissatisfied because of their shortcomings. Ooh. Huh. They don’t want to feel like you are dissatisfied because of their shortcomings, because their ego can’t take it. I’m asking you to understand. Lora Cheadle [00:22:24]: I’m not saying this is right or wrong, good or bad, but this is what so many men say. This is what the research shows. And I’m not here to justify or to break down or to say men should be stronger, they should be manlier, they should be able to figure it out. Of course they should, but they haven’t. Maybe they can going forward, but the past is in the past. And the only thing we can do to move on from the past is to make peace. And make peace with the past is by understanding what led us there in the first place, accepting that, unconditionally, learning from it, and changing our behavior in the future. So when you start understanding men’s high need for validations, men’s fragile egos, when they start understanding their intense need for validation and their fragile egos, then they can learn new tools to make different choices going forward. Lora Cheadle [00:23:34]: You can unhook from the idea that this had anything to do with you. And we can start raising healthier and happier and more balanced humans going forward. The number two reason why men cheat, their core motivation is a numbing agent. Avoiding the conflicts, the problems, either in the relationship or within themselves. As you probably know, marriage isn’t a walk in the park always. There are tough moments. There are months, weeks, even years when you’re just kind of not in harmony with your partner. You’re each building careers or taking care of families, and it’s just you’re in different places. Lora Cheadle [00:24:24]: And that’s okay. That is so okay. But does it feel good? No. Does it feel okay? No. Who here has ever been lonely in their relationship? I think we’re all raising our hands. There were so many years I felt like A married single parent. I felt like I was truly alone in this marriage, in this family. There were many moments of dissatisfaction along the way, both with my partner, also just with the phase of life that I was in with kids. Lora Cheadle [00:25:09]: Like, there’s just tough times, right? And I felt like I had a really happy life. I felt like I had a really good relationship. And yet still there were a lot of heartaches that I went through. There were a lot of places where it was like, I’m just a little miserable, I’m just a little lonely. I’m just. I’m not feeling connected, I’m not feeling the love. I’m going through the motions and realizing that that’s okay. And then also being busy and not necessarily having all the skills to do with it. Lora Cheadle [00:25:44]: What do you do? You let it ride, you have a weekend, you relax, things get a little bit better. You’ve got a vacation, things relax, you get a little bit better. Like, there are these normal cycles in life, and being in a down cycle requires a level of tolerance. It requires a level of tolerance. I have to be okay not being okay, I have to be okay feeling icky. They call that your window of tolerance. Some people have a very small window of tolerance. Anything knocks them off their center. Lora Cheadle [00:26:27]: Low tolerance for pain, low tolerance for messiness, they’re just instantly irritated. Other people have a huge window of tolerance. Everything’s okay, I can manage it, I can say it, I’m not offended, I don’t need this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everybody’s window of tolerance is different. And yes, you can work to change that too. If you were a zero tolerance person, you can work to have more tolerance. But when you are reaching your max capacity for dissatisfaction or feeling bad or sad or whatever, what do we do? We seek to numb. Lora Cheadle [00:27:09]: So many people seek to numb. When I am stressed out, I can use a variety of healthy tools to lower that stress level. I can take a walk, I can journal, I can play with my animals, I can connect with nature, I can go to the gym, I can call a friend. They’re like, I can take a nap, I can take a bubble bath. There’s a bunch of healthy things that we can do to make us feel better in ourself. And there’s also a lot of unhealthy things that we can do. Drink drugs, numb out in front of the tv, scrolling on social media. Cheating, gambling, cheating, cheating, cheating. Lora Cheadle [00:27:54]: Cheating is a way to numb out. Cheating is a way to avoid the problems and to not feel bad. If you have a career Failure. And you don’t want to feel that failure. Now suddenly the office admin is flirty and I’m going to start feeling better about myself and I’m going to forget that I had this career failure because I’m going to distract myself with this admin who is suddenly validating my pain. I’m numbing to the fact that I just had a significant career failure by leaning into an affair. It has nothing to do with being attracted to the other woman. It has nothing to do with anything other than I am avoiding feeling my pain. Lora Cheadle [00:28:42]: Now, I want to say a couple things about my own husband during this experience. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t know he wasn’t happy. He couldn’t identify or communicate why he wasn’t happy. And he didn’t like to feel uncomfortable at home. He would come home and it would be the boys and I and we’re in our routine and we’re doing things together and we’re talking and he would come in and he would feel like an outsider. Did he ever say he felt like an outsider? No. Did I recognize that he felt like an outsider? No. Lora Cheadle [00:29:24]: I thought he came home and was being a jerk because he was stressed out from work. So I didn’t make efforts to bring him into the family. Yay, Daddy’s home. Sit here. Let’s do this. I thought, let him alone. Let him blow off steam. Oh, my gosh, he comes home so grumpy every night. Lora Cheadle [00:29:44]: So that exacerbated his pain because suddenly I’m rejecting him too, and he needed to numb that pain. Of course, there’s a million and one healthy ways to numb that pain. But one of the things that he chose instead is I’m going to go into this online affair world. His one affair partner was long distance. They would text all the time. So he would come home, go into his office, or sit there on the couch with his phone and send all these texts to make him feel better. Numbing to the fact that he didn’t feel good at home. Numbing to the fact that he felt like an outsider with his wife and kids and that he really wanted to feel like an insider to his wife and kids. Lora Cheadle [00:30:29]: The third core motivator why men cheat is they’re entitled. I had mentioned earlier the 007 James Bond storyline. In our culture, men have bravado. They have the macho. They’ve got, you know, they’re supposed to be James Bond. They’re supposed to be powerful and rich, and they’re supposed to have the hot girl and the hot car and the hot. You know what I mean? Like, they’re supposed to be James Bond. And two different things happen. Lora Cheadle [00:31:08]: Either men get a little bit of power or a little bit of success, and it goes to their head. They start working out, their body looks a little bit better. It goes to their head. They either suddenly get that little dollop of success or a lot of dollops of success. So they move into the narrative. They move into the story that I am James Bond and I am entitled to do this because I am all powerful, or the opposite is true. They’re not getting the success. Their health isn’t that great, their body isn’t that great, their life isn’t that great, and it’s the proverbial midlife crisis that, oh, my God, nothing is going to turn out for me. Lora Cheadle [00:31:57]: So they feel like they have to take it. I’m entitled to just this one thing. I’m going to go out and get it. So they cheat because of this entitled sense that I deserve it because I’m awesome or I deserve it because I’m not awesome. My husband definitely had a lot of that as well. One of his affairs, he had five. He was an overachiever. He was a total overachiever in the affair department. Lora Cheadle [00:32:24]: One of his affair partners was our financial planner’s secretary. And she was a young single mom. And what brought him in is she was like, oh, older man who has had some success and is coming in and he’s opening a portfolio. Ooh, how did you do this? How can I do this? As I am just the young single mom. How can you do this? And it became this damsel in distress with this helpful man. So he felt really entitled to do that because he had had success. On top of the numbing, on top of. She’s validating. Lora Cheadle [00:33:09]: Oh, how amazing you are. Whereas I, as his partner in real life, not in fantasy life, is I’m not spending every day being like, oh, yay. Our investment portfolio is going up and up and up, and it’s all because of you, sweetheart. I’m so impressed. Instead, I’m like, yeah, we’re working really hard. I’m killing myself. You’re killing yourself. Let’s do this. Lora Cheadle [00:33:35]: And then the very last reason, the number four reason why men cheat. And I put this last. But I also think it underpins many of the other reasons, because not every man seeks validation, avoids, and feels entitled unless they have a foundation of trauma somewhere in there. Trauma is wicked. Trauma is really wicked. Childhood trauma is real. It is significant. Neurochemically it changes the brain. Lora Cheadle [00:34:12]: It turns us into very hyper aware, hyperprotective humans. Trauma is significant. And I don’t want to say trauma is significant, you poor thing, and let it go. But what I do want to say is trauma is real and it changes the way that we show up. And a person who has been really traumatized, their survival instincts, their protective instinct is huge. It is overdeveloped depending on the amount of trauma. That protective self protective instinct is huge because it taps into that primitive fear of being abandoned and dying. If a baby or a child is abandoned, they will die. Lora Cheadle [00:35:12]: They need caregivers. And this is a primal tear that all humans have of being left. So you get somebody who’s got childhood wounds, trauma around abandonment, poverty, not enough abuse. You got to keep yourself safe. If your caregivers are violent, if you’re a caregivers, blow hot and then blow cold. You become that person who can read the room and you can adapt to everybody else because you got to keep yourself safe. So you are hyper aware all the time. Move into adulthood. Lora Cheadle [00:35:55]: Being abandoned as an adult, you will not die. You are left, you are not abandoned. It will be inconvenient, but you will not die. But the trauma is in your body, it’s in your cells, it is in your psyche. As I have to protect myself at all costs, I cannot be abandoned. I must keep myself safe. And then this self protective stance starts going, if she’s going to leave me, I will die. So I have to leave first. Lora Cheadle [00:36:34]: I have to cheat first. I have to do something underhanded and under the table and on the side so I will be safe. When she leaves, when this falls apart, I will not be left. And that came into play in my own situation as well. My husband had some significant childhood trauma. Poverty, abuse, neglect, you name it, he’s had it. And in unpacking our infidelity journey, that was something that he said a lot. Every time he thought life was too good, he thought it’s too good to be true. Lora Cheadle [00:37:18]: It’s not going to last, I better go cheat and get somebody on the side. And then when things would be bad, he’d think, this is horrible. She is on her way out, she’s probably already met somebody, she’s totally cheating on me and I am going to be left and I got to go out and get somebody on the side. And what was so insidious, his one long term affair partner. Now check this out. This woman literally gave up her life for 15 years for a long distance affair partner. Who she thought one day was going to leave me and go be with her. Yes. Lora Cheadle [00:37:56]: She gave up her life from, like, 30 to 45 years of age. She gave up getting married, having kids, having relationships. She gave all that up because of the belief that one day Shawn is going to leave me and go be with her. On the other side, Shawn is sitting there thinking, this is awesome. I don’t have to work hard to cultivate a second fallback position. I can just keep her strung along. Strung along, Strong along, Strong along. So in the event that Lora ever does leave me, in the event that this is either too good to last or too bad and she walks away, I can just bounce. Lora Cheadle [00:38:40]: I’ll be like, bam. I’ve had somebody in my back pocket, and I don’t have to work for that person in my back pocket. They’re just there. All I have to do is send some texts. All I have to do is keep being a little bit needy, and she’ll always be there for me. Sweet deal, right? That is the mindset of a cheater. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not grounded in reality. Lora Cheadle [00:39:10]: You know, the word delusional gets thrown around a lot, and it’s kind of lost some of its meaning. But this is a delusional mindset in the deepest sense of the word. So what is the mindset of a cheater? It is delusional. It is delusional. They’re seeking validation. They’re numbing up because they don’t want to feel what they’re feeling. They feel entitled, either for good reasons or bad reasons. And then underpinning all of that, they’re traumatized, so they’re hypervigilant. Lora Cheadle [00:39:41]: So they’re doing everything that they can to protect themselves, and that often includes cheating. And I will say often, I have worked with, oh, my gosh, too many people to count. I have never, and I do mean never, met a man who has been a cheater, who did not have some sort of a fairly significant childhood trauma. Abuse, neglect, you name it. Kind of wrapping up this whole mindset section before we move into that next part of Is cheating justified? And breaking down the different ideas between justifications and reasons and excuses and all of that. To wrap up this mindset piece, I want to tell you another little story about my husband, Sean. Growing up, he was the middle child, and he was the inconvenient one. He was the one with the temper. Lora Cheadle [00:40:46]: He was the one with this problem. He was the one with that problem. He was the inconvenient child. So Growing up, he was often told he was the bad guy, he was the bad kid, he was the bad one. He was. He had that belief. Well, we grow up, I meet him, we get married, I don’t think he’s the bad guy. But then he starts coming home from work and acting like a jerk. Lora Cheadle [00:41:14]: Then he starts disconnecting from the family, Then his temper starts flaring. And I do start thinking, you are a jerk, you are the bad guy. Well, pretty soon I’m running that narrative that he is the bad guy too. That was not my story. That was not my narrative. That was not my belief. That was his belief. He believed he was the bad one. Lora Cheadle [00:41:37]: He did behaviors that made me think he was the bad one. He confirmed his belief. What confirmed his belief about himself was his actions and his behaviors. So pretty soon I’m thinking he’s the bad one, he’s thinking he’s the bad one. And in his mind he’s like, I might as well do whatever I want then if I’m the bad one, I might as well act like the bad one. And you know, I’ve heard a lot of women say something similar, that at one point in high school, their teen years, something like that, a parent accused them of being easy or of being loose when they really weren’t, when they were totally a virgin, when they were totally pure and innocent. And that how that went through their head. Well, if my own parents think I’m this way, I might as well be that way. Lora Cheadle [00:42:42]: Why am I bothering being good? They already think, what’s bad about me? And I think that’s another question for you both for yourself. When have you let other people’s opinions of you color who you are? And when is your partner let other people’s opinions of them color who they are as well? And then one level deeper, how do we shift the way we see ourselves? My husband still defaults into feeling like he’s the bad guy. And it’s a lot of work to be like, no, no, no, you are not a wounded child anymore. You are an almost 60 year old man. You get to choose who you are. And if other people see you differently, it does not change who you are. That’s really the whole concept of the TED talk that I did in Washington D.C. it was about all of the ways as women we let other people’s judgment of us define who we are. Lora Cheadle [00:43:53]: If other people see me as incompetent, I start to believe I’m incompetent. If other people see me as kind, I start to believe I am kind and then I start to act more kind and then I become more kind. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. So that is the mindset of a cheating man. It’s their internal belief of who they are. It’s delusional, it’s not real, but it creates the story and it leads them into behavior that actually is never justified. And that’s this next part that I want to go into. Is cheating ever justified? And I said that earlier in the show, no, it is never justified. Lora Cheadle [00:44:42]: But let’s unpack this. Why are you even asking that question in the first place? The reason you or I ask that question is the in the first place is because of the underlying belief that we must not be enough. Are they justified means am I enough? No, it is not justified. Yes, you are enough. As I said earlier, with the mindset that men are looking for, the justification, the rationalization for themselves, not for you, is the internal game we play with ourselves. And I want to be clear. That pain may explain behavior, but it never justifies harm. That internal pain, that I’m not enough, that I’m failing, that explains the behavior. Lora Cheadle [00:45:48]: That explains why men get delusional, why they pick a fight so they can find a justification. It explains the behavior, but it doesn’t justify the harm. It doesn’t justify the harm to you, to your family, to your friends, to your past, to your future. It doesn’t justify the harm. In my book, flaunt, drop your cover and reveal your smart, sexy and spiritual self. I have a whole chapter that that breaks down. Is something an excuse or is something a reason? Because a reason really explains the behavior? I did this because I thought that an excuse is the justification around it that I am not, pardon the phrase, I’m not man enough to just own it. I’m not man enough just to say I was on an ego trip, I was in pain. Lora Cheadle [00:46:54]: I made this decision. We have to create those internal justifications. So some of the filter questions, and I have a whole list of filter questions in that chapter, but they point to what was going on inside of you. Was I being proactive or was I being reactive? Was I communicating? Was I seeking therapy or coaching or counseling for myself? Was I asking my partner to engage in dialogue with me? Was I downloading an online program and asking for that? And I think this is a big one. Did I choose compassion or cowardice? Did I choose compassion or cowardice? Because cheating behavior is so often very cowardice. I don’t want to address with my partner how unhappy I am. I Don’t want to feel humiliated and embarrassed by talking about that. I’m unhappy with my body, with my life, with my career. Lora Cheadle [00:48:06]: So I’m just going to gloss over it and do this maladaptive behavior to try to feel better. Grab that book. You can find it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. Bookmark that chapter and just go through those filter questions and it’ll really help you determine moving forward in this affair recovery process. Is something a valid reason or is it an excuse? Because a valid reason can be a valid reason. And the thing is, valid reasons go wrong. I have hired people, I have made decisions based on valid reasons that didn’t go well. And when there is a valid reason, it’s an entirely different story than if there’s an excuse. Lora Cheadle [00:48:58]: Because whenever an excuse is being given, it means we’re not being honest with ourselves. And if we’re not being honest with ourselves, if our partners are not being honest with themselves, then they can’t be honest with us either. And there is no way forward. There is no way forward. To succeed in a real, authentic relationship takes a lot of courage. And when somebody chooses to cheat instead and then refuses to see what was really going on, there is no way forward. One of the questions that I also get asked a lot is, is this going to work? Is this going to work out? And I think that’s one of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves. Is this going to work out? Am I stupid for staying? Am I stupid for leaving? And I think the biggest indicator of success is are you both willing to look within, own it, get rid of the excuses and the justifications, lean into compassion, encourage and show up authentically, not only for each other, but for yourself going forward. Lora Cheadle [00:50:35]: Now, to wrap this up, I want to talk about something that is a little bit mind blowing. And we’re going to unpack it a little bit later in a different show. But I want to just drop that little bomb here. It’s the knowledge of the betrayal that hurts you. It’s the knowledge of their betrayal that hurts you. The wounding is in your awareness. The wounding is in your knowledge of it. I look back on all of the years that I didn’t know it was happening then, but I felt no wounding once the affairs were over, once all of those doors had been closed for good. Lora Cheadle [00:51:31]: It was like a year later that I found out they had happened. And suddenly I am devastated. Not the 15 years that they were going on. My devastation happened when I got the knowledge of what had happened in the past. We’ll Unpack that a little bit later. But I ask you to sit with that. What is the wound? It’s the knowledge. It’s the awareness that things were not what I thought. Lora Cheadle [00:52:13]: It’s the awareness that I was fooled, that I was manipulated, and that things were not as I thought. Unless you got a sexually transmitted disease or something like that, where there is a physical wounding, it’s only the knowledge that creates the wound. So much more to say on that. The hurt is real, but it’s only in the mind, and it’s the awareness that creates the wound. So how can you take this wound, this pain, this knowledge, and use it as fuel for your evolution, for your understanding, for your next chapter? What I like to tell the people that I work with is our work together is healing this wound that is caused by knowledge, which is amorphous and weird sometimes because we can’t see the wound. Like, if you have a broken leg, you can see it, and then you can see it healing. And what’s so hard about this wound is, where is it? Is it in my memory? Is it in my heart? Is it in my gut? Where is this wound? And when we can’t see it, how do we fix it? The healing happens as we start creating the vision for our life going forward. When we start figuring out, who are we? What do we want? And then asking ourselves the question, what do we allow into our lives if we are this perfect, whole, healthy, complete jigsaw puzzle? I love using the jigsaw puzzle analogy. Lora Cheadle [00:54:20]: And all the pieces have been ripped apart and shaken up and tossed on the floor. What are the pieces that we want to put back together? What are the pieces that we might want to add to create an entirely new picture? What are the pieces we want to get rid of in service of creating an entirely new picture? And what is that vision going forward? Because only when we know what our vision is going forward will we know if we want our partner involved or not. Do I want someone in my life who continues to gaslight or manipulate? Do I want someone in my life who is not willing to be courageous and to step into this? You know what? You might. You might be like, you know what? It’s all fine. It’s all fine. Now that I know what’s going on, I’m just going to move ahead. I want to stay married. We can just get our needs met elsewhere. Lora Cheadle [00:55:19]: Whether it’s emotional or physical or whatever. We can reframe that. Or you might say, I choose to bury my head in the sand. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I wish I never would have known and I don’t want to know. Or we might be like, you know what? Time for radical honesty. Time for a radical shift. Lora Cheadle [00:55:37]: I will no longer tolerate this in my life, in myself, in my world, in my environment. This is who I am and I get to be this, that person. Betrayal is your choice point. Sometimes you don’t like the choices, but it is your choice point. It’s okay to pivot. It’s okay to say, now what? It’s okay to say what’s next. It’s okay to start down a path and say, ooh, that’s not where I want to be. But betrayal is that point of choice and that invitation to recreate yourself, your life, your future, your relationships, your own way in service of that. Lora Cheadle [00:56:27]: Absolutely. I do, one on one private support, both for individuals and for couples and for the few brave men that choose to work with me. I also have an upcoming group program called Sanctuary of the soul. It’s only $47 a month and while you don’t have access to me personally, one on one, you do get a two hour group coaching call every month and you can connect and interact with me in the group. You also get a lot of fun little bonuses and the ability to connect with other people who are going through this as well. For more information on that, you can go to Sparkle AllSeason.com because healing is not something that you just do and you get done with. It evolves season by season, moon cycle by moon cycle. We also do a monthly ritual in the Sanctuary of the Soul, so be sure to check that out. Lora Cheadle [00:57:26]: So whether you were working with me one on one, a fair recovery for women, or you were joining my Group Program, Sparkle AllSeason.com what I want is for you to break that taboo, break that fear, break that shame and just reach out and connect. So I can hold the map or the mirror up in front of you and be like, hey, here’s where you’re at. Let’s reorient you and let’s move forward. Betrayal recovery is a journey, but you do not have to do it alone. I look forward to being your guide, to holding your hand and to walking into the next chapter of your life, your incarnation, together with so much reverence, love and respect. Always remember to flaunt exactly who you are, because who you are is always more and that enough. Lora Cheadle [00:58:40]: Tune in next time to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love. After infidelity or betrayal with Lora Cheadle every Wednesday at 7am and 7pm at Eastern Standard Time on syndicated DreamVision 7 radio network. Uncover the truth of what’s possible for you on the other side of betrayal, and develop the skills and strategies necessary to embrace the future and flourish today. Download your free Betrayal Recovery toolkit@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.