What’s the real difference between a serial cheater and a one-time “mistake”? And more importantly… was it your fault? In this episode, betrayal recovery coach Lora Cheadle breaks down the psychology behind repeat cheating, the myth of the accidental affair, and why even “good men” cheat. She also dismantles the biggest lie betrayed women believe: that they caused it. You’ll learn how to spot the red flags of serial cheating, understand how partners justify their behavior, and reclaim your sanity, self-worth, and personal power—starting now.
Top Three Takeaways:
- What really motivates serial vs. one-time cheaters
- The link between shame, trauma responses, and “fixing” behaviors
- How to release self-blame and recognize emotional manipulation
- Practical ways to rebuild trust with yourself (and maybe your partner)
This episode is your permission slip to stop carrying the weight of someone else’s choices.
Truth Bombs to Remember:
- Cheating is Never a Mistake—It’s a Series of Choices
Whether your partner cheated once or many times, it wasn’t an accident. Cheating is made up of thousands of small justifications before the big betrayal. Understanding that helps you release the illusion of control and start healing.
- You Are Not to Blame—Even If the Relationship Had Problems
Having issues in a relationship does not justify betrayal. Blame-shifting (“you pushed me to cheat”) is manipulation. Even if you weren’t perfect, you didn’t cause the affair.
- The Best Defense is No Defense
When your partner blames you, the most powerful response is: “You and I both know that’s not true.” Engaging with lies makes them feel real. Refusing to engage is your power move.
Ready to create your own Hot Girl Summer? Join us at SparkleAllSeason.com for a soulful, sexy, and supportive summer of confidence, connection, and comeback. It’s your time to glow—inside and out! Link https://lora-cheadle.kit.com/347883581d
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Betrayal Recovery Tool Kit
Find Relief, Reclaim Yourself, and Rewrite Your Story
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About Lora:
Lora Cheadle is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, and TEDx speaker who helps women heal from betrayal on an energetic, emotional, and ancestral level—while also providing legal guidance to help them navigate the practical complexities of infidelity and relationship transitions. She empowers women to rise from the ashes, reclaim their identity and self-worth, break free from repeating patterns, and step into their power with confidence, clarity, and grace.
After being shattered by her husband’s fifteen years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand what it takes to transform devastation into an invitation for healing, freedom, and joy. Her unique approach blends deep emotional healing with tangible legal and life strategies, guiding women beyond betrayal into lives of unapologetic confidence and purpose.
As the founder of Life Choreography Coaching & Advocacy, Lora provides comprehensive legal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual support on demand. She believes that infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of the dream you poured your heart and soul into—it can be the beginning of a life filled with sovereignty, connection, and joy.
Licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, Lora is also a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, and advanced integrated energy practitioner. She is certified in yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal training, bringing a holistic perspective to healing.
She is the author of FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self (an International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller) and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive. She also hosts the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal.
Based in Colorado, Lora is an adventure-seeker who loves travel, a great book, and saying yes to life’s magic.
Let’s connect! Share your thoughts or questions from this episode with Lora at loracheadle.com. New episodes every week.
Subscribe, like, share, and join Lora Cheadle on your journey to reclaim your sparkle and create a life you love.
Special Offers from Our Sponsors!
Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast! Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy at https://BetterHelp.com/FLAUNT
Are you ready to Rise, Reclaim, and Reign as the Queen of Your Life? Infidelity may have shaken your world, but it does not define you. You are powerful. You are worthy. And you are more than capable of creating a future filled with confidence, clarity, and joy.
I’m here to walk beside you, giving you the perspective, permission, and proven tools to transform betrayal into your greatest awakening. Whether through one-on-one coaching or my on-demand Affair Recovery Programs, you’ll gain the guidance and support to untangle yourself from the past, reclaim your power, and step boldly into your next chapter.
Your transformation starts now! Learn more at www.AffairRecoveryForWomen.com and visit www.LoraCheadle.com for even more resources and inspiration.
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- International Book Award, Finalist, Motivational Self-Help, 2021
- Tattered Cover Bestseller, 2019
Have you spent your life playing by the rules, only to realize those rules weren’t made for you? What if you could break free—from expectations, from betrayal, from the roles you were taught to play—and reclaim your true self?
FLAUNT! is your guide to stripping away societal conditioning, healing from the heartbreak of betrayal, and rediscovering the fierce, confident woman you were born to be. With humor, wisdom, and powerful, actionable steps, Lora Cheadle empowers you to rise above the narratives that have confined you and boldly choreograph a life that is smart, sexy, spiritual, and uniquely your own.
It’s time to stop living for others and start living for you.
Buy Now on Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive
Burnout isn’t just exhaustion—it’s a betrayal of your time, energy, and trust. This essential guide redefines burnout, exposing its hidden roots and equipping individuals, teams, and leaders with five powerful tools to reclaim their passion, purpose, and well-being.
If you’re ready to break free from burnout and step into a life of clarity, confidence, and fulfillment, this book is your roadmap.
Available now on Amazon. Download your free guide, BURNOUT UNCOVERED: Fostering Candid Conversations for Teams at www.ItsNotBurnoutItsBetrayal.com.
Transcript
Lora Cheadle [00:00:22]:
Have you ever wondered about serial cheaters versus the one time mistake affair and the truth about who is to blame for infidelity? This episode, we are going to tackle all of that. This episode, we are going to take a deep dive into what every woman needs to know about just that, serial cheating versus one time mistakes versus who is to blame. Where did it go? Hang on. Serial cheating, one time mistakes, and the truth about who is to blame for the infidelity. What every woman needs to know. All of that is what we are going to cover on today’s episode. So if you are in the aftermath of dealing with your partner’s affair, you are absolutely in the right place. What I wanna do, what I wanna promise you is by the end of today’s show, you will walk away knowing exactly why some partners cheat once and others do it again and again and again.
Lora Cheadle [00:04:16]:
And you will also know exactly why it is not your fault. No more shame. No more wondering if you could have prevented it. So stick around because this is going to be a great show. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this show, I want to remind you that I have got my comeback summer that is about to start. Your comeback summer is a ninety day program for women who are ready to get their groove back, who are tired of feeling stuck, of feeling worn down, and quite frankly, are just sick of not feeling like themselves again. And they’re really ready to come back to life, to take back their life in all senses of the word. I’m talking about figuring out whether or not they need hormonal support.
Lora Cheadle [00:05:10]:
I’m talking about health, fitness, wellness, mindset, connection, community, walking, fun, beauty, joy, all of those things. It’s an amazing program. For three months, we have got, a monthly group coaching session that is two hours, just a few of you where we can really go deep, learn some content, and get all of your question answered. We have got yogalesque somatic embodiment, sexy, fun dance classes twice a month. We have got meditations, walking meditations that you can use that will help motivate you to get outside and to move, and not only just move, but to somatically process and release. We’ve got journals, mindset tools, tricks. Yes. We’ve got fitness.
Lora Cheadle [00:06:00]:
We’re gonna tackle some fitness for all levels, whether it’s yoga or weightlifting. We’re gonna take a deep dive into midlife beauty, hormones, wellness, all the different things, even sex. We’re gonna talk about sex, especially sex after infidelity. Whether you’re with your partner or you’re thinking about dating and being with somebody new, there’s a lot to learn that probably most of us didn’t learn when we were kids, when we were coming of age. So this is a place for honest conversation, for deep, vulnerable, raw support. So check it out. Check it out by going to sparkleallseason.com. Reach out if you’ve got questions, or you can just be like, yes.
Lora Cheadle [00:06:50]:
I am all in. I so need this. I so need this. This is pretty much exactly what you have always needed, but didn’t know you needed. So sparkleallseason.com, 3 month container where you can really get your groove back. I keep telling everybody it’s like hot girl summer vibes. We are going for hot girl summer vibes. So I can’t wait to see you on the inside.
Lora Cheadle [00:07:16]:
It is going to be amazing. But now back to this episode on serial cheating versus one time cheating and the biggest lies that women believe, not necessarily the ones they’re told, but the biggest lies they believe about infidelity. Okay. So let’s start from the top. Let’s talk about serial cheaters versus one time offenders. Kind of talk about what some of the research shows. I’ll share a little bit about it of my experience. I’ll share some of the insights that I have gained in working with hundreds of women who have also gone through the same thing.
Lora Cheadle [00:07:58]:
Okay. To start off, serial cheating. That is just cheating again and again and again and again. There is a difference between addiction and serial cheating, and I think I wanna start there. An addiction is really the compulsion. It’s the compulsion to keep doing something bordering on, like, physical need. Like, if you think about alcoholism, there’s the psychological component to that, but there’s also the physiological component. And that’s what really makes it the addiction.
Lora Cheadle [00:08:39]:
You get addicted to the chemical rush of cheating. You can get addicted to the chemical high the dopamine hits of hiding, of secrecy, of sneaking around. You can even be addicted to the concept or the idea of lust or love. I really think limerence is a better description because it’s not really love. Let me just say that right now. It’s not really love. When somebody is cheating and they might think they’re in love, they’re not in love. That’s not love.
Lora Cheadle [00:09:23]:
Love is deep and abiding and honest and connected, and that’s not what happens with an affair. But regardless of what it is or what it isn’t, one can be addicted to those emotional highs, to that secrecy, to that rush of adrenaline, to the thrill of the affair. So it can create both the physiological addiction as well as the psychological hit. Now addiction is a whole other animal. It’s a whole other beast. There are sex addiction counselors, sex addict addiction programs, SA anonymous, which is sex addiction anonymous. There are support groups for both the one who is addicted to the sex and to the partner. And that’s not what I’m talking about in this episode.
Lora Cheadle [00:10:18]:
I have done some episodes around sex addiction, and we’re just not gonna hit it that hard. What I’m talking more about here is serial cheating, where a partner is either having one affair after another after another after another. So you realize, at some point, my whole marriage, my partner’s been involved with somebody else because he goes from one to another to another. Or where somebody starts cheating and they don’t just cheat on you with somebody else, they cheat on you with everybody else. Those are kind of the two kinds of serial cheaters that I’m talking about. The kind of person who always needs somebody on the side, and then the kind of person who kind of goes into a weird state and suddenly cheats with everybody all at the same time. Here are the psychological traits of people who are serial cheaters. They tend to be very grandiose.
Lora Cheadle [00:11:30]:
They tend to have a high sense of entitlement. They tend to have a lot of narcissistic tendencies. With that, they lack a lot of empathy and compassion. And there’s also a part of them that really leans into thrill seeking type of behaviors. Now I wanna say some more about this. Grandiosity and entitlement. We’ve all met those people who it’s never enough. It’s never enough.
Lora Cheadle [00:12:02]:
There’s just they’re always going for that next best thing. Bigger house, bigger paycheck, whatever it is, they’re just always going for that next thing. And while it can be great to be driven, this is not that. This is that psychological need to cover up to build themselves up because inside, they feel inferior. Inside, they feel broken or not enough. The grandiosity and the entitlement is a mask for how bad they feel about themselves, which is also a lot of times what that narcissistic behavior is about. Just like I said, we can really have a sex addiction. There can be a love addiction, a porn addiction, a sex addiction, and I’m not necessarily talking about that.
Lora Cheadle [00:13:05]:
The same is true with narcissism. There are clinical narcissists out there. There are people who have narcissistic tendencies. There’s people who have narcissistic traits, and then there’s people with full blown narcissism. And what I’m mostly talking about is people with narcissistic traits or tendencies. In my case, my husband was raised by clinically narcissistic parents. He has got a lot of narcissistic tendencies that he learned from them. He is not he is not being diagnosed with narcissism himself.
Lora Cheadle [00:13:50]:
He has got narcissistic traits and tendencies because of how he grew up and what he learned. It’s that whole nature versus nurture thing. He was nurtured into being narcissistic. And if you look at our society, we kind of condition a lot of men into narcissistic type behaviors, especially successful men. We kind of worship the man who can go all in, who won’t take no for an answer, who is all about being driven and success, and they will stop at nothing, blah blah blah. That has kind of been worshiped and revered in our society. And that’s not healthy. That is not healthy, but it also breeds within the man a sense of never being enough.
Lora Cheadle [00:14:51]:
Because as a culture and as a society, we worship these men who will stop at nothing. We worship the ruthless man who blah blah blah blah blah. And then inside, they’re like, but I don’t feel like that. I I am kind. I’m scared. I am afraid of doing things wrong, and I don’t wanna act like that. I’m not big and puffed up. So something must be wrong with me because that’s what society is telling me a man should be like.
Lora Cheadle [00:15:22]:
A man should be strong and firm and never take no for an answer and and should lead and should always know the right answer. And big boys don’t cry, and that’s not me, so what’s the matter with me? So then men put on that narcissistic mask. They put on that whole persona because this is how men are supposed to be. And if men are supposed to be like that, I must act that way. Then what happens it happens to for all of us. We wear that mask for so long that we forget who we are and how we like to feel and behave and show up. So pretty soon, we have cultivated ourselves as a narcissistic jerk of face, but it’s not really who we are. So we take that entitlement and that grandiosity that is a mask for feeling insecure and vulnerable.
Lora Cheadle [00:16:26]:
We take that mask of narcissism that is, again, the cover for, gosh, I’m not what society tells me I I’m supposed to be as a madly man. We add on a layer of, like, thrill seeking. Yeah. Some people legitimately like to seek thrills. Other people, again, do it because they think it’s proving themselves. Why do we prove ourselves? We only prove ourselves when we don’t feel like we’re enough. We only prove ourselves when we are afraid that we’re not gonna measure up. So the psychological traits of a serial cheater when you break them all down, they’re all masks.
Lora Cheadle [00:17:12]:
They’re all covers for the internal feeling of not being good enough, of not being worth it. And I think that’s really both sad and interesting too because serial cheaters most often are not just horribly vicious people. They are horribly wounded people who are desperately trying to go out there and live like this fantasy life that proves to themselves and others that they’re man enough, that they’re worthy enough, that they’re strong and capable and all of those things enough. And if you look at all the research, those are the psychological traits of serial cheaters, and it’s really, really sad. Now looking at people who cheat one time and then never do it again, let’s talk about that because I personally don’t believe there’s really a mistake. I don’t believe you can just make a mistake and cheat. I never just, whoops, make a mistake and abuse an animal. I never just, whoops, make a mistake and harm a human.
Lora Cheadle [00:18:46]:
I never just, whoops, make a mistake and do things. That that’s disingenuous. We choose our behavior. We can choose to do things that ends up being a mistake. And that’s different than making a mistake. A one time, quote, unquote, mistake is behavior that somebody leans into for all of the same reasons, a serial cheater. Entitlement, narcissism, lack of empathy, thrill seeking, all of that. And they do it once.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:25]:
And what happens inside is they realize the choices that I made, the things that I did, that was a mistake. And it eats them up on the inside. And then they’re left with this terrible conundrum, a total lose lose situation. Do I hide it forever and never speak of this again? Do I take the secret to my grave and lie to my partner, feel this horrible feelings inside myself, and deal with all the repercussions internally, or do I let my partner know what I did, hurt them in a way, yes, they were hurt before, but they didn’t know, hurt them, risk them leaving me, risk losing my family, my relationship, and then put our relationship in a position where now we have to rebuild. Now we have to go through all of this stuff, and I don’t know if they’re ever gonna trust me again. So I don’t know if our quality of relationship is ever gonna be good again. That’s a tough position. And it’s not that I’m wanting to encourage you to, oh my gosh, feel so sorry for the cheater who made a mistake, and now they’re in a tough position of do I tell or do I not tell.
Lora Cheadle [00:20:52]:
It’s not that I really want to evoke your empathy through that, but what I do want you to see is that they are in a tough position. And I do want you to understand that it’s my guess you’ve made a mistake too because I know I have. And I think we’ve all found ourselves in positions like that where we’re we legitimately don’t know what to do. We don’t know what to do because either choice could lead to some really bad consequences. So many of the women that I work with say, how could he do that? How could he not think about me? How could he not think about our kids? How could he not think about our family? How could he not think about the repercussions? And what I really wanna share is he didn’t. He absolutely didn’t because cheating is such a self centered act. It is the ultimate self centered act. And when we are acting from a place of entitlement or narcissism, when we are acting from a place of such deep wounding that we think who we are is the problem, not what we’ve done is the problem, but who we are.
Lora Cheadle [00:22:24]:
I’m not man enough. I’m not capable enough. I’m not doing well enough in my career. I’m doing too well in my career that I’m not doing well enough with my family. I don’t know how to parent. I don’t know how to keep my partner happy. I am broken. When a person is acting from that state of pure brokenness, everything that they do that is designed to make themselves feel better is entirely self focused.
Lora Cheadle [00:23:03]:
And they legitimately are not thinking about you or the kids or the destruction. They are in such a state of desperation that they do this act, and then they’re left with this conundrum of, oh my god. That didn’t help. That actually made it worse. Do I not tell and risk a lot of things? Or do I tell and risk a lot of things? That sometimes that can spur them into cheating again and again because of the the idea of the opportunity cost. If I have already made such a mess out of things, I need to lean in further and fix it. If I’ve already screwed up this one time, I need to go in again and see if I can make it work this next time. I have some really interesting stories from my husband around this concept.
Lora Cheadle [00:24:01]:
And, again, it’s hard to understand, but if you can put yourself in their shoes, it does make it a little bit more understandable. He talks a lot about realizing what a catastrophic mistake, again, mistake is in quotes, he made. And being somebody who is a perfectionist, who does wanna do things right, all of the games that he played in his head to try to spin his action into being justified. That’s when he would pick fights with me because he had to justify his behavior. That’s when he would tell stories about how bad I was and about all the horrible things that I was doing and all the ways I was neglecting him because he had to justify it for himself. He said he even at a few points in time really tried to talk himself into, like, being in love. Well, I’m sure I’m in love. I’m sure I’m sure we’re like soulmates and I’m sure because he was so desperate to try to justify it to make sense of something that didn’t even make sense in his own head.
Lora Cheadle [00:25:20]:
So what I wanna say to you is, if your partner is telling you this story and you’re thinking, what? This doesn’t make any sense. First of all, let me validate, you know, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s their desperate attempt to try to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. If it makes sense is an easy explanation, but it’s when they realize that it doesn’t make sense that their explanation gets all cattymampus and weird. So in a bizarre way, the weirder and the more desperate they are to try to justify it, the more that you know that they really do understand it. The weirder your partner is acting, the more convoluted their story is, the more it shows to you that on some level, they really understand it, and they are dancing to try to make it make sense. Because even to them, they know this does not make sense. Now what I wanna wrap up this section about serial cheating versus one time cheaters, though, is with the reminder, with the insight that whether it is a one time mistake or serial affairs, the action itself, the sex, the emotional connection is made up of a thousand small choices before the big choice to actually cheat or get physical or whatever it is that you define as cheating.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:10]:
And I think it’s more important to talk about all of those small choices, all of those small steps along the way. Because this is something that people say to me too so often. I thought my partner was a good person. I thought he had integrity. He’s got integrity at work. He’s got integrity with, you know, his family. He’s got into what is the deal? How do you go from being somebody who is full of integrity to being a cheater? That’s too big of a jump. Nobody just makes that jump overnight.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:41]:
Nobody just goes from being a family man who’s feeling a little bit wounded to being a cheater or a serial cheater. For those of you who don’t know, my husband cheated for fifteen years with five different women. Fifteen years with five different women. That’s a lot. He didn’t go from wedding vows, husband, father being good guy, to being a serial cheater overnight. It was a thousand little steps and choices and, most importantly, justifications along the way. And that’s what I want you to really understand is those justifications. How do you justify things? How does your partner justify things? I just ate two handfuls of caramel corn before I recorded this.
Lora Cheadle [00:28:49]:
I just yesterday stepped on the scale and was like, oh my gosh. This has gotten totally out of control. I got my little food app. I started logging my food. I was like, this is ridiculous. Change starts now. And yet, I just had two handfuls of caramel corn. How did I justify that? Because that’s out of alignment with what I want.
Lora Cheadle [00:29:19]:
Let me tell you how I justified it. I justified it first by it’s just a small handful. And then, well, it’s just one more, and I can’t get the lid on the popcorn anyway, so I might as well. I justified it that it’s popcorn. That’s not that bad. It’s light. It’s puffy. It’s just a caramel coating on the outside.
Lora Cheadle [00:29:39]:
It’s not like I’m eating huge chunks of food. I justified it in that, well, I’m gonna work out today, and I’ll burn it off anyway. I justified it in, well, I just started yesterday, and I’m just getting myself going on this whole workout healthy eating plan. So it’s okay to make a mistake early on. It’s okay to what’s the word? Cheat. It’s okay to cheat right now. I justified it. I’m not a bad person.
Lora Cheadle [00:30:10]:
I’m not a liar. I’m not a cheat. I didn’t think about things like, oh my gosh. What is gonna happen? Is this gonna send me into diabetes? Am I going to die and lose my leg and leave my family? I don’t think about that because I’m just processing some things in the moment. I’m stressed out. I’m leaving on a trip. I’ve got too much to do right now. I’ve got all this stuff going on.
Lora Cheadle [00:30:35]:
I’m tired, and I just kinda really needed that sweet sugar hit because it was gonna give me a boost, and it was gonna taste good, and I needed a little bit of comfort. Instead of just saying that to myself, oh, I’m stressed out. It’s tasting good. I need a little bit of comfort. I justified it. We all do that. I want you to think about something that you’ve wanted, whether it was losing weight or getting in shape, something like that, or cleaning your house out, or getting a new job, or updating your resume, or whatever it is. Do you just do it? Like, if we all did what we said we were gonna do, this world would be so different.
Lora Cheadle [00:31:23]:
Our lives would be so different. Right? If we legit did what we said we were gonna do. I am gonna go to bed on time. I am going to meal prep and take my lunch to work every day. I am going to lift heavier weights. I am going to whatever it is. But we don’t. So what I want you to do is start getting honest about the ways you justify things.
Lora Cheadle [00:31:52]:
Why? Because I want you aware of this human process. Not only is it gonna make you a better person and you’re gonna get more done, it’s going to give you an understanding of your partner or your future partners. One of the things that people always say is, I’m so afraid he is gonna cheat again. I would love to lean in and build this marriage. I would love to keep our family intact. But, oh my god, how do I know he’s not gonna do it again? One of the ways you know is by understanding the way he justifies things. When you understand the way he justifies things, you can see this behavior coming. You can see those thousand little steps leading up to that last final bad decision.
Lora Cheadle [00:32:53]:
So start understanding yourself, how you justify not going to bed early, not meal prepping, not doing whatever it is that you’re not doing. Because believe me, there’s a lot that you’re not doing. Believe me, there’s a lot I’m not doing. And when I start breaking down the ways that I justify things, it gives me really good insight for myself, but also for others. And it’s that understanding of the justification process that is going to help you feel safe, is going to help you not that you can guarantee, but it’s gonna help you understand and prevent and know whether cheating is going to happen again. Okay. I want to jump from here, the understanding the differences between serial cheating and one time offenders, into why this is not your fault even if you had problems in the relationship. Because this is something that gets tangled up, I think, so often.
Lora Cheadle [00:34:09]:
And as we talk about why it’s not your fault even if you had problems in the relationship, it’s gonna kinda tap back into serial cheating versus one time mistakes. Okay. All relationships have issues. All relationships go through the cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. All marriages have issues. Cheating is never a truly justifiable response. Cheating is about the cheater’s inability to cope, inability to express what’s going on, inability to confront what’s going on. And the narrative that comes from that is a very manipulative narrative.
Lora Cheadle [00:34:59]:
You made me. You pushed me into this. You drove me straight into her arms. Anytime somebody who hurts you says you made me or because of you, Early on, my husband would always be like, it’s because you’re a witch. A witch with the letter b in front of it. Why did you do this? Because you’re a witch. Wow. No.
Lora Cheadle [00:35:25]:
Hurtful, but no. That’s a manipulative narrative. Unless you held a gun to your partner’s head and said you must go cheat, you did not cause it, you did not push them, and you did not make them. This is just a common abuse tactic. How to confront this common abuse tactic? Let’s talk about that one because I will say pretty much all cheaters do this. Because, again, it’s pretty much human nature. The way to do it is to the way to confront it is to not answer to it. It’s to not defend yourself.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:01]:
Do you remember what I said earlier about proving ourself? Anytime we seek to prove ourself, it’s because we’re secretly afraid that we’re not enough. Anytime we seek to defend ourselves, we defend ourselves for the same reason. I only defend myself when I feel like there might be some truth in what you’re saying. If somebody is attacking me on being disorganized, on being scattered, and inside I’m thinking, oh my god. I get so scattered. I get so disorganized. Squirrel, sparkle. I’m all over it.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:43]:
Oh my God, that’s me. And then they’re saying this mistake happened because you are disorganized and you were scattered and this is all your fault. I might defend harder. Nope. That’s not me. That is not me. I do not do that. You should have seen me.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:58]:
I got those files organized. I was totally on point because I’m afraid that if I let my guard down and you see that I am disorganized and scattered, suddenly you’re gonna see all the mistakes that I have made. All of the problems that have been a result of my disorganization and my being scattered. So I defend against that hard. Same thing with, like, parts of our identity. If somebody criticizes you for being a bad wife, a bad mom, a bad friend. I had a friend actually recently whose friend accused her of being a bad friend, and she was like, wait a minute. I am not a bad friend.
Lora Cheadle [00:37:46]:
And she started thinking about all the things that she had done for that friend and that that friend had not done with her for her. And she had this realization that she’s attacking me, not because I’m a bad friend, but because she’s afraid she was a bad friend to me. And you know what? She was a bad friend to me. It’s projection. It’s projection. Whenever we’re afraid of being the bad wife, the bad mom, and then somebody accuses, oh my God, You’re a horrible wife. You did that. You let your kids do that.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:22]:
You were a terrible mom. If there’s fear inside of you, this defense is gonna come out because it needs to protect you. If you’re like, nope. I’m totally secure in my motherhood. I am totally secure in the kind of wife I am. There’s no need to defend. It’s like, okay. Well, you can judge me.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:41]:
That’s fine. That is your best defense when your partner says I cheated because of you. I cheated because you were too involved in your career. I cheated because you ignored me. I cheated because you whatever. Don’t react. We internalize because of our own fear. And then we think, well, maybe it was my fault.
Lora Cheadle [00:39:10]:
Maybe I was ignoring him. Maybe I did let the kids take precedent. Maybe I was caught up in my career. Oh my gosh. I did let myself gain weight. Oh my gosh. I did neglect his emotional needs. And then that fear comes out that I did something wrong.
Lora Cheadle [00:39:30]:
The only reason that fear sometimes feel like it’s justified and we feel like I did do something wrong, this is my mistake, is because it gives us a sense of control. If if his affair was my mistake because I ignored his needs, then I can fix it by never ignoring his needs. If his affair was my mistake because I gained weight, then I can prevent him cheating by losing weight. It’s not true, but it’s this brain game that we go through because we like to feel like we’re in control. We don’t like to feel like we are being tossed around at the whim of the universe. Nobody does. So sometimes we set it up. So it is our fault.
Lora Cheadle [00:40:22]:
So we can fix it. Because women like to fix. Women have been told they’re the fixer and get this. Are you waiting for it? Fixing is a trauma response. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, also known as fixing, are all trauma responses. So whenever your partner says I cheated because you, I want you to step back both in your mind’s eye and maybe even physically take a step back. Take a deep breath. Relax your body.
Lora Cheadle [00:41:05]:
Realize I am only feeling triggered by this because I fear there might be some truth in this. And because if I can find a kernel of truth, and if I can internalize this, then I can control it and I can change the game and then I will feel safe. Don’t react. Don’t respond. Don’t defend. Don’t argue. Walk away from that one every single time. One phrase that I love is you and I both.
Lora Cheadle [00:41:52]:
You and I both know that’s not true and disengage from the conversation. You and I both know that’s not true. Levels the playing field. You’re affirming it to yourself. I know it’s not my fault that he cheated, but you’re also letting him know that, you know what? I’m on to you. You and I both know that’s not true and walk away. That is how you flip the script back. An abuser will flip the script and manipulate by making it your fault.
Lora Cheadle [00:42:28]:
You flip it right back by saying you and I both know that’s not true and by refusing to engage. And can I say refusing to engage is really, really hard? I get that. But don’t engage. Because whenever you engage with an untruth, whether it’s the statement that you made me do this or because of you or whether it’s something else, whenever we engage with an untruth, we are validating that truth. We are making it more real by engaging with it. This is a silly analogy, but it’s a good one. If you think about Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, leprechauns, any of those magical, mystical creatures, we don’t really engage with them because we know they’re not true. So you can’t really argue around the tooth fairy and defend around the tooth fairy and have this entire conversation around the tooth fairy because there’s no tooth fairy.
Lora Cheadle [00:43:47]:
Because she’s not true. But were you to start having conversations and make decisions and plans around the tooth fairy and when she’s gonna come and what’s gonna happen, you have made her more real. You have made her real to you and the person you’re engaging with. If you and your partner are preparing and getting new pillowcases and sleeping in different beds and leaving windows cracked open, you are making her real even though she’s not real. And by both of you affirming her reality with this conversation, with this plan, this discussion, and she wears pink. No. She wears purple. No.
Lora Cheadle [00:44:25]:
She wears green. Wears green. You’re making her more real. And the same is true when somebody is manipulating you. We think I will get them to see truth, and I’m going to argue my point until they see it. But all you’re doing is affirming something that is not true. Even when you’re defending it and saying that it’s not true, you’re still affirming that it’s true. Because things that aren’t real don’t need any energy wasted on them.
Lora Cheadle [00:45:04]:
The second you put energy towards a false statement, you are making that false statement more real. That’s a deep concept. I bring a lot of course of miracles work into my work because that has been very transformative to read and to understand and to study for me. But a lot of the concept around Course of Miracles is, well, just that. Knowing what is real, only love exists. Only love is real. Anything that is not love, anything that is in fear or darkness or shame or heaviness is not real. And when we go and we interact with that which is not real, we bring that negative dream to life.
Lora Cheadle [00:45:56]:
So a lot of the course of miracle stuff is on pulling our energy back and only engaging in love and truth and light. And that, I think, is so simple and poignant and powerful, and yet I get that it’s very difficult. But that is the single best way to get through infidelity. Getting yourself so clear, so profoundly clear and centered on who you are, your love, your worth, your beauty, your truth, that anything outside of that simply ceases to exist because it’s not real. And even though your partner is in a completely disillusioned state, it doesn’t have to bring you down. You do not have to join them in that disillusion. The quickest way through is to stay in clarity, to stay in truth, and to stay in light. Just like I said earlier that infidelity, whether it is a one time mistake or a serial cheating, it’s not that last mistake.
Lora Cheadle [00:47:29]:
It is not that last thing. It’s all the things that led up to it. And that’s the same thing with you affirming truth. It’s not just that you affirm, you and I both know. I didn’t cause this. You and I both know it’s not about that. It’s about all the little things up until that point. It’s about all of the ways you, me, women everywhere have been taught to betray ourselves, to not own our own truth and to not own our own power.
Lora Cheadle [00:48:10]:
We have been conditioned to take the blame of others. One of my pet peeves has always been around, dress code for women. Women have to have a dress code like high school. Girls can’t wear, spaghetti straps. Girls can’t wear short skirts. Girls can’t wear all of these clothes because it’s distracting to boys. We are responsible for their behavior. Wait.
Lora Cheadle [00:48:44]:
That doesn’t make sense. I should be able to be as distracting as I want, and men or boys should still be able to control themselves. Now I understand that school is not necessarily an appropriate place to run around naked or in lingerie. Like, I get that. But it’s that underlying piece behind it that boys and men can’t control themselves, so women have to take that on. This is that culturally conditioned piece that I think all women have, that we are responsible for other people’s emotions, that we can make our kids happy. We can make our employer happy. We can make our partner happy.
Lora Cheadle [00:49:26]:
We can make our parents happy. We can make our friends happy. We are so conditioned to make other people happy. And first of all, we can’t. And second of all, it’s not our job. We can’t make everybody happy. And even if we could, it’s not our job. So if your partner was so miserable and so unhappy, and if you had horrible problems in the relationship, and if you were too involved with the kids, if you were too involved with your career, if you had gained all the weight and had zero libido, if you were actually just irritated by your partner all the time, Those are all legitimate problems and they still didn’t cause the infidelity.
Lora Cheadle [00:50:13]:
And you still are not to blame. Yes. The relationship takes two. But the person who is unhappy needs to speak up about it. And going back to what I was saying earlier about the psychological characteristics of somebody who cheats, entitlement, narcissism, lack of empathy, thrill seeking, an inability to manage their triggers, to cope, to express what they’re feeling, or to confront what’s going on. If your partner was unhappy, your partner should have said something. Even if they did and you said, I just don’t know how to help you. I don’t know.
Lora Cheadle [00:51:00]:
Not a problem for me. Even if you dismissed them. This is the horror, I think, that so many of us experience. The horror that, oh my god. He was serious when he said that. I thought he was just saying that. I just thought that was like venting, like you would with a girlfriend. Like, oh my god.
Lora Cheadle [00:51:16]:
I hate this. I just wanna walk away from my job. I can’t stand my kids right now. All of those things that we say, but we don’t really think we mean because we’re just venting. And that’s such a horror for so many women. They’re like, I look back on it. My partner gave me all these hints that they weren’t doing well, and I didn’t take it seriously. Even if that’s the case, it is still not your fault that the choice that they made to deal with that pain, with that lack of connection was to cheat.
Lora Cheadle [00:51:55]:
What might you do if your needs aren’t getting met? What are the things you might do? You might ask again a different way. You might say, I’m really serious. Here’s the problem. You might get professional help. You might talk to a friend. There’s, like, all of these different things that you might do before you cheat. So even if you totally dismissed your partner, it can contribute to them cheating, but it did not cause it. You did not cause your partner’s affair.
Lora Cheadle [00:52:32]:
Now, I wanna move into a really practical section here. This is how to tell if you’re dealing with a serial cheater. How to tell if this is somebody who is compulsive or if they’re just a one time offender. I wanna talk about red flags, both in the past and also going forward, so you know what to look for. First and foremost, as I said earlier, understand the ways you justify things, then look at your partner and learn their mechanisms for justifying things. Look at their masks. Look at the way that they are dealing with their pain. But I also want you to look for a history of dishonesty.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:21]:
Do they just routinely lie? Whether it’s something like on one of those self scanners and they check out and it doesn’t, gets, you know, get rung up and they just toss it into the bag anyway. Notice if they are lying to their family and friends. Not like a little soft white lie like, oh, no. You don’t look fat at all right now. Or whether they are constantly saying things like, well, no. We already have dinner plans. And you’re thinking, wait. What? We have dinner plans? Notice if they have a history of dishonesty.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:54]:
Notice if they have done dishonest things at work. Notice if they lie to themselves. Notice if they have a hard time keeping promises to themselves. Notice how they treat themselves. Look for some of the things like the vague timelines, where you’re not quite sure what somebody is doing because they can’t quite nail it down, and they’re just being a little bit vague with you. I think the most important is blame shifting. Notice if they get fired at work and it’s not their fault. Notice if the HOA sends you a letter for leaving trash cans out too long and it’s not their fault.
Lora Cheadle [00:54:44]:
Notice if anything happens, weight gain, not their fault. Illness, not their fault. Parents mad at them, not their fault. Weren’t able to pick up the kids on time, not their fault. There was traffic. Notice that pattern of blame shifting. That is huge. Because people who can’t own themselves and own up to their mistakes, People who have that history of dishonesty, of fudging the truth, I’ve never really just being transparent about it.
Lora Cheadle [00:55:18]:
Yeah. I was late to pick up the kids because I got totally involved on this online game, and it was so stupid, and I’m so sorry. And it’ll never happen again because now I know, wow, that could be really dangerous. And now I’m setting an alarm for myself. Notice the pattern of blame shifting. And then here’s another big one. Notice a lack of remorse. Does your partner feel empathy, remorse? And then how do they express that feeling? Like, when they when something goes wrong, say they’re fired from their job, and they’re legitimately owning it, I didn’t lean in in ways that I probably knew I should have.
Lora Cheadle [00:56:13]:
I never got that additional certification. I never really made the time. I have been burned out and kinda quiet quitting, and now I feel I feel so ashamed. I feel embarrassed that I was let go. It feeds all my insecurities. What I really am going to do though is I’m gonna get a career coach because I’m not doing this well on my own. I’m struggling and I need help. That remorse and that accountability notice how healthy people can express what’s going on.
Lora Cheadle [00:56:51]:
They can self reflect accurately without always being a victim, without shifting the blame. They can feel remorse. They can feel empathy for other people, and then they can take corrective action. Oh my gosh. I am so sorry. I totally cut you off mid sentence. I can see that was a shock to you. Let me apologize, and the floor is yours.
Lora Cheadle [00:57:22]:
Notice all of those behaviors that just seem like emotionally intelligent, mature behaviors. Because most repeat offenders are missing several of those. They do have a history of dishonesty. They shift the blame. They defend. They have no remorse. They have no empathy. They’re just a victim.
Lora Cheadle [00:57:44]:
They are always the victim, and they are always offending other people from that victim position. Well, I had to do this because of you. Well, I had to do this because it’s so not fair. The second thing I really want you to pay attention to, but that that’s kind of that cluster of red flags of repeat offenders. But I really want you to be aware of growth. Growth is not linear. Growth is slow. Growth is two steps forward, one step back.
Lora Cheadle [00:58:20]:
But is your partner growing? Are they not minimizing the way that you feel, the impact that their behavior had? Are they taking initiative to get help? Are they consistently over time showing up differently? Like I said, changing, growing, evolving is a constant two steps forward, one step back, but which way are they going in general? I think it is a % fair to say that cheating again after going through this is pretty much a hard stop because that shows you that shows you that a lot of the puzzle pieces have not come together. But other mistakes along the way are totally normal. Shifting blame, projecting, minimizing, like, all of these things, a lack of emotional awareness, empathy, all of that, It’s gonna happen again. It’s just what is the trajectory that they’re going on. Look for their behaviors, not their words. Be okay with smaller mistakes as long as the self correction happens because we learn by making mistakes. And I think one of the most important things is what you want really matters the most. If somebody wants to evolve, but they only wanna evolve a little bit and you want more, you still don’t have to stay together.
Lora Cheadle [01:00:05]:
You don’t have to stay together because he’s growing and because he’s changing. If he wants to get to a lower level and you want somebody that gets to a higher level, that’s what matters the most for you. And I think part and parcel with all of this is it’s not your job to diagnose them. It’s not your job to empower them to heal. Yes. Support them because you love them. Support them because they’ll become a better person. And if you’re co parenting with them, they’ll be better.
Lora Cheadle [01:00:38]:
But your job is to decide what kind of a relationship you want and what kind of a relationship you deserve. And if that person is your person, great. And if that person is not your person, you know what? That is okay too. That’s okay too. You’ve learned together. You didn’t waste time. That’s something I hear a lot too. I don’t wanna waste time.
Lora Cheadle [01:01:04]:
I don’t wanna waste time if he’s gonna do it again. I don’t wanna waste time seeing if we’re gonna figure it out. What I like to say is you’re not wasting time. You’re figuring yourself out. You’re figuring out who you are and what you want, and what could be a better use of time than that. This leads perfectly into the last section that I wanna talk about, and that is healing really starts when you’re able to release shame. Shame, self blame keeps you totally stuck. Infidelity is hard because there’s such a taboo around it because we think it means we’re not good enough in bed.
Lora Cheadle [01:01:47]:
It make things it makes us think that we that it means we’re not pretty enough. We’re not a good enough wife. We’re not sexy enough. That somebody else was younger and hotter and smarter or something like that. There’s this taboo that if our partner cheats somehow, it’s because we’re not enough. And that sense of shame that we are not enough really creates obsession. Because we have this conflicting belief, on the one hand, we do know that we’re really dang good. We’re really smart.
Lora Cheadle [01:02:23]:
We’re really together. We are a really quality person. But then that cognitive dissonance of, so why her? Why not me? And it’s this obsessive obsession that leads to these obsessive thoughts of, was she younger? Was she hotter? What did she do that I didn’t do? Why was she better? Why was he and the real truth is that sense of shame, again, is pointing into, if we broke it, we can fix it. So we’re trying in a way to obsess. Because if we can find out what we did wrong, we can change it and we can fix it. The truth is you were betrayed due to no fault of your own. The truth is the stigma around infidelity and betrayal means nothing about you. The real stigma, the real shame, the real blame should be on the person who committed the actions and made those choices.
Lora Cheadle [01:03:31]:
And until you start releasing that shame and untangling your worth from their actions, you will stay stuck. One of my favorite ways to untangle self worth from somebody else’s actions or judgments or belief is, and it sounds silly, but to journal. To journal on it. To journal on your beliefs. To ask yourself, why am I holding on to this? What did I think I could do wrong? What did I think I did wrong? Why do I think I can control another person? Why do I think this is shameful? And then to affirm for yourself, I didn’t cause this. I didn’t deserve this. But most importantly, I get to choose what happens next. So in summary, you are not crazy.
Lora Cheadle [01:04:41]:
You are not alone. You can heal. Healing begins by releasing that shame, by releasing that stigma, by understanding that internalized shame and self blame that we have been taught to carry, to put the blame, to put the shame on the person who made the decisions, all 50,000 little decisions that led up to cheating. To start understanding yourself, your justifications, your partner, their justifications, and to realize that no matter what happens, you get to choose your own life. You get to decide what kind of partner you want, what kind of partner you don’t want. Keep a lookout for those red flags. Know when enough is enough. Have grace, have space, but also have boundaries and know when it’s time for you to create more for your self.
Lora Cheadle [01:05:58]:
Reach out if you need anything. I really, really hope you join me this summer for sparkleallseason.com for the your comeback summer. I really hope you join me this summer for your comeback summer. My ninety day program where you can get your groove back. Just go to sparkleallseason.com. You can download some more information. Reach out if you’ve got questions, and then let’s get you registered. And in the meantime, have an amazing week and always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more than enough.
Calm the chaos inside & out
