This Type of Man Always Cheats! - Signs He Doesn't Love You (Even If You Think They Do) | Dr. Ramani

I'm sick and tired of hearing people say well these are the things you did and

this

is why your man cheated on you, if not someone

cheats

on you,

they

betrayed you, unless

they

clean that stuff up you better believe that once a cheater

always

. a cheater, but I

think

the complicated thing about cheating and infidelity is that I heard that about one in four men now cheat in relationships, which is crazy, so when I

think

about how many people I've dated, people from house came out if you have gone out. more than four people, the chances are that maybe they have cheated on you, so what I want to know is how can we start to identify the

signs

so that we don't get caught by surprise and don't get our hearts broken and then don't let yourself be betrayed .

I'm surprised it's as low as one in four. He would have put it higher. I would have put it so that one in four is 25%. Yeah, I probably would have put it closer to 35. One and three. So cheating is. Very or infinite fidelity or breaking the social contract of a relationship is a very complex behavior and has to do with where it falls in the life history of a relationship, how what qualifies as cheating is displayed. which now I'm going to sit here and of course you know I'm going to tell you that if you're already getting vibes from a toxic relationship, someone who is interrupting you, someone who is hypersensitive, someone who needs a lot of validation, I'm not saying everyone like that is stingy, but you've definitely turned up the volume on that likelihood of it happening, but I actually have to tell you how difficult it is about infidelity, very frankly, Lisa, unlike how I usually talk about narcissism, no.

I do. I think there are big red flags I think there are obvious red flags because people are going to be obvious cheaters on your first second third date they're already flirting with the waiter or the bartender or they already seem to be snuggled up in conversation with someone at the bar. when you're supposed to meet him and you're like, um or them, what are you doing, why are you so welcoming to

this

person? or they like a lot of inappropriate things. photos on social media,

even

when you are in an early relationship with them, you follow them on social media and you see that they are

always

making comments on people's photos that turn you off and make you wonder why.

Do they have to comment on how sexy people's photos are? Oh, they're just friends and if they're lying to you about it. If they say, Oh, no big deal, we're old friends, that's probably a bit of a soft signal, but I. I think the complicated thing about cheating and infidelity is that it's not always toxic people who do it and that's why I don't think the red flags are that discernible and I say that for a reason: a lot of people say: how did I do it? I don't see it coming, what kind of fool am I?

More than anything, I would say, I don't think you can see it coming and in the years that I've been practicing clinically, I've worked with so many clients that have been deceived and all just one of their partner profiles was something different H okay, so you just have You have to accept that and then say you just have to trust that person, for example, where do we begin to evaluate if the relationship is healthy? Whether they're going to stray or not, I think one of the biggest problems is that we talk all the time about what makes a relationship toxic, red flags, warning

signs

that make a relationship healthy and I don't think we have a good shared definition on the matter.

Now I will give you a mental health answer to that question and it will include respect, compassion, kindness, patience, commitment, equality, balance, the ability to see the other partner's strengths and support their growth, that's it. That's a healthy relationship and then there are things like shared values, shared interests, some shared things you like to do together, an awareness of what the other needs, you may not be a physically susceptible person but your partner may be, so really act like you recognize that snuggle time on the couch or whatever that feels like to you is important, being aware that you know what your partner needs and giving it because it feels reciprocal and mutual and you feel heard and seen , but let me tell you that if I had to choose just one word about what makes a relationship healthy, it would be safe.

We feel safe when we are in a healthy relationship. We don't feel like we're about to be invalidated, belittled, or betrayed. Okay, so that's what a healthy relationship is, now let's talk about this other topic of what and call it cheating, what is it, betrayal, now betrayal is a bigger word, betrayal can be. Financial betrayal can be how a person shares confidences and secrets and there are many ways we can betray, but for me, cheating has the seat in the Hall of Fame and the Betrayal Hall of Fame. So when we get to that part, we are supposed to trust in a healthy relationship, trust comes.

Naturally, that raises the big question of whether it is possible that infidelity can occur in a healthy relationship; it's very unlikely, but yes it can be okay, it's more likely a symptom of an unhealthy relationship or a pattern we see in an unhealthy relationship, but the challenge Can I realize that I'm supposed to trust and be betrayed? Well, your other option is to hold back forever and never get to experience the fullness of a relationship every time we fall in

love

every time we enter into a relationship that we are starting. in a risky company, so the balancing act is that I will never trust, but I will have a relationship, but I will never trust, so I will never be 100% and so when I was cheated on.

I'll be ready for it, which to me is almost like saying you live in hurricane country. It would be like having plywood over your windows forever, turning your house into a disaster bunker that you'd always be ready for. It would be a disaster, but there would be no light coming in through the windows and your house would look like a bunker. You see what I'm saying, what's the bunker equivalent of being in a relationship? It would be as if you were always living in it. that kind of disaster mentality so that you would never fully relax, you would never fully bring your bandwidth to the relationship, so yes, you trust and then yes, your trust would be betrayed.

Is there a way to avoid that? I don't believe it. One thing I'm never going to back up Lisa, never, I mean, I can't say Never Enough, is that I'm sick and tired of hearing people say, well, these are the things you did and that's why your man I cheat you. no someone

cheats

on you, they betrayed you, they did something and that nonsense, well if you did more of this and that, absolutely not, if that person had a problem with how you presented yourself in the relationship, they had the opportunity to have a conversation. his way of betraying you to make that point, hell no yeah oh thank you so much for saying that, that's so powerful because I think a lot of us take on that shame or guilt and now instead of turning to the person that did it.

It becomes very embarrassing and you start to look at yourself and you start to wonder what I did wrong, but I think the complicated thing is and you said it before, these are all the things that make a healthy relationship the one that some people feel they have. . that the person who says "I

love

you" the person who says "you're my everything" has kids and adores them and then still goes and cheats, so why do they do what is that that maybe we can understand and deal with? It baffles me, Dr. Ramy, how someone can honestly say "I love you", look you in the eyes, be nice to children, shower you with things and then go and cheat on you, so four answers to that, there are four questions, let's back up to what I called a healthy relationship, at no point did I say take a shower.

Things give you a lot of attention. I love children very much. I said respect, compassion, kindness, patience, fairness in the relationship. For me, the shower is already red. dialing is fine because it's easy to shower, it's very hard to deal with those other things unless it comes naturally to you. Empathetic and nice people are easy to be, it's easy for them to be respectful and compassionate and all that, but if all they're doing is I like things like they're the best and they give me all these gifts and they like it, they post pictures of the kids all the time and we all go to Disneyland.

I say, yes, no, we are not healthy, but we continue to give. I rather then, but you get to a that brings me to the next part of but they say I love you I love you have to be the three most dangerous words in the English language because they mean something different to everyone when Telling Tom I love you means something different than what I would mean when I say I love you and when he says it it means something different than what some go on and on and on and on, I think actually something I wish was a mandatory part of every relationship is that you feel at a table with someone 3 to six months into your relationship and you say: could you explain what I love you really means to you?

Because I would love to know what it means because to some people it means. very different things for a narcissist, for example, I love you means I love the way you make me look I love the way you praise me I love having someone around all the time I love how we have sex I mean, that's all that's going to happen to be very different and someone else could say I love you because I feel safe and seen and heard. I see a lot of good in you. I feel blessed to have learned so much from you that we don't have and that's the problem. and especially in narcissistic relationships they say I love you and a lot of times people say you don't love me, you did all these things and I'll be like slower, they said they love you, they think they love you, you might not agree.

With their definition of love, have you ever sat down with them and found out what that really means to them? So that's a completely different conversation. Then they say: I love you. You're right. A person will say, "You said you love me." Could you do this so that we now get to the last part of your question, which is why people cheat? I think it's important to understand that there are many different

type

s of cheaters, so before we get into why, there's actually one more thing that just adds to asking you about the I love you part if you ask the narcissist what I love you means to them.

Are they going to admit? I love how you make me feel. I love how, so here's the answer you'll get from them. H what what what why do you do what you want an explanation like I don't know I just like friend I like hanging out with you like I love you like what do you want I just said I love you not what you wanted they won't be able to break that down for you and that is what I remember and again I don't want to get too far into the weeds of narcissism, but one thing that narcissistic people can't do is they're not clear about what motivates their behavior, it's very, it's a real defining characteristic if you ask me what that means.

For me I love you. I could give you a dissertation. I am very clear about what those three words mean to me. I'm very, very light, but most people you know and many healthy people. All healthy people, I know they might say, give me a second permission and this is what it means, but a narcissistic person will never be able to answer that question and they will get very defensive and angry if you actually ask them that, okay? thank you, I was very curious, okay, and now the why, okay, so, the why, not all traps are the same and I think that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind and you know there are different

type

s of cheaters.

There they are, you know, kind of what I call the crime of opportunity cheaters, these are the people who really love their partners and spouses, they love them, they love their lives, they love their families, they love everything and out of town at a convention maybe some people drank too much the buddy they flirted with a little is at the convention and some sloppy kisses and a little bit of something afterwards they say oh god you know and it's a one night thing or maybe It's not

even

someone they know, they might know someone anywhere in the bar, they're at the hotel, da, da, da, and that's it, and they don't, they never have anything to do with this person again, it's the I think they're never going to find out about me, we don't even know each other's names, um, it could be someone who often feels trapped in their lives and when traveling, going and being a different place than they are.

They jump from a role, they can feel very defined and confined in their role and then they say: "I'm going to do this", but it's more than anything, it's a little bit of rebellion and they're behaving well, so there's a kind of enthusiasm that cheaters look for. , these are people who may be in relationships that have become quite stale for them, but they feel committed to the relationship, perhaps they are in a relationship where it is not the frequency of sex that they want, that is overwhelming them. everything that's going on in the relationship, whatever it is, and again they may say and actually behave in a way that they love their partner, but then they're looking for the emotion, they're looking for the emotion of the text that's coming to them. the fantasy of all the emotion that seeks out the cheater, someone who will spend hours of their day thinking about the emotion of the cheater.

They are getting that added benefit in a way that we begin to engage in all the emotional cheating as if they were dreamingawake, they are not thinking about their partner, they are not thinking about the things they are going to do. His family is like trapped in this ridiculous fantasy, but even they would know that they are never going to make a life with this person, there is an immaturity to the excitement that seeks out the cheater because they are not. deal with the central problem, whether the relationship has become somewhat obsolete again and that need perhaps for a little more emotion, which is again, if more than anything, an immaturity, so the emotion that seeks the cheater can even get into a kind of long text sequence with someone before we even meet a person and then it could be these really stolen moments and half the excitement is planning it and where we're going to meet and dad, so there's that kind of cheating there are people that I'm going to call this group of cheaters and I'm doing this.

These are designations that I use, I'm not saying they're official by any means, another type of cheater is that I'm cheating to keep my primary relationship together cheater they believe that so these are people people that are like I hate my relationship I hate my marriage I hate it whatever I'm in and if I have this other thing it's giving me enough juice to be able to handle it staying in this relationship I don't like it and it's stopping me from breaking up my marriage breaking up my family breaking up this but this other thing is helping me feel I don't feel anything I hate this person I don't like this person so I'm going to have this little issue and then or a big issue and I don't have to address this, so there are the, I mean again, and this is this fourth group, it's an interesting group because I'm going to call them the online cheaters. these are the people who are getting into electronic cheating relationships with people, they're texting, they're sharing photos, they're dick pics, they're nude photos, they're um, they masturbate with each other over the phone, you know, over the phone, like the video calls, send dirty text messages to each other. others have never met, this could happen it could start through direct messages, it could be people who know each other but it's a back and forth and they never actually met each other so the person is having this kind of sizzle in their day a day. pictures these these messages you're the babe I can't stop thinking about you babe you're so sexy babe and then all this nonsense of babes coming up to their really boring meeting that they're having in the middle of the day and they're getting a lot of juice out of it, then you have your emotional cheaters, these are people who essentially are almost having a love story and maybe not sex, maybe maybe a kiss or something, but it's really like I love you.

I've never felt like this before, you're my soulmate, that nonsense and all that, then you have the emotional cheaters and then you have the narcissistic cheaters and in the world of narcissistic cheaters this is a completely different animal, okay, and in the world of narcissistic cheaters. you have a series, they tend to be serial cheaters, they do it to get validation, so they don't have any empathy, so they don't think that all these cheaters you could argue that some of that is happening well, they aren't if they really they thought about their partner, they wouldn't send dirty text messages, they wouldn't have received, they wouldn't have fooled around with someone at a convention that they know, and again even for someone who is in a terrible relationship but is staying together for whatever it is. their reasons why they are trying to stay calm for them could say I have no empathy for my partner you are absolutely right that is why I am doing this because I don't care so they are acknowledging it. but the narcissistic cheater

doesn

't want the relationship to go away because it serves a function for them, but they go out and get what they want and will do it repeatedly.

Narcissistic cheaters lie about cheating, Gaslight about cheating, blame their partner. when they cheat in all those other forms of cheating, those people may not necessarily blame their partners when they get caught, a lot of cheaters will be like I screwed up, I'm sorry, I feel bad for what I've done to you, uh, you . You are a good person, you didn't deserve this. That's not what the narcissistic cheater does. The narcissistic cheater will say. You know why I cheated on you. I cheated on you because you make me feel bad about myself. Do you know if it's been a long time since you did it?

I'm told I'm great and this person actually sees me and blah blah blah okay, so they get supply, they do it repeatedly, they don't consider how it affects their partner, they feel entitled to it, they lie They turn it on and they do with reckless abandon over and over again. They are very good at not getting caught too many times because they are so used to doing it right, so there are a couple more ways. of traps I'll talk about and then we'll put it all together. There are people who have problems. Some people call it sex addiction.

I prefer to call it a kind of compulsive sexual behavior. These are people who could be. They are called porn addicts or they may go to massage parlors so like any addict they would feel out of control so they may masturbate eight to 10 times a day while watching porn they may go see a sex worker and getting laid. on the street, I mean, they are completely emotionally disconnected from sex, they are disgusted by themselves, but just like a drug addict, they almost feel like they can't stop, so there is also that kind of That kind of trap group is also okay , so we'll put them in their own place, but as you can see, they're all these people that infidelity serves a lot of different functions for them and there's kind of these.

They are and in essence are people who do not communicate well in their relationships, who feel entitled to something outside of the relationship, who are not being aware and do not engage in full empathy at all times about how this is affecting them and In the case of those I hate my partner cheaters, it could be a coping mechanism, they are very different people, these cheaters are all very, very different people, so you can see how that one night stand at the teachers convention He cheats, he is a great person, the best partner, loving and committed. plays with the children loves the couple the couple wouldn't even have a moment of suspicion he even helped the person pack their suitcase when they left for the convention he even called them every day not even a moment of suspicion and when that person comes back yes whatever they are may probably be filled with regret, guilt and disgust and they might even redouble their attempts to make the relationship good.

I would hate to call that person narcissistic, careless, messy, immature, thoughtless, safe, some people think that cheating behaviors may have some of their roots in trauma, i.e. these are behaviors that are deeply rooted in things like shame , low self-esteem, in distorted scripts and narratives about the limits of sexuality, so as I see it, I am saying that cheating is not a one-dimensional thing, it is a very nuanced space, so when I work with clients who are cheaters or have been cheated on, we really need to dig into what the entire cheating landscape looks like. Friend, I have something new and free to share with you right now.

How often do you get visited by that negative voice in your head that tells you that you're not smart enough, that you're not good enough, that you're not experienced enough to not fill in the blank on The Most Powerful Things You Can Learn to Do? to do in life is to turn that negative voice into your best friend and I want to teach you how to do that and much more in my four step workshop to become confident and guys, the most amazing thing is you. In fact, I can sign up completely free for this Workshop, so click the link on your screen and I'll see you inside and I'm assuming that the clients who are cheaters that you've seen as clients are not the narcissistic cheaters like the ones I've been with. worked up.

Narcissistic cheaters and they also sit you down and then give you every excuse under the sun. There will be shame. There will be shame. There will be law. There will be a lack of self-awareness. I am surprised every time I have worked with them. a narcissistic trickster when I gently try to convince them of what you think in many cases a man was, so let me use that and it was a heterosexual relationship, but there wasn't always one. I've worked with a lot of gay couples where this is an issue, I would say, can I ask you something?

How do you think your wife would feel about this? I just want to know and sometimes the reaction would be like well she'd get really mad like I was a walking dead man if she found him. and I would say that's not what I, that's not how she would feel, that's how she would react, let's dig deeper, how would she feel and they will get angry again, why, because anger is about them, it will take some cracks for them to say she would feel hurt, she would feel sad, she would do it and so on and then I have done it, okay?

You could see it didn't even register for them, they're not even logging in. It took me a while for them to even in a meaningful way reflect on how their behavior would affect this person, that's how entitled they felt to cheat and when faced with a narcissistic cheater specifically, I heard you talk about darvo, yeah. darvo, thanks, when you're dealing with a narcissistic cheater, especially if it's in your own relationship, right? darvo means to deny attack and reverse victim and offender, so let's say you are in a relationship with a narcissist. I'm going to play this with you.

I'm, you're my partner and I'm like, hey, you know, what's this like? I saw these text messages pop up on your phone, it's very clear that you were meeting someone else last night you said you were doing da d da and you say that's not true, that's not like that, I didn't do it, at all, that's not is what happened and first of all get off my phone and no that's not what happened so I don't like to take half a story and make something up and then. You would then say and you know what since I'm so tired of living like this I'm constantly dealing with your stupid accusations how do you stop doing this to me Romany enough stop accusing me like I'm tired of living with a crazy person I'm tired of living with a person who thinks that okay I pick up my phone like you're weird, there's something wrong with you like me.

I do everything around here. I do everything I can and now I'm done as best I can. I don't think you do this, what's wrong, so now that you've attacked me, then you're reversing victim and offender and you say you know what, actually, what you don't do, you sit around all the time, Romney, you do nothing all the time. time and you like it. I'm killing myself to make this family work who is the one who took the kids to the soccer game two weeks ago that would have been me I'm doing everything I don't even know what the hell you do and and now but what You're great at being a cop, but I guess this It's my damn cross with the Bears for being accused of all these things all the time.

You see what we started with. Hey, you weren't honest about where you were. I'm suffering in this relationship and it's your fault and you're the reason I'm suffering so how would you approach someone if you start to feel like maybe they're cheating on you, maybe you see some signs that they're cheating on you. ? In fact, it's like going to the bathroom and texting or having two phones and things like that, what other things can we maybe identify in that moment? How would you approach it if there are narcissists? No and maybe you can break them down well.

I think it's going to be different with a narcissistic cheater. There is no way to confront it. I mean, the best confrontation. The best thing you're going to do is say you can confront him, but you can't, it's not because you'll get an honest answer. let's say you have the smoking gun at some point you get the picture and the person you are being scammed comes to you like you have you have video you have photos you have evidence capable at the moment they can't get out of it anymore then they will say: okay, yeah, happy, are you happy? do you feel better?

Saint Lisa, do you feel better about yourself now that it's okay? Yes, I was with someone else, do you know what this relationship has been like? Absolutely horrible to me, so yeah, I'm the great sinner of our time, I went and met someone else, okay, but you know what I should have done this a long time ago, but I knew you were going to go completely crazy, this is not working. so what they do is they get defensive, they get angry, they use it as an opportunity to criticize the person they've betrayed, okay, and then obviously in their shame they walk off into the sunset, so it's all your anger is coming.

Because of this, they know that they are not supposed to do this right. Narcissistic people are not psychopaths nor are they completely delusional. They know this is not right. They also know that it will make them look bad and they will start trying to hurt them. control and go out into the world and say you know she's making a big deal out of it as if we were just dating, we were friends and now that that's over, yeah right, obviously, like you know. We're seeing each other now but we always lie. narcissistic people always lie about the timeline always yes she was crazy not only was she crazy like we weren't together like we were just texting we were dating it was like it was nothing and yeah then,When me and so-and-so blew up, sure we started spending more time together, but when you see a narcissistic person and you quickly leave a long-term marriage and enter a new relationship, chances are there will be an overlap, because we don't it happens like this.

That's right, that boom boom means that the groundwork was being laid and then they're either going to parachute in or their partner is going to kick them out, so what I'm saying is that if you're in a narcissistic relationship and you suspect that they don't have a smoking gun, by all means so to speak, there is a change in energy, there is suspicious behavior, is it going to the bathroom, texting someone else in the middle of the night, are they the ones who disappear for long periods of time, it could even be if they slip and they call you something else, it might be obvious, it might not, but I guess it would be called circumstantial evidence.

I can promise you that confronting the narcissistic person will get you nowhere, so if you are in a relationship like that, hard work becomes the state that this relationship is in. Now put aside the traps for a minute. Do you like this relationship? I'm guessing probably not, but you've been trying to maintain a toxic relationship. afloat, so if you don't like this relationship, this isn't working for you and you suspect you're being tricked into taking some of that on yourself and saying, I don't want this anymore, but the place where people get stuck, Lisa, are they.

I will say that I feel like I have to prove it, so when I tell people I left, I can tell them he was cheating on me, right? They want that justification, but I tell people, isn't it enough that you identified this as a relationship where trust felt fragile and you didn't feel safe and you didn't feel seen and you felt it was emotionally abusive, right? Is it reason enough to leave the relationship? It

doesn

't have to be the big showdown over cheating that you can. I even say, listen, I don't know if you've been cheating on me or not, but all I can say is that this isn't working for me anymore.

Something here is not right and I want out, but narcissistic people are so good at gaslighting. Only people with the most extraordinary conviction are going to say, "I don't even care about the evidence. Something's not right here. I'm out. Why do these people stay even if they don't have the evidence but they have the suspicion?" Whether they are with a narcissist or not, you are now asking a big question and this relates to something Dr. Jenner calls betrayal blindness. Now betrayal blindness is this process by which a person is in a relationship in which he is intimate. close relationship family relationship intimate relationship where your trust is being betrayed, but seeing that, knowing that that is happening means that your life would really fall apart, the status quo would change, just that the life that you thought you had would no longer be true and then, Seeing it means everything falls apart, so what Dr.

Fry argues is that it's partly an unconscious process, not completely unconscious, where we do a lot of this, okay, so we don't have to see it, we make excuses, but that's all. It's more than that, she describes it so beautifully in her book that she says she gives the example of a woman who had been in a relationship with a man who (and I'm going to gloss over some of the details), but he was really cruel. emotionally. to her and very distant, very remote, um and then she had a baby, they had a baby together and he traveled a lot for his work, but instead of coming straight home, which you would think that a man who was a newborn baby born would like to see. his new baby immediately still stopped for happy hour and all that on his way back to town, so this was a very out of touch man and it was pretty clear that he was doing something dodgy or Shady, the woman was still doing it.

She didn't suspect this and would appreciate it if he came home and saw her in the child, but she spent a lot of time without him there. A friend of hers once suggested that we should go out and that we should go out. and she met the guys for dinner, so she got a babysitter and they were going to surprise them and show up, so they went to the restaurant, they were sitting in the back of the restaurant, her husband comes in and as a woman comes in. she jumps up and starts making out with him and he sees this happen as she walks from the back of the restaurant to the front to greet him as he leaves the Embrace, there is still some distance away, apparently it was a large restaurant she said.

What were you doing? Why were you kissing that other woman and he said she wasn't kissing? What are you talking about like he's not kissing anyone? She said I just saw it, you were just kissing that woman. He's like g i, I don't know. I don't even know what it was about. I think that woman thought I was someone else. She just jumped up and started pretending I wasn't kissing. I wasn't in this with her. She just jumped. She thought it was very clear. So it was a make out session and she bought it, did she really buy it or did she say okay?

There's the question, so Dr. Fried interviewed her years later and she said that at that moment at the restaurant bar she saw the kiss that he said what he said about the kiss and what she said stuck with me when she said This, he said, is like it came out of my brain because if it stayed in my brain, my whole life was now everything. was going to go, but it was like there was a process operating to allow the person to stay pseudo safe because now they're not with a cheater, they just, oh, that was stupid, that's a stupid girl, a stupid girl doing that in front of He later left it at the bar and then said, "You know, it's strange" because it's not that he doesn't remember it, it's there, it happened.

I know. And as I tell you this again, I remember it, but somehow I almost left it. It's like imagining your hippocampus that contains the memory in your brain and it's like putting something on a shelf, think of the hippocampus campus as a shelf and someone goes behind the shelf, right, it's like they go behind the hippocampus bookstore now it's not stored in memory and it doesn't affect how a person processes the relationship, but this is where it gets interesting, Lisa, what Dr. Fried says about betrayal blindness is that just because things disappear, They don't go away, so why?

As we sit in these relationships, we start to feel sicker, less in our bodies and uncomfortable, but we can't name it because all the things are falling behind the shelf so we don't see them, but like we don't know. I don't feel well I'm depressed my body hurts I'm sick I'm not sleeping well my head is people say it's a lot of things but that's how betrayal blindness works betrayal blindness is a great mechanism in narcissistic relationships because when You think about all that stuff falling behind your bookshelf, hey, now you think you have a clean house, not really, you have a bunch of junk behind your bookshelf, that's what you have and it's not lost, it's just sitting there collecting dust. , but It's still taking a toll on you and that's how people can see it but not see it because see it and I can't tell you Lisa the number of clients I've worked with who said I remember one woman in particular who said her friend told you I know what is his office near where I live, you know he is cheating on me.

One day I'll be happy to follow this fool because I know you'll find something or whatever and the woman says, I don't want you to do that. I don't want to see it and in a way it's a person who recognizes that if I see it then I have to do something about it, so I don't want to see it because it's not because they're stupid, it's not because they're stupid. ridiculous is not even denial it is the shaking of the status quo the feeling forces and changes the landscape of the relationship what a person is like now what I thought was a relationship with someone I trust I am in a relationship with someone who is or could betray me or me has betrayed and that changes the whole game and it's a protection mechanism that many people I've met have said: I know if I open your phone I'm going to see something shady and I don't have the bandwidth for this right now and that's because because they actually have to process well if they cheat on me.

Then I have to decide if I stay and forgive them or leave. If I choose to leave, maybe then I'll have to, yeah. custody if we have kids who gets the house, the money, this, Christmas, Thanksgiving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the whole thing and then I interviewed someone named Spirit, she's a relationship expert and the one thing that she told me that really struck me was that she often said that when you have to regret the life that you thought you were going to have with them and then you projected like, oh, we're going to grow old together, we're going to You know, you see our grandchildren in the school play, so if you have to address the pitfalls and you decide to leave now, there is a whole future that has somehow been demolished, has been demolished, not just the future has been demolished , not everyone leaves, but now you stay in a relationship that you originally thought you would stay in a relationship with a great person, now you stay in a relationship with a traitor, it's a very different love story, so let's talk to stay and leave if you don't.

So what would have to be true? I guess someone stays and that gets rebuilt. I don't think anything has to be true. I think a lot of people stay after their trust has been betrayed by infidelity, um, and there are many reasons for that. I think there are a set of reasons that point to practicality. Okay, so this happened and they may actually weigh in on what the deception was. It was a one night stand in Vegas and this person has been apologizing and criticizing her every day of her life? Liv was an emotional cheater, she sent strange text messages, something like maybe it wasn't the level of physical contact, but it was still emotional.

Keep in mind that women who emotionally cheat will generally report that emotional issues affect them more in terms of betrayal. and sexual issues like wham bam thank you lady in Vegas would bother them less than the long term emotional issue of someone saying they love someone or that we have emotional needs, most people will describe emotional infidelity as much more. betrayal, so to speak, and that's why I think when the decision is made whether a person stays or goes, we have to take into account the practicality of it all, some people might say: I don't know if I'm in a position to go through a custody battle and dividing the house and the finances and all that because this fool had one in Las Vegas like I don't know if I can do that, you could say I've seen a new side to this person.

I feel like the relationship has changed, but there is that group, there is a group that will say that there was, there was this person who took responsibility, they were responsible, they apologized. I felt like they, you know, other than that moment where they didn't make sense and you knew they did something that hurt. To me, any amendment that was made was significant enough for one person to say we can move forward. If you look at people like Estere Perel's works, you would say that some people will even say that their relationship got stronger after that, it's really not them.

I'm a narcissist, I can tell you that right now because these are people who genuinely make amends, they'll say I screwed up, I did, I don't and they won't even try to make an excuse, they'll say I screwed up. up I hurt you whatever you decide I will live with um but I messed up and they will do the best they can and after that some people will say I can work with this and they will go into couples therapy and break it off. and they will and some people say that even after all the couples therapy work, even with good repairs, they will say no, you are someone I can't trust.

I can't have a relationship with someone I can't trust. um some people will fall into the place of betrayal blindness, especially if it's a more narcissistic relationship because those relationships are much more confusing. Remember that the narcissistic cheater is going to gaslight you when they are done with you. They would have been blamed for their affair, they would have said you gained weight, the kid didn't have enough sex, you don't even support me anymore, you are not interested in me, we don't have the same interests, blah blah blah blah blah, they . They will blame you, they will blame you completely, they will not take responsibility, they will not make amends, they will give a hollow apology or better yet, they will give an empty apology, someone will accept them and they will make it right again and when. you say Hollow apology like oh I'm sorry baby you know what I'm sorry you know that wasn't right let's go to therapy cold turkey like they do all the things you're supposed to do but but I'm sorry it's so different than that I hurt you I can see what this has done.

I broke the trust in this relationship. I can't sit here and expect you to forgive me. All I can say is that I am responsible for this. It had nothing to do with this it was me who made the decision that night and I have to follow through with whatever you choose um and that to me the narcissist will never be able to do that unless they are very well rehearsed um but then if they do it well again , then you know what it is about there are two sides of the equation there is the person who has betrayed what they can live with the practical factors are under the level of betrayal blindness the nature of whether narcissism is present in the deception or not and thenis how the cheater behaves if he is responsible if he takes responsibility if he is self-aware if he is clear about how much this hurt the other person and if he is aware that an apology does not necessarily mean that everything is going to be okay that they recognize that a Once you've laid it all out, make peace, apologize for everything the other person can still say, go out, then what do you think of the date?

So once a cheater always a cheater. I think once a cheater always a cheater, it speaks to what we know about human behavior. The only thing we know about human behavior is that past behavior predicts future behavior, so if you know someone has cheated before, you've now entered it as a possibility. in this equation now you're not going to see other developmental factors if a person says I cheated on someone when I was 19 and now you're 40. I'm fine, you know, I mean development, those are very different. Stages of a Narcissist I would say that with narcissistic cheaters, once a cheater, always a cheater.

However, there are some people out there who once a cheater ruined their life learned they went to therapy, work made amends, not necessarily in a direct way. statistical basis of probability modeling I totally agree that once a cheater will always be a cheater I prefer with narcissistic people always will be once a cheater always a cheater I think there is a possibility in the other group that that is not the case, but remember cheating is a marker variable because this is a person who showed some level of impulsivity acting with poor communication skills unless they clean that stuff up you better believe once a cheater always a cheater yeah God, I'm sure I have a statistic on that and okay. to psychology today if they cheated before then they are three times more likely to cheat again, yes then, it is what it is, that's right, whatever function cheating served them, validation, release of tension, addressing the boredom, an entitlement, whatever that thing was right, that thing could still be there, so of course that will increase the likelihood that they will do it again.

Hear many traps, they are never caught. People go and do what they do and live their lives and no one notices. You better believe those people are going to cheat again because they figured out how to do it and it's like getting a speeding ticket, I mean everyone who gets a speeding ticket doesn't get a speeding ticket because it's The first time they accelerated, they accelerated, they accelerated many times. and this time the cop had the radar on them, yeah right, and I was actually watching a show the other day and the person I think was like I don't know what the hell the show was with the person who was quoting Warren Buffett. like if you put a police car on someone for 500 miles, they'll be able to get on something, so it's the same thing you know if a person cheats once and gets away with it, they'll do it again because whatever. , what it shows is the relative lack of empathy towards the partner, the impulsivity, any needs that have been satisfied and there is no punishment, so if there are no consequences and the behavior is rewarding, the person will do it right again and do it . again and they will do it again and just like that speeding ticket, they will get caught because one day they will be more careless.

Women deceive better than men. Plus, women are less likely to get caught than me. Because I think? Women are probably less impulsive and probably a little more organized and deliberate in the way they do it, they cover their tracks better, they can get into more emotional types of relationships, but they are, they're less careless, but women aren't. they catch so much. Maybe men too, although in heterosexual relationships men don't suspect it as much in a female partner as the other way around and I don't actually know why these two got together, but thinking about meeting a guy is the kind of joke that questions. a guy looks for something and he can't find it and yet it's right in front of him, you know, like going through a closet or something, they say I can't find it, it's just part of it too, like part of his mental map They don't identify themselves or even see the signs even if they were signs well, I think it's wedding.

I think there is a group of men out there who are paranoid, jealous, narcissistic in some cases where they suspect cheating where there is none. So there's a group of men who just trust their partners, they may be nice men who just don't trust their partners and I think there's a third group of men who just aren't paying attention. those men may actually be very inattentive Partners, they may be gone frequently, they may not be connected to the world of their partner's needs and therefore we must remember that in the world of cheating there is peace here, while in some cases a person might again be in a sort of anemic relationship and someone has an interest and I've worked with more than a few people who have been in narcissistic relationships and couldn't see a way out again.

Financial practice, mainly for financial and practical reasons. It was religious and cultural reasons but they didn't see a way out and someone came up and just started paying attention to them and being nice to them and they and they said yes. I mean, they said that for the first time I felt seen and they I started spending more and more time with the person and one thing led to another and they said that the contrast between being seen by this person that I was having this affair with and cold that my narcissistic relationship was, they said I felt tremendous shame for doing this. but it was the only place I felt alive and another thing that Stere Perell writes about is people who have these extramarital, extra-relational or infidelity relationships and they feel more alive in those relationships, but I will always come back.

For the core tenant, there is still a communication problem, but I understand that the people who are in the narcissistic relationship said that if I said, I don't feel seen and I don't feel heard, nothing is going to change in this relationship, nothing, so Now, for the first time in my life or the first time in my adult life, I'm getting this loving attention from someone else and it could be quite destabilizing for people because they're actually violating trust and let me tell you, it gets really complicated. very quickly because especially a narcissistic person who is really negligent some narcissistic people are super negligent in relationships they don't even notice their partner unless they need them they are just married on paper they are married for social reasons they just don't I don't matter and literally your partner could walk into the living room naked wrapped in Saran Wrap and they won't notice this person so people in those relationships will say there is absolutely there, they will even say this person wasn't even necessarily yelling or screaming.

For me, sometimes they overruled me, sometimes they left me feeling stupid, but they just don't notice me, so when someone did it, I tried it, but then there will be a lot of regret because I broke the code here and then they did. having endured that narcissistic relationship is still the bad guy for cheating so you can see this is getting very very complicated but in the end you know they will say I didn't leave because I didn't want to blow up a family. I don't want to know, I didn't want to lose my family of origin.

I didn't want to experience the loss of social status that I would have experienced if I had found out. God, it's so complicated, it's so complicated, especially when I get to like the different type of person, the dynamic that each of you have and I actually have a lot of statistics here, um and in La Weekly it says that women between 20 and 29 year olds are most likely to cheat and 30+ men are most likely. cheating, so there probably could be a difference and I would be curious to know if that weekly survey if it was about married people, if they had children, um and how long the relationships had lasted, right, yeah, what would those be? because to me women under 29 might be less likely to have children or, if they did, the children might be with a partner that they met very, very young, so there's almost this kind of exploratory curiosity that they had about the relationships, like I said. it could be in the short term where it feels like the stakes are lower and that after 30 there may be more of those men who can't be adults yet and have kids and have other responsibilities and there may be less sex in the relationship and everything. that's like this comes down to communication, which you can't do with a narcissist, so that group is out, but with everyone else, you really feel like you can if one person says listen, I've been with my partner several times and I've told her I want, I'd like this more, can we do this more, can we spend more time together, can we talk to each other more, can we have more sex, whatever it is, and I still felt that over and over again the partner was not willing to talk about it or meet with them or come to an agreement with them about it and then they would cheat on me.

I would still have the question: have you ever thought about asking your partner if he would be interested? in an open marriage and you would say I'm not meeting these needs here so I need these things to happen in my life. Yes, they are important to me. I love you and I love this relationship. and I don't want to betray you but something has an IG a lot of people would never have that conversation it seems like now there are a lot more open marriages there are more open relationships and I'm not mad at them, I really am I'm not mad at them.

I will say that if you communicate in some way and you are very good, you have a clear set of expectations and rules. In fact, there was a really interesting article about this. I think it was in the LA Times a woman was talking about her. open relationship and she had a very ordinary job as a teacher or something, it wasn't like she worked in something where she thinks, oh, everything is very, you know, fabulous and glamorous or it's not the norm, it's just very ordinary. At my job, they didn't have children and when I read that article it was very interesting to me, okay, I'm someone who's been cheated on, so for me being cheated on is like a mortal wound and when I and when I've done my own work in therapy and I dug deep and Narcissists and non-narcissists cheated on me, so I had both types of cheating.

I'm a living lab here, honey, so I can tell you what. They both seem right to me and I don't think I was ever going to be able to change these men and I have no interest in doing so, but I really had to sit down and say why this bothered me so much. I was angry because this person betrayed my trust. Would I be equally angry if they shared a secret about me? Would I be equally angry if they took some money from me and I had to sit with it and say no? this cheating this betrayal romantic betrayal bothered me more than Those two things I mean, imagine how much money if they sold me $500.

I wouldn't be happy with that, but it would be different than this, so we also have to dig deeper into what the meaning is from this. it's abandonment it's replacement it's betrayal of trust it's because we saw it happen with the parents um it's because we felt replaced by a sibling in another part of our life there's a whole litany of things that could have been happening well so it led me to that broader thought of whether you would ever want an open relationship, right? I did this. I'm using myself as an example and I thought no, I thought, but you know.

I could do it too. Not that I have the effort or energy, but I could do it too. They have to be open and honest. That's what I loved about this woman sharing her story because she said we had the fact that we would go home and tell our partner if we had been with someone. the more I met someone else that kind of thing there was no way to stop me so I could do it they would have to say it and I literally felt physically sick so I feel like something sematic is happening to me here what is it about and that's why I'm the Best What I was able to get to in my particular case is that feeling that I wasn't good enough and therefore you had to go to someone else, which is a core wound for me from a lifetime of CI narcissistic abuse. could replace me then I wasn't good enough now I know that's not true if my client told me no that's not about you they're cheating it's about them but it's how we internalize these experiences B it's not you , TRUE? it wasn't me when these when these men walked away it had nothing to do with me even though they tried to make it seem like it was it's a l it's a lot of work to say that they didn't make a decision they made a decision, the other place where people What is lost is that people will do what they will wonder and say why it was not worth not doing that if I were everything if I was so special to this person no, you are special, they did not have the ability to integrate your specialty and make decisions in the best way, so it's very, very difficult for people who have any kind of narrativeinternal around I'm not good enough, I don't deserve, they're going to leave me, I am. replaceable, it hits those wounds like, I mean, like I can't describe anything, and that's why I think I am, not just because it's happened to me, but because I've seen it happen to so many clients. and I will tell you that the wound of infidelity and betrayal is one that takes a lifetime to heal and always lives on and leaves a pretty big scar.

I don't see people coming back from this. I don't and I don't care if it's a marriage, not a marriage, a short term relationship, a longer term relationship. I've worked with clients in their 70s who still remember being cheated on when they were 19, so you better believe it sticks with them and that's why when I hear people downplay it and make light of it, I don't know. betrayal hurts, relational betrayal hurts the most and I could sit here and tell you all day that there are complicated reasons why people cheat there are a lot of reasons why people cheat I can even understand some of the reasons why people can really cheat, but it does something to the other person that changes them, changes their relationship of trust, changes their relationship with themselves, changes the way they affect themselves and , like I said, I will never ever believe that someone cheated because of someone else.

Even if you don't like someone, you can still say, "I can't, I can't, I just can't, but listen, I get it, it's complicated. I just really feel offended, especially when it's in a heterosexual relationship and there are people around you." there saying, well, the reason your guy might have cheated on you is because you didn't do this, this and that. I'd say oh no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not buying that. Because, in general, most people will describe the experience of being cheated on as an asteroid crashing into their lives, so if you don't ask me how you started healing from that, then I mean, it's obvious, I have to say it. .you in myself, is what I tell everyone who is trying to heal from narcissistic abuse It's about slowly but surely allowing yourself to be your true self and stop living a life you try to be for. other people, especially for a partner person, how can I please this person? how can I stand for what I need to be to win O over other people versus who I am what I am about what is important to me what I represent what my values ​​are what Who am I?

Because once you start getting there you no longer define yourself in this deficit model of good, I wasn't even good enough to not fool you and I wasn't even good enough. No, no, no, really. to go back and say what the hell was happening to me, that I even made those kinds of decisions. I don't blame myself, I really don't, but why was this good enough? And I see it now, I really see it, but I'm definitely going to tell you that I've healed a little bit, but not completely. I don't trust in the same way.

Really, really and I don't think I'll do it again. I don't see the potential for betrayal in every human being I ever made and when people don't betray me it's like it's actually a nice thing, it's like a little gift. I look at that person who doesn't betray me. It's a nice thing versus what do you mean you are? betray when people betray me, I say, here we go, that's good, I did it right in time, but when people don't do it, it's like I discover that I don't know, it's like someone was left present on the step of your front door, how are you? so you can not let that CU be a little bit of a negative thought, that's how you make sure that that doesn't turn into something toxic that you said before, right where you hold it in your body, you know what it was It's the hippocampus in the that you know, it's hiding that it's still there, so how do you make sure that it's not harmful or you've just accepted it, it's accepting it, it's actually understanding that this is all what I'm a part of.

There is a certain distrust of that and instead of treating it as a damaged part of me, I can turn inward and say thank you, thank you nervous system. I understand what you are trying to do. I am not a suspicious woman than I am. I recognize it as a bit of trying to stay safe and there are people that I trust certainly there are certainly there I think it takes me a long time it takes me a long time I take a long time to warm up and but I have to say it's the gentle acceptance that I've had many experiences that led me to a place of caution and that caution is my attempt to take care of myself, if it had really gotten dark at least I would have.

Never let anyone in again and that's not what happened, but I let people in very, very, very slowly and some people say this is ridiculous, like you don't trust me. I'm fine, if this seems ridiculous to you, it may not work. but you know, however, you see that in any given relationship, but I sure have something on my guard and that is that we all go on our own journey where we look in different ways throughout life for me. As we know from Kristen Nef's work on self-compassion, not judging ourselves is a big part of self-compassion.

I no longer judge myself like that instead of treating myself like I'm some kind of paranoid nutcase. In a way I'm saying some things happened. for me and it changed me and okay that's what I was going to say because how many people think that's like Oh my gosh I'm always paranoid I'm always crazy and they use it as a negative thing but it sounds like you used that because this It's what makes me beautiful and it does and it makes me feed my empathy and compassion, but I also think where it becomes a problem is if it fully embraces a person.

Now that you've exposed yourself, there's a decent chance you'll get hurt, but I also know I came in the other way, so I know there's another side, it's not like anyone else's. sign up to get hurt, but you know it's that or just being locked inside a box which doesn't seem that interesting to me, but there's definitely a care. I'll be honest with you Leisa, it has held me back. I have seen that it stops me. I've seen it stop people I know. I've seen similar things happen like you don't trust when you don't trust it's harder to collaborate it's harder to take new risks maybe at work it can be harder to meet new people, I mean it does, it certainly does, it holds me back.

I know two ways to do it. To me, it's worth it and that part of your acceptance has been part of your healing process. Acceptance is a lot of acceptance and self-compassion, understanding where it comes from, um, it's being kind to that part of yourself and I think when you do that, you might be able to improve your confidence more because you're like, okay, I can. able to handle this if this happens I'll be I'll be fine instead of being such a fool for being scammed you know you can you can find that you can find that compassion in yourself but it's that, I think relational betrayals in On this level, romantic relational betrayals of trust are some of the hardest things to overcome.

Dr. Fried calls it betrayal trauma. What happens to us when our trust in someone we believe in and feel safe with is betrayed is different. In other ways, it's very different than if a stranger jumped out of a corner and stole your wallet. That's a trauma. Don't get me wrong, but it's very different because that trauma is more that maybe you don't feel safe in the world in the same way. You may not walk down that street, you may not go out at night, you may trust people less in general, but the trauma that comes when someone you truly trusted with your heart and life is capable of lying to you.

Lie to your face and not really care how it would affect you. That really changes a person's relationship with trust not only in others but in themselves and a lot of people will wonder. I'm so dumb, how did I miss this? And that's where. the work is you're not stupid, you know you might have missed it, in fact there's some really interesting work out there and this relates to the work of Dr. Fried, a woman named Dr. Leah Cosmos, a professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he has worked. of us, she said that we as human beings are naturally programmed to be able to detect cheating, we know when we are being cheated on, people or women, specifically everyone, and she said it's because we are a tribal social species, so if someone was doing Cheating in that social group is a problem, so we have the ability to detect that type of social deception that we do.

The interesting thing about Dr. Fried's work is that although we inherently have that ability to know that someone is scamming us, so it's the blindness of betrayal if we detect it and it's going to change our lives, there is a protective factor and let's just cordon it off and it's That's why people often don't or can't see it when it's happening and it takes more than a few exposures to see it. and to her point about the person she said: not only are we grieving that this relationship is over, but we're also grieving for a future that we hoped was going to come, whether we grow old together or whatever.

It will be and we too, but I will tell you that we are grieving for something much bigger, we are grieving for a world where we believed in the innocence of a love story forever. It's a big Lo. That's why it may be easier for friends to detect when. someone's partner is 100% cheating themselves so friends can spot it because they don't exactly have betrayal blindness and that's why honestly friends you should probably listen to your friends if they say something isn't seems correct here. listen to them because they don't have the same kind of protective mechanisms that click in their brain if anything, they have your back, you know they're looking out for you, while you may honestly be picking up on it.

According to Cosmo's research, you found out that you were being betrayed, but that betrayal blindness will kick in so you can maintain that status quo and stay attached to that other person, so if your friend says you'd like it, what would you like? ask why. that you can really hear it, how do you start to open your eyes and think? I think the challenges, let's say we're talking to friends right now, what's going to be difficult is if you're a friend and you go up to your friend and say, hey, guess what I think your husband is cheating on you, probably not. is going to work well if for some reason you have obtained some information or have observed something that worries you, you may want to start. small and say how everything is going between the two of you, how it's been and then say, listen, I want to share something with you that's awkward and I don't, but I don't even know where to start and it's going to be a lot to hear.

I'm going to be honest with you. I had this experience okay and a friend, a friend, did it for me, yeah, and the friend handled it very, very well and I believed her because she was one of those people that she trusted. constantly like she would never have, I knew she would never have, there was no reason for me not to believe her and because she told me and I trusted her, I did believe her and it was a whole cascade of events that happened after about that, um, but she did it very gently, right, it was, you know, she found time in space, she took me aside, she sat me down, you know, um, she explained her concerns, she said this is the only reason why I tell you like this, she handled it, it was absolutely perfect way she handled it and I mean, and she was right and she was right, so um, I think it's really about how the friend handles it and I have to tell him that. to many of the friends out there, so to speak, um, no.

Don't be surprised if you tell your friend about your concern about a betrayal you're witnessing, that the blindness of your friend's betrayal extends to you too and You tell him not to be ridiculous or that you're jealous of me or whatever. Maybe it occurs to them because that blindness due to betrayal casts a pretty wide net in a way that the person doesn't want to see it, they don't want to see it, you being the um, you being the source of information is not going to change that, but I think sometimes Because of that, people can push back and say, well, you're just jealous or you know maybe they're triggered and that's why they're being aggressive, but I think that ends up being one of the reasons why some people don't like it.

They tell their friends that's exactly true, some people will say, I don't want to lose this friend, they might say, let's wait and see this, let me see if my friend raises suspicions. some people may wait for the friend to say I'm a little worried. I saw something weird in a DM and saying, “Okay, we need to talk.” Then your friend might get angry and say: Why didn't you tell me earlier? That will surely be my case. The next thing is, like you have HTE, this from me comes, you know, really gets to this place where friendships are interesting, they're much longer lasting than intimate relationships, right, my closest friend named Jill, she He says, he says, yes, friends are.

I eat cactus right and she says you're my friend Cactus so I don't need to water you, you're still there, it's okay, I don't have to water you for eight months, you're still alive, that's great, I answer the phone eight months later. She answers and it's great, then, suddenly, a flower comes out of the cactus, she is absolutely right, there is a greed in friendship that no other form ofThere is nothing familiar about the relationship and it is certainly not intimate, so friendship for me is a shame that we don't have it. We don't invest more in our friendships because they are so stable, so to speak, they can just go on and on and stay in place.

I think any friend has to sit down and have that conversation with themselves: "I'm taking a risk." everything in this friendship if I say something and if I don't say something something and then if they find out and they find out that I didn't say something I think that for many if the Friendship is healthy you will find the way out of this swamp, but if you can lose that person for wait a minute, I think so, there is some acceptance around that because they are Primordial things, you know this feeling of unpacking the betrayal, so we often kill the Messenger is my point and then, you know the friend who draws this attention, You could be killing that messenger, um, or you could just say listen, I'm a little worried about how this person in your life is acting, you know, I've heard things that bother me. me and then test the waters and if your friends like you they don't know what the hell you're talking about, you're so jealous, you're so weird then say, okay, I mean, I'm happy to talk about this and if they excluded you and then they talked , you know, you have tried to do what seemed right to you.

I don't think you can be strategic about it. You have to do what feels right to you in terms of those. kind of revelations and let's face it, Lisa has been on the Internet for the last 20 or 25 years because when I went to grad school it was before the Internet, so even how they talked about infidelity and all that, how we would see it in a The patient was completely different. I mean, I almost defy everyone. How would you fool someone if you couldn't if you didn't have a cell phone or the Internet? People did cheat back then, but how did you do it?

It is always so. easier because then you wouldn't be able to track someone because you're like I'm actually gone for a couple of hours for 3 hours, you can't just call them and say hello where are you, they can come back and say oh. Oh my gosh, my car broke down on the highway, yeah, so I think once they found the new person, I think you're absolutely right, the ability to do that, but the finding would have been more problematic, so the person was looking for that type. of validation in an extramarital person or in an extra relational person, that would have been much more difficult, but also the way that people properly conduct their inappropriate relationships and this is what leads us to a different conversation and I imagine.

For the people who see this, it is an interesting survey or question to ask them: what do you consider cheating? what is cheating is texting someone and sending inappropriate photos and saying sexy is that cheating or doing that in your DMS is that cheating is sending someone a jerk photo cheating is sharing emotional things with a person person Which says: I've never met anyone like you before Cheating I saw your face change on that girl That one really made me pick one It didn't even bother me as much as that one, you know? is cheating cheating is a blowjob cheating is oral sex cheating is having sex what is cheating that's half the battle and this is especially narcissistic people say oh my god I sent well I sent someone a message dirty text i was drunk that's not cheating on you You better be very clear about what you consider cheating to be and I don't think we've agreed on a definition.

I think that's what anyone considers a betrayal of trust in a relationship, but now we get back to I love you. I love you means something different to you and to them and what qualifies as cheating means something different means something very different I think all those things I just said are cheating. I do it because I think they are all a betrayal of trust. I have always used it with my clients, who are cheaters. I would say: look what you did, how would you feel if your partner did it? That's the question and if you could say if someone was watching this they could say: I wouldn't have minded.

It wouldn't have bothered me, I would like it, that's fine, but in general, when I say, tell me, this is exactly what you did, your partner did this with a guy, how would you feel? What's up dude? I have something new and free to Share with you right now how often you get visited by that negative voice in your head that tells you that you are not smart enough, that you are not experienced enough, that you don't fill in the blank, one of the things most powerful things you can learn. What you need to do in life is turn that negative voice into your best friend and I want to teach you how to do that and much more in my four step workshop to become confident and guys the most amazing thing is that you can register completely free for this workshop, so click the link on your screen and I'll see you inside, yeah, that's a very strong question, but I think it's also about you still need to have that communication right because if you agree, it's Like, oh.

I don't care if you know my husband texts his ex, as long as it's not a sexy text, but he might care now that you're not aligned with that same boundary. I love that you mentioned that message correctly, it's a great example. Lisa texting an ex is cheating or not, that's where we start to get to the gray, so even with dirty texting, like you know, like me, I can't stop thinking about your sexual appendage Whatever it is, it's true, I can't stop. which you know, that's an understatement, it's kind of like a dirty, sizzling little thing, but texting an ex that you don't think about anymore, you broke up, it's been 10 years, but they just text him like, hey , how's it going?

I heard about the Storm where you live, you're doing well, some people Lisa would consider it cheating, that's why I say it, everyone has to be on the same page and then if one person says, I mean, that's why, honestly, If we lived in a Romani relationship, Fantasy Land. just like when I'm a therapist, I have to give everyone an informed consent form that's like five pages, it's all the conditions, there's this and this is how you cancel and these are the boundaries and this is confidentiality if you're suicidal this and this is how blah blah blah blah blah, five pages of that, then they sign it at the end and they're supposed to agree to this, these conditions imagine if we did that in a relationship, this is what qualifies as trap, this is what I mean, when I say I, this is this, imagine if you had all that written down, I love it, it should be a book, uhhuh, yeah, I call it like a consent form for a relationship like this, this It's what I am, so what if? one person said hey i consider you texting your ex cheating on a person.

GNA says: okay, outside of this, this negotiation is off the table because that's what we do, we like contracts across the board. You might say, yeah, no, I'm not going to give you that percentage of my backside, yeah, no, we're not doing that many photo shoots a week and you're crossing them off. The other person says no, I'll see you in the back, but not in this, so imagine we did that kind of negotiation and one person could say off the table that my ex is one of my closest friends. I no longer think about this person sexually, but if I can't communicate with them, imagine you eliminated them within the first month.

It's great, I love it and it's interesting. how we would put that time and effort into a business or finances, but we never put it into our relationships like I remember when I started, when Tom and I first got married, people would say, oh you, because I say, oh yeah, always work. in our relationship. I remember people's response would be like if their relationship was a work one, so it's not like it's not a good match and I thought what I don't understand, you would expect me to work on my business in my career, but it's not like that, with my relationship like that it always felt like a big disconnect so maybe it's like the social norm that we need to start and if you wrote a book about Dr. rmany about social contracts and maybe it's just in the book. the contract and now it becomes more socially normal for people to do it well.

I think it's a couple of things, though Lisa, I think one of the big mistakes that a lot of us make in relationships and this is not necessarily related to cheating and infidelity. and betrayal and all that, but it is related to the primary impulse that we have in an intimate relationship, the same primary impulse that we had when we were babies is that the other person will always anticipate our needs as a baby, the fantasy for the baby was that he would be the mother or the caregiver, I should say, would respond so perfectly that every need that there was no difference between them and the caregiver, that every hunger, discomfort, closeness would always be met immediately, so what does a child learn to do to cry to get those needs met as the child grows, they learn to regulate themselves they say, oh, this lunch is coming, you know, or someone else is potty trained or I can use my language to get my caregiver closer, whatever As it may seem, this is how we evolve when we are babies. but when we get into an intimate relationship we go back to the baby and one fantasy is that this couple will know that texting her ex is cheating on her.

This couple will know all these things I need them to know about me and they will know what I love. you want to say why they would do it, why they would do it and that kind of transparency in a relationship is very important, but I have to say that I never want to sign a contract with a narcissistic person, they are going to lie, so that's it. It's not worth a piece of paper, so you have the same problem if you're dealing with someone who is Shady, untrustworthy, toxic, narcissistic, that process still won't work, but maybe you'll learn a little so they can agree with everything. . you just want power, it's like a love bombing just to get you trapped under glass, but it's like a business, it's like a business contract, though Lisa, because we could write a 20 page business contract to avoid every little thing that could come out evil. and yet, that thing that you never thought appears, it is not written in the contract and then it is litigation and all that.

I think when betrayal comes into a relationship it's like that, it's something we don't think about and that's why some people. You know, I'll look back and say I should have known this was going to happen. They cheated on me three times before we got engaged but then I was convinced once I had a ring on my hand and then they would never cheat on us and once we got married. so it was legal and they would never cheat but I would say that's a naive statement because cheating is a behavior and no legal contract would necessarily change that and other people will say I'm in a relationship with the sweetest person you can.

I never imagined and then that sweetest person was just being sweet to someone else and that other person misinterpreted it or maybe didn't even interpret it, they were too sweet, their boundaries were poor and before I knew it, my partner was in a inappropriate relationship with Someone else is still very sweet, kind, respectful and good to me, but he made this mistake that is not respectful. You see what I'm saying, it changes the entire narrative of the relationship and it's very difficult for Lisa to change our schemas of a person. You are Lisa to me, let's say you betrayed me, okay, either way, now I have to change my Lisa scheme and that is a very difficult thing for us when we care about people.

I have heard of people who in adulthood will say. a father betrayed them, betrayed them financially or in some other way and they were like, "Oh my God," this is my father, who I thought I could trust, who fed me, who changed my diapers and now I'm 40 years old and this person is my My parents betrayed me financially and they will tell me that I have to write that I have to write a whole new narrative about this person or what I always knew was true about this person, but I didn't want to admit that it's me now.

I really have to, I have to admit it, so like I said, betrayal, cheating, infidelity is a very complex topic that I think a lot of people try to oversimplify, like keeping it sexy on your man, you will never cheat. I'm like, damn, they won. I mean, I think of all the people who have taken their triaa game into a relationship and their partner still cheated on them, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not that it would be an exhausting way to live and always feel like you. You have to present yourself as your best self in that relationship, otherwise they will leave or leave.

Yes, they are fine with me. Cheating is leaving. I think cheating is a form of abandonment. It is a form of emotional abandonment. It really is. so I think cheating is leaving, but I think at least for me I'd rather Tom leave than cheat on me. That's interesting, not everyone would agree with that. I really think a lot would. I agree with you because if Tom is a spouse. I don't want to be called "I love Tom" to be considered that way, but if a spouse were to leave, as some people would say, if they were to leave, that's more honest, exactly, that's exactly it and I could go on, I they approached. and I said this relationship doesn't work for me anymore, not to say you're not going to get your heart broken, but it's very different heartbreak.to someone cheating on you, it's very, very different because if that happens, yes, sure there can still be some element of self-complaint, but if a person says listen, we've gone in totally different directions, we're wanting different things. .

In fact, I really adore you, but I want to get out of this while we still like each other and it will still be heartbreaking, but that's very different than a person who cheats on you and a person who wonders what I did wrong, what I missed. Dumb, I'm so embarrassed, um, over and over again, that list would go on, why did they choose someone else and that's the other thing that happens when a person gets cheated on is why didn't they choose me, that's very primitive. . Dynamic, the child wants to be chosen, to be loved, to be seen and people who are deceived often say why wasn't I the one chosen.

It is very difficult to fully internalize the feeling that it is not you. Not this, it was never about you, it was about them and their needs and desires, why is this like this? I'm just going to use women as an example because they like my friends and the people around me who I've seen and heard blame them. I heard that the woman their partner cheated on them with a lot more than they blame their partner, so I don't know if you remember back in the day the rumor was that Brad Pit cheated on Jennifer Aniston with Angelina Jolie. my mom hated Angelina Jolie and I was like, but mom, it was Brad Pit who cheated, that again I think still speaks to an internalized oppressive myth, but this idea of ​​the myth is that the relationship would have been fine if this other person didn't I would have done that.

It doesn't show up, I'm like no, guys, something was wrong and it may not even be that the relationship was wrong, but someone in that relationship had something that wasn't right with them, does that make sense? So it wasn't just that you can't. and the desire to blame that other person you had the affair with, right? I understand I heard that but at the end of the day it all comes down to anyone could have come and this person was ready because they needed validation they needed emotion they needed whatever this betrayal would make them right that the person they cheated with is replaceable but that happens all the time and I'll tell you why I think that's the case Lisa, if we blame that third party, the person who in this case the man cheated on, it helps everyone else feel secure in their relationships.

Well, our relationship is mental because this kind of horrible person didn't show up, he allows people to be safe, that's very good, I've never understood why I think that's part of it, because I've always thought that someone else is in it. Maybe in this situation, it's the guy who betrayed his spouse and obviously if you know someone is married, I mean. Not to judge, I still think it's absolutely horrendous, although if you know someone is married and you're still going with them but they don't have the trust that's been built, it's the partner that has the trust and they.

I have broken it, not the third but the third, it has nothing to do with the person feeling betrayed in the relationship, right? Makes sense? So it's a but I think that's what it is and we do it much more often when the man cheats. with a woman when a woman cheats with a man and she cheats on her husband we are less likely to blame that man on the outside we really are yeah you're right mhm so that's just the double standard I think it is I think it's a gender depressing thing that I really do and I think it's so embedded in the culture that we have to hold back and say because we have to remember that overly narcissistic cheaters love to bombard the person they love.

They are cheating and often lied to, so just like they love bombarding their original partner, the narcissistic cheater will love bombarding their new lover, all the things, the gifts, this and they will also sometimes sell them what it is. a false narrative my marriage is falling apart we haven't had sex in so long this person is mean to me and abusive to me and hates me and this and that so they really sell a victimized narrative and that's part of the love bombing scenario of putting this person in an affair with them so that that person that third person would be subjected to the same thing and maybe a lot of deception, so people said they should have known what they should have known from everything that you know this person is saying. that they're halfway through a divorce and they've done this and that, oh, the only reason we live in the same house is because real estate is so expensive that it's plausible, it's plausible, especially if someone is really charmed with someone, which they would do. being with a narcissistic cheater and then adding whatever dynamic that person is going through, who is who is being loving, bombarding the new person about what it means to be chosen and all that other stuff, it starts to get very complicated and because the Narcissistic people tend to love mom, the new one, the new person, who is a new source of validation.

Narcissistic people are very novelty-seeking, which is another reason why they are more likely to cheat. They like new things and how at that point do you make sure you don't do that? Don't compare yourself to the person you've been cheated on. I don't think you can. I don't think it's a realistic question, so when people say just don't do it, it's an unfair comparison. I would tell the client that it's okay. just explore it, let's compare yourself with them, so let's do it no matter how much I say, it's them and it's not you, and let's just play and it's a natural process because always do the math that that person was chosen instead of me.

My answer is that that person was chosen because he fulfills a different function than you. He is a screwdriver and you are a hammer. You're only serving because this person is cheating. It is very possible that they see you as functional creatures in their life. The spouse is the forward-looking audience. Look at me. I am the family person. We have the children. We have the house. We have the this. I have that and the person they're cheating on is the emotion they hide to get their way and it's funny because I've worked with enough people who have been in relationships with narcissistic cheaters that they've told me that and I was thinking about one person. in particular.

He was very aware that her husband was cheating on her. She was extremely malignantly narcissistic. She was very aware that her husband was cheating on her. She told him and no matter how many times she told him, she won't do it. leave it by the way she won't do it because the divorce was going to be problematic for a number of reasons right then she wasn't she wouldn't get divorced been married for a long time and it became very clear over time I said well since you know he will continue seeing her, you are very aware of this, okay, so if you know that you know that he will continue to see her, why don't you let him know?

So she did it and said, "I would feel it." Much better if you are honest with me when you are going to see it because I know that you are seeing it, it is very clear to me, okay, so why don't you tell me when you are going to see it so that I don't feel crazy, right, and he and he say: don't be ridiculous, okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I told you, I'm not going to see her anymore, don't be ridiculous, okay, you win, blah, blah, blah, like this that there was a moment for some reason the time of day this guy was going to leave the house or something like that she said you are going to see this or that absolutely not, I'm not going to see her, I'm not going to see her, she didn't I didn't believe her , so he drove to where the lady lived and there was her car in the driveway, so he really went out of his way to lie about it, even when she asked him point blank, knowing he was watching her, so it makes you wonder . how much it's about getting your way and in your particular case, I think a lot of it was getting your way, it was what's the word, I'm like the robbery of everything, it was the scam the only thing I wanted was that it only worked if it was in low voice, telling her that it wasn't working and for her the important thing was honesty, not infidelity, right, right, like just being honest with me so I wouldn't do it.

I feel crazy and he wouldn't do it, he and he kept it up constantly, every time it didn't work, it was me. I'm imagining this guy wouldn't be able to get up if he knew that she knew that's how she felt. that's what he got that's how he got I think he was having fun overall I'm getting away with something oh that's heartbreaking it's heartbreaking and yet it's also complicated because, like I said, some people will say I never saw myself I like a betraying person, but I also know that I can't leave my narcissistic relationship.

I don't know what to do and someone started paying attention to me and then went one step too far, it would be a person who is a cheater. I mean, but I never really thought of myself that way and I can't get out of my relationship. There are people out there who were seduced by the narcissistic person into an affair under false pretenses that, who you know, people say well, you could have done it. your research, can you? I mean, someone is telling you that this and this are true, and they believe it and they are being completely love bombed and now they may be trauma bonded to this narcissistic lover of theirs, they are in a position too. where they are being harmed by this narcissistic person but they are the person they are being cheated on however and this is where it takes you to another Twist on this is where a person so let's say you have a narcissist will call him a narcissist John is married to Mary and have been married for a while Narcissistic John meets Debbie starts having an affair with her Narcissistic John has told Debbie I'm we're in the we're actually we're about to file for divorce and you know we're, we're, we broke up I'm in the process of moving, you know, our relationship ended, um, you know, I feel bad at the moment, now I'm going to move things faster because you've never met someone like you love mom love mom love mom is well so Debbie is being loved but John is lying to Debbie John has no intention of leaving Mary and so Debbie is waiting thinking it's okay John and Mary are working it all out John is going to leave Mary Debbie is planning her Life about making a life with John John doesn't leave Mary, how do we conceive of a Debbie in this?

Because a lot of people would think Debbie is bad, but Debbie was sold the story and she believed it and she's waiting and waiting and waiting and John is staying with Mary. Mary might be aware that maybe there's something fishy going on with Debbie, but in the meantime, Mary goes on vacation. Mary is going on a family vacation and Debbie is sitting alone on New Year's Eve. See what I'm saying about this? complicated, it's complicated, actually the same thing you say happened to my cousin, so my second cousin was with a guy, we met him, we liked him a lot, he proposed which everyone was excited, it turned out he had a wife and whole kids in Wales . and he would always say, "Oh, I'm going on business to Wales," so he lived in London just for context, so we lived in London and he would just say that half of his work was in Wales and that's plausible and she, yes, she, then she.

She never knew and then she has this whole future planned in her head and then she finds out that he's married and has kids, but she probably held on for a long time, yeah, thinking that was believable, that's my point, but someone would have seen your cousin as the other woman is right and you know it again that's why I say it's not that simple because someone says well she was allowing all of this by cheating on him with him. They told him they didn't even tell him any of this. She thought she just met a guy who wasn't even in a relationship, so that's why I say it's never that simple, but what we do know is that when a person has gone through relational betrayal through infidelity, that way it changes it. it really really does and in some ways it doesn't matter which side of that equation you're on, whether you're Mary or Debbie.

Mary would go through one experience but Debbie would go through another too because Debbie was betrayed and your my cousin was also betrayed. Dr. Ramy. I think he just dropped so many truth bombs in this episode. Where can people find you and your book? It's not you, so pre-order my new book. It is all I can say. You know this. just as I, as an author, you know that pre-orders are important because they create, you know, for me to put this book out and make it successful it's not just that I would love to have a very successful book that would be wonderful, but it What is most important to me is that the more people who buy this book benefit from this book for healing narcissistic relationships, the more the focus on these types of relationships will become the focus of research therapists on all the things we need. so that people don't suffer in silence like they have since the time of IM Memorial and there are so many things there if you are going to stay in your relationship, if you are going to leave your relationship, if it is a family member.ya be a partner, a lot of things are the same, there are some things that are different, the book really breaks it down so please come check it out, we have all kinds of incentives to pre-order the book and wait. to that order number we have all kinds of amazing free events that we are going to have that you can check out, but then we have bonuses that if you havereserved the book, there might be some interesting things in there, so just put that in. available as a preview but we have all kinds of cool stuff coming out in the next few months if you're interested in this topic so please I'd love for people to check it out and pre-order it we still have our curation program for people You are recovering from narcissistic relationships.

We have our YouTube channel, where every day we have new videos about narcissism, so there is nothing but information on how to make sense of these relationships and, more importantly, how to heal from them, if you want to know why men still cheat in relationships and then keep looking. I would have felt so insecure and said, oh, where are you? who you're dating like you know, show me the messages or whatever. It would have been very insecure, very insecure and needing it to be that way. everything on me because I lacked the emotional tools and my back was missing.

I hadn't faced it yet. That's why it goes back to the beginning, like I finally started facing myself 10 years ago and it's been a journey of facing myself for many. different areas of life that have taken time, but I think it was the fear of being alone, the fear of not being enough, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being talented enough, smart enough and there will be someone else. That's going to make the girls I've been with, you know, happier or something, so it all comes down to I'm not enough and it all changed when I started saying I'm enough and I started recognizing how much I really am enough.

I am and what I am willing to accept and what I am willing not to accept and be okay alone. I really had to learn how to date myself and I did it for many years where I was like okay. I'm afraid of being alone so I need to be alone as often as possible so I would go to dinner alone and order one. I would go to the movies alone and sit alone. If you feel uncomfortable doing this first, yes. The first few months of this I was terrified. I was thinking: what do people think of me?

Do I even like my own company? And you know all these things. And then I said no. I would practice this over and over again. When I would go to New York City, I would go alone, I would go for a walk alone, I would just like to go on a date with myself and it was one of the best exercises that I learned and it took me a couple of years to do it until I felt like, oh, it's Well, jealousy had left my body and I think it was, I don't know, six, seven years ago, eight years ago, when I realized that I'm not jealous anymore because I liked one of the girls I was dating.

I can't remember what happened, she did something with a guy that was like huh, that might have bothered me in the past, they were dating and I just didn't feel anything and I was like, huh, maybe I'm just mature, maybe I . I'm growing, maybe I'm developing healing, it was like a journey from all of that and it has freed me. Letting go of jealousy has freed me because if Martha wants to be with someone else, then be with someone else. someone makes it a better fit for you, why would I want to rob you of a better aligned relationship and a better life for you if I don't give you that doesn't mean I'm very wrong and it's not enough, it just means that we are not aligned and we are not the right partner and that's okay, there are 8 billion people in the world.

I'm sure there could be someone else who would be a better match if she didn't think I was a good fit, so it would be her fault if she didn't think I would be a good fit, but I'm not going to change who I am and that's why I said when we started to get engaged I said I would accept you completely and I told him. she um, I'm not going to get mad at you, she may frustrate me, but I'm not going to get mad at you, I'm never going to raise my voice because there's nothing you can do that's going to upset me.

If I accept who you are at your core and we create agreements together, if you break the agreement I know you will take full ownership and responsibility, we have flexibility, it's not as strict if you break an agreement or I break an agreement. We are going to take responsibility, we are constantly growing together in emotional training together and I do it individually and you do it, as long as we agree on these terms, why would I be jealous? Why should I be upset? to you why should I tell you not to do this and then I said um I accept you completely and I won't be angry with you and you can ask him.

I have never been angry with her, that doesn't mean we don't have challenging conversations, it doesn't mean there haven't been sad moments, it doesn't mean there haven't been disappointments on both of our parts, but we both agree that we are in this together and we are aligned together in how communicate conscious communication, so we said boundaries on when we communicate about challenging things and again, it's a constant journey, but when I fully accept who she is and she fully accepts who I am, it's a GameChanger, so I had to ask myself: OK? here is a big celebrity here is a person who has made 40 movies who is a superstar in Mexico and getting bigger all over the world she will only become more famous the more men will desire her more and more she will only be a star especially because I'm going to continue lifting her and giving her more CU energy.

I want her to be successful, so when that happens and she and I have finished kissing scenes and sex scenes, they're not little sex scenes, but she's done movie scenes, it's not porn, but it is. Sex scenes like intimate scenes like bedroom scenes with other men in the past and I've seen a few of them and I remember like, uh, this bothered me, I really had to check in and there's a little bit of ego that's like, oh, that's the one. my wife. right, that's my girl and this person is doing this, but I had to do it, maybe it was literally for 10 seconds, but again, if I'm coming from my ego instead of my conscious self, I in my conscious self, I know that this It's art.

It is an artistic expression. I also know that there are 50 people in the room. I also know it's mechanical. I also know that it's about telling a story and she is a Storyteller. So why would she change who she is when it brings her more joy and love? life, so I had to tell myself, okay, I know this could be something you do in the future. Do I accept that when we have children and you do that? To be okay with me, I had to keep going back and forth and saying. Dad, why is mom kissing this boy?

Yeah, this is like a broken 25 year old whatever, so I have to do it. I had to ask myself all these future questions and say: Will I accept her and love her fully even when she does these things for the sake of her art? she did it in life differently, that's a different story that wouldn't work if it weren't for her artistic expression, her vision of her life and I was like, yeah, I completely accept that and I also completely accept that she's going to take care of the relationship. that she will put herself in the right situations, she will choose stories that align with her life and with her and our relationship, and if she makes out with a boy, then she makes out with a boy and I would never have been able to say that. years ago 15 years ago yes but otherwise I'm trying I'm saying I don't accept who you are and I'm trying to change who you are that means I don't love you completely if I'm trying to change you and I don't accept you so I need to get over whatever it is what's happening and say yes, I accept you or not, I don't want to be in this relationship, it's that simple if you don't accept someone you're with.

Don't be with them and if they don't accept you, then why are you together? Have you overcome that? Because I love everything you say, but we all know there's a big difference between being okay with knowing it and being okay with it. this is your art form, I respect it, I support it and there's another thing, Lou, with you standing behind the cameras when your wife is actually making out with this hot guy because I hear you talk a lot about triggers and how you've actually worked on your triggers and you've made sure to turn them off and as you were talking, I literally said oh, I can totally see that you've done all the prep work and you're like, I understand why, but then when you're on set, the trigger, by definition, it's a trigger right where it overrides the mental part and just gives you a visual reaction, you have to cure the triggers.

I mean, this has been a journey for the last two years. really healing the emotional triggers that used to hurt me and if something is triggering you where there is an external event and you feel a reaction quickly, I'm not saying that you can't be upset about something or frustrated or not like something, but when it makes you react from the point of view of a flight ORF fight, which means that your nervous system has not healed, a wound that was once open, so when we have a wound and it remains open for decades, sometimes it will always be affected when someone I poke her or when something happens and bothers me.

This happened to me for so long and it was a helpless mentality because I had wounds that I wasn't willing to face and heal, so I was still a loving, happy, fun guy, but when I felt the trigger of abuse, I quit. I would take advantage of being in this defense mode. I would put myself in this reaction mode. I would not be conscious in my communication. I would respond in a frustrated manner and that doesn't mean I have to like what is happening, but it is our response that is important. and being aware of our triggers, so I can't really think of anything Martha has done that has triggered me because we do emotional coaching individually and we also do it together, we work on these things together, we process them together, we heal together. we get by together and that allows for peace and harmony in the relationship and I probably wouldn't be on set if she was making out with a guy.

I wouldn't put myself in that situation, know yourself, yeah, I'd just say, okay, have a great day and I wouldn't want to be sitting there looking at it for eight hours, you know, because it's a long day to do that, but I just I would trust her, I would trust her and if she breaks the trust, that's her way out. of Integrity just like if I broke the trust that is in me I would have to live with what doesn't feel good I know what she feels I would have to live with what she is suffering internally to live alive to be outside of Integrity is to suffer and the more you build what you do, you lose confidence in yourself, you lose the ability to be authentic, that's why we had these conversations all the time, if she does something out of integrity, eventually I'll find out and then we'll address it.

We'll see if there's a way to process it together and make it happen. things work out or we'll move on and we're both clear that that's what's going to happen and so why am I trying to hold onto something? It's so obsessive. and jealous and possessive of a person because that will not help to bring peace, love and harmony in the relationship, so doing it damages the relationship, so why do it if you are doing it to think well? I don't want someone to do it. cheating on me or seeing another man or being out without me there then it's like you have confidence in yourself in the relationship so you have to take a look at that and that was me for many years in many relationships and so this is not a judgment or harm anyone, this is just You have to learn to face yourself and know where you are and I don't see a world where you can do everything on your own at a high level.

I just don't know any great athlete who got there without a coach. You know, when Jordan, LeBron and Kobe won their first championship, they didn't say thank you to the coaches for the last 25 or 30 years for bringing me here. I don't need a coach anymore because I figured it out now. I'm going to win the championship next year on my own without a coach. No athlete has ever said this and performed at a high level without a coach. Most people can't do anything great on their own. no support coaches mentors guides and especially when it comes to our emotions I think it is very valuable to have support whether it is a personal friend an accountability partner a coach a therapist a guide I think it is very important to have someone who can provide support and guide you through of your emotions that's why I have a coach and I see her almost every two weeks even when things are going well I keep going because I want to elevate myself to the next level.

I love that and lines with your number one U. The priority is to make sure you're very in tune, so you've actually mentioned a few times about identifying childhood traumas and not feeling enough if you don't mind sharing some of them because, again, you like what it is. One of many. What I love most about you is how open and vulnerable you are about your childhood and how important that is because there aren't enough men like me, sitting here and I have a whole program called Women of Impact, which I'm always talking about. all the things we've been taught that actually hurt us, but we don't often ask men, they don't often say like in today's interview because of the way it's been like that. deep for me because what I really wanted to do is show that even if there's someone in a relationship where a guy maybe doesn't show up the way they want, whether they've dated guys and been, you know, dismissive,they just use them for sex, whatever it is, that doesn't necessarily make them bad people, it may just make them hurt people and the way we can understand that and really communicate, I think we end up bridging the genders.

Instead of being okay, he cheated on me, well, she's good, you know, there are no more accusations. This is my this is something I love to talk about, not my wounds or anything, but I just think a lot of men are. suffering they are suffering silently internally and they are causing loud noises externally through their suffering through their anger reaction their hurt their um just what they are doing in the world you know most mass shootings are from men and these the men are suffering I'm not saying what they do is right I don't agree with any of their actions uh but I can see where it comes from I can see the anger and the suffering and where the anger comes from It comes from a wound that hasn't been healed yet healed and when you feel so much pain inside and you haven't figured out how to repair and create new meaning from past memories, that's when you start to react and free yourself. in different ways, whether it's intimacy, in relationships that you close, you can't look your partner in the eyes, you can't be vulnerable, you can't cry in front of your partner, you can't do certain things because you don't feel safe because you feel afraid. , then it all comes back to the triggers.

I think wounds cause more pain if we don't know how to heal them, so I'll briefly go over some of the things with me. I want to say that one of my earliest memories is of sexual abuse by a man I didn't know in the bathroom of a babysitter's house. His son was about 16 or 17 years old. He took me to the bathroom and sexually abused me. That's one of my first memories. fifth time, I mean, it's one of my first memories, if you don't have a way to heal it and you keep living life, that memory is going to keep repeating itself or you're going to somehow block out a part of yourself and for how long?

You don't tell anyone about 25 years, so 25 years of that, but it also accumulated in many things and this does not mean that I have known more trauma than other people. This is not a trauma competition game, but just for To give context, you know my brother went to prison when I was eight for four and a half years, so I would visit a prison cell, not a cell, but the visiting room, almost every weekend for four and a half years, and so on from 8 to 12 and a half. I really wasn't allowed to have friends. I didn't have any friends because I grew up in a small town in Ohio, this didn't really happen in my neighborhood and that's why other parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me and so I don't blame my brother for anything, this is just the scenario that happened well and what I experienced and they were all beautiful things for me for my future, but that was a little tormenting, you know, for most of my childhood until I was 13 I experienced a couple of these things and I also had a very unstable home life .

My parents did not show love to each other. I knew that they loved us children, but they were not able to show love to each other and, in fact, that was the case. There was a lot of passive aggressive energy, a lot of yelling, slamming doors, physical fighting, um, and then I felt like I was afraid, always a low level of fear about what was going to happen to me, um, and I was at the bottom of my class, like that. I didn't have any skills in school so I struggled academically and I was afraid to stand in front of a group of peers without them laughing at me because I couldn't really read or write until I became one.

As an adult I still have a hard time reading out loud today and this is like part of the childhood that pushed me to succeed to try to fill a hole in a wound inside of me that wasn't enough. There are three main fears that cause us. doubting ourselves in life in relationships in our career, whatever they are, three main fears and self-doubt, I think it is the killer of all dreams and these three fears make us doubt ourselves more, This is the fear of failure, the fear of success. and the fear of judgment and the root of each of these fears is I am not enough and when we can go back to the memories where the wounds are that we have not yet healed and begin to repair them and create new meaning then we can begin to change I am not enough to I am enough is a process that doesn't happen overnight it's a healing journey and that's why for 25 years I held on to really all that pain, all the shame, all the pain in those wounds drove me to succeed.

It led me to get angry and jealous when my friends did certain things, it led me to worry and stress, it led me to stay awake every night for hours, ruminating and I didn't know why I couldn't sleep and it was like that. But until a few days after I talk about sexual trauma for the first time again, the helpless mentality is that you hide past pains, you are not willing to reveal these things, that means you are ashamed, that doesn't mean you have to reveal them. the world, but you have to be okay with disclosing it to someone and when I finally opened up about a traumatic experience, sexual abuse, I was finally able to sleep at night without staying awake for hours every night, I was finally able to put my head down and I slept in question of minutes and it changed everything completely, so it's been a 10 year healing journey of going back and healing different memories.

That made me feel resentful, angry, jealous, you know, frustrated, embarrassed, all of these things and it will probably be an ongoing journey forever. as life happens and events happen and we create new meanings, but when I was able to go back and I really mean, I did a process two years ago where I had a photo of my 5 year old self on my screen saver for about Six months and I had a new relationship with my 5 year old self, which may sound a little strange, but I raised myself the way I needed to. I cared for the wounds and memories the way I needed then and now. and I did sessions with myself, strange as it may seem.

I would do sessions with my 5 year old self imagining that my 5 year old self is standing right in front of me. I talked to him about how you feel, little Lewis, what's going on? about what worries you, what scares you and he was able to express what he was afraid of for the first time instead of holding on to it and just trying to be tougher and just understand life and while I created a new relationship with my inner child I was able to hug myself and hug myself and say I got you I'm so proud of you for how you overcame these things I'm so inspired by what you went through and brought us here thank you for showing up thank you for doing what it took to get us here even though you were confused and scared and without being sure why you were alive and not being sure why these things were happening to you thank you, you brought us here.

I'm so proud of how strong you were and now you can let it go and I brought it into my heart spiritually and I reconnected from a place of healing and wholeness and I started doing that when I was 12 when I was stealing all the time and I started having a new relationship with my 12 year old self, so I had a picture of me when I was 12 years old. I did this with my 17 year old self. I have done this for the last 10 years. so far and it has given me a lot of peace to go back and heal those wounds by creating new meaning about why those events happened.

You know, Man's Search for Meaning is one of my favorite books with Victor Frankle and he lived one of the happiest, most joyful, most fulfilling lives. after going through one of the most horrible things in the concentration camp and all this again creates a new meaning from these memories, that doesn't mean that, however, how can you go back while you were talking? I was trying very hard. Not crying because it breaks my heart to think about that 5 year old right now and all the trauma he is having to maybe deal with the shame of not speaking.

It will be 25 years before I even recognize it. then he has all these other turbulent relationships and lies and cheating and blah, blah, blah, and we look at him and think he's a problem child, you know, or he's just a player and you write him off, you just write him off and I know the statistics that I'm going to do. they're kind of like one in Five Guys One in six sexually abused, yeah, and then how many people say it like you're almost the only guy I know who's been that open about it? Very few and then how the hell did you create?

What it means to that 5 year old, I say it again. I don't think he could have done it on his own, so I had emotional coaches, a therapist, I did meditation retreats, I did a lot of different healing modalities, I mean, I've tried. Lots of different things in the last 10 years, from breathing exercises to Whm Hof ​​and cold rivers in Poland, to going to India for weeks at a time to study meditation, neuroscience meditation with Joe Despenza, different therapists and emotional intelligence workshops . It has been a journey in which each modality has added something to me and has opened a new opportunity for growth.

There is no one thing that can cure everything. It is always a healing journey. It's never a one-time thing, but what has worked for me is consistent Emotional Training every two weeks and I see the power of preventative care, like going to the gym and making sure that the bigger my platform gifts, the more opportunities I have to that people criticize me. I want to prepare myself so that I don't feel emotionally triggered. I want to prepare myself for possible disappointments and not be exhausted for weeks because I don't know how to manage my emotions, so emotional coaching and therapy have supported me and I constantly show up and process it. aware of it and you face it, you have to practice it because the nervous system will bring you back to stress and that's why I practiced this in a previous relationship where I was in cold therapy trying to make the relationship work and at one point it was like the coach I told her I'm coming, I'm done, I have to get out of this relationship, I can't deal with this stress anymore, it's not working for me, I'm done, and she said, "I don't believe in you." I'm still ready to break up, yeah, and I'm going to make this person just want more money from me, you know, I was like, I was like I was, I was like angry, I was like, but I don't want to be in this anymore.

It's not like that anymore and she said, I hear you and we still have work to do and if you come out now, before you actually meet, fix certain things and you can create peace in the chaos instead of running away from the chaos, but create peace. in the chaos don't abandon yourself in the stress you will most likely repeat the interesting fuck for the next person you haven't fully faced it yet and it has to be in the relationship while you that was her that was her that was a fascinating strategy right and I was like I just want freedom I want peace I want to get out of this I can't deal with this anymore it's not working for me she says I understand but you're still abandoning yourself in the relationship so when You have to learn to not abandon yourself and just say I'm done without coping the problems head on.

She says you can't buy peace. You must become peaceful so you don't have to stay in this forever. You are not trapped. Not only will I be in this for the next year, but you have to learn certain things in the face of adversity other than running away from it and I'm like, oh, I'm done with this, even though I just want to be out of it and I think it was probably for the best me and not say this for everyone because I think that if you are really afraid of your life you should get out of a relationship, don't stay in anything if you are really afraid, but for me, I decided to give it a couple more months until I could stand up for my inner child in every moment in a conscious and calm way, so that when she yelled or reacted or didn't talk to me for three days or whatever or made me feel bad or judged me or put me down, just say that you know this is not aligned with What we agreed to in our therapy blows the vision I have for our loving communication relationship, so I'm going to back away from this. situation I'm going to go to the other room calmly and let me know when you're ready to talk but this no longer works for me because of the vision I have when you started to change then and talk to her in that how I hated it, I was literally about to say, He guaranteed that he tried to punish me more for not giving in, for not giving him what he wanted, for not doing, for not checking, oh okay, I'll give you whatever you want, I'm sorry.

Okay, here's this, here's the money, here's this or whatever you need, she didn't like that I was a passionate and loving wise man, so how, because you even said what your therapist, you know you need to learn to create peace within chaos, so we're trying to create peace, but it actually creates more chaos, of course, which makes you want to go back to your old way of being and I just thought because I got to a place where he was right. I am clear that this relationship will end. Either it works the way I needed it to with my vision of a conscious relationship or we're not going to be together and either way I'm okay with that so I have to be, but I thought, but I'm not going to let myself do that. never abandon myself again in this relationship or any relationship because that is not working for me, it is causing pain in my chest constantly and I don't want this pain anymore, so the more I did thisThere was a period of time in therapy where this ball of pain that I had for years disintegrated and you're touching your heart.

It was really like right in my chest there was a pain that came and went some weeks it was more intense other weeks it wasn't there it almost felt like a squeeze in my throat too CU I felt trapped I felt emotionally trapped This pain was intensifying and there was a day in therapy where, after months of facing myself again, going back and creating new meaning by reflecting on all of my parents' behaviors and their model of love and relationships, that's where it all comes from. I realized. that I was a free man but I never felt free and the first moment I met with my coach she asked me what is your intention for our time working together and I told her: I want peace, freedom and clarity because I feel like I have no that in this relationship and all I want is peace, freedom and clarity and I wasn't being those things because I felt like an emotionally trapped human being and it wasn't until I was able to repair and heal these past wounds where I became free and clear. at peace, I was becoming that and it disintegrated, that old memory, that old trauma disintegrated throughout my body and it felt like a lightness, I felt like I was free, so the next time these events happened in the relationship, I would simply say I wish, I wish I didn't have the trigger anymore, plus again the wound, when it happens, I will shoot myself and say how I can fix it, so now, when a scream, an attack, a mistake, a judgment, a blame, came towards me, I could see it from a different point of view and I could look at it and say okay, I don't like this, I don't like someone judging me or blaming me or yelling at me, but I'm not reactive like before I was reactive and now I'm calm because I am an emotionally free man, I am a clear man, I am a peaceful man, so I do not need to react and give in to a person who is blaming me for doing wrong, shouting at me, judging me, comparing me, whatever it is, all the things that give me, the coldness, the silent treatment, everything that used to cause me stress and a trigger, now I notice it and say, okay, that's who she's being, that's who she is and that's not aligned with what I want to create for a conscious relationship, she does it. knows. what is my vision for a relationship, she knows what a conscious relationship is like and she is not willing to live up to that standard that I want to live up to now and I was just defending my inner child and my vision, my vision of a conscious living and a conscious relationship and there are certain distinctions of a conscious relationship and if someone doesn't agree with that, that doesn't make them bad or wrong, they're just not what I want and that's okay, so it's learning to accept someone and tell them okay we're not the right person or accept it and say yes we are and uh the healing journey is funny.

I got a message from uh. I was telling you before. Offline, I've been to a few different ones. I've been to a lot of prisons, because I visited prisons a lot when I was a kid to visit my brother and I've been here in Los Angeles, there are some prisons nearby. I have been several times because my book The Male Masculinity has been shared in some prisons and I think that when Men Heal the World heals, there are many men who suffer and feel pain, which causes them to hurt others and leads them to do things out of place. alignment with the law and all kinds of things and the harmony of human beings and all of these things must be taken into account and responsible for um, but if we want the world to really evolve and change into a place of peace and love, then I have to get men to find peace and love within themselves and Harmony and I just received a message from I gave a speech in all the prisons during the pandemic about the mask and the masculine, they were broadcasting it live in all the prisons about these different masks that men wear that made them project an image in life relationships friends Sports every business fitting in belonging feeling accepted and feeling enough because most of the time we put ourselves out there en masse as men because we believe that if someone really knew everything about me, they I wouldn't love me if my wife really knew this about me, she wouldn't accept me, she wouldn't love me, so we're afraid we're not enough and I got a message from my friend Scott Budnick, who runs these prison programs for Men , texted me a six-page letter from an inmate who saw this and the text said, “I met this kid a couple years ago.” When he went to prison he was 21 years old, he was part of a white gang and he had a swastika tattooed on his chest and he has been in solitary confinement for two years, that means you have one hour a day outside and then you are alone for 30 23 hours and he said, he sent me this six-page letter that he just told me.

He texted me the letter that he sent me and in the letter he said I left the gang, I'm starting to heal my heart and he said when he asked him why he said Lewis how and the mask of masculinity. I've read this book four times and I'm finally realizing why I was so reactive in life, why the things that made me react and do the things I did wrong, for me the mentality of greatness really comes down to learning to navigate and heal your heart heal your emotions because these things work together our thoughts and our emotions affect our actions and if we live with so much pain we are going to hurt our partners our friends our family we are going to do bad things to humanity if we do not have love in our hearts and peace in our hearts and that's why you know I'm on a mission to support all human beings and find that healing and peace because I know what's available on the other side and I know how much pain and suffering it is when you don't have it. and like you said, one in six men have been sexually abused, but most never talk about it let alone talk about any of their problems, and when I talk in front of rooms. um it's usually around 5050 men and women and I'll ask the men in the room to raise their hands if they have a friend that they can open up to about anything and if they talk about it once at a time. a month about your problems, your challenges, your insecurities, your fears, one, most of the room doesn't raise their hand, maybe a couple of guys do and I say, are you part of a church group that Do you get together like once a month and laugh? and I say yes, where it's like a safe environment for men to talk about it and I say women, how many of you talk to a girlfriend once a day about your insecurities, your problems, your challenges, your fears, your doubts, your marriage problems, whatever and most of the women laugh and raise their hands like every day like a girlfriend or your mom or your sister um imagine doing this once a month you know how that would make you feel if you didn't talk about these things imagine only doing it once a year imagine never doing it never how it would make you feel if you were never able to share your fears your pains your insecurities your challenges how it would make you feel and something like all women The kind of joke and laugh It's Like I'd go crazy and probably kill myself and I'm like, "mm, you make a joke about it, but that's what men do, it makes them crazy inside and that's why men commit suicide a lot more than women, it's That's why there are two million inmates in prison who are men, much more than women, and men suffer much more with addiction to drugs, alcohol, trying to deal with the pain, shame and insecurity because they can't speak. with a human being without feeling it. like this person doesn't accept me, they will make fun of me, laugh at me, hit me, kill me, whatever it is, so he is just trying to allow people to go through a process again to repair the memories of the past because they are memories and many times we construct the story bigger than what it was.

I'm not saying it wasn't horrible or sad but we tend to reflect more on the bad parts and when we can create new meaning and create peace from that meaning then we are free and this has been the journey for me and it is a constant journey . Wow, that was so amazing, oh god, do you think people can do that in the meantime? I'm in a relationship because I'm really just projecting number one. I definitely think for all women to hear this, please, for the love of God, share it with his partner or share it with a guy in his life because even if he's a brother like me.

Just think what you're saying is so deep and I often take a feminine stance on how we see things and how the struggles that we come from arise and I've done so many relationship episodes where it's like you know The guy broke my heart. or he's, you know, like he was taken, you know, he took advantage of me and attacked me, so I'm very ladylike, how do we make sure that we don't turn ourselves in without having to? some steps without setting boundaries, like trying to really help women create boundaries for themselves around what you were saying about it, true, it's like appearing on Integrity, but the other side of the coin for guys, Honestly, I am just as compassionate and empathetic.

And I'm very honored that you're talking about this on this show because I think that hopefully it will help us, not necessarily like I said, point the finger and wow, she's just an entitlement and then having that compassion, now this is the problem. That doesn't mean you should let them abuse you, be a bad boyfriend or know that having a relationship may no longer be the right one, ex, maybe when I clarified that this is not, I clarified what the vision is that I want a relationship, what is my vision. I want a conscious relationship and what does that mean.

I want a relationship where when there is an argument or disagreement we consciously communicate, that means no yelling, no passive aggressive energy, no coldness. even an hour or days, which is what I experienced in every relationship and allowed it, so that's me. I wasn't living my vision because I was hurt and afraid, and so fear, insecurity, and hurt made me act out of control. alignment with my vision, so once I was clear that my vision is to have a conscious relationship, that means a conscious relationship with myself first, that means I must have full ownership of who I am first before I can have a conscious relationship with another person. means conscious communication that means conscious collaboration that means conscious agreements it's not okay if you don't do this then it's over, what are we agreeing on together and can we make even a third party witness our agreements so that no one can say I?

I never said this two years later, oh we actually did it and agreed on this, instead of this is how it is and it's my way, Highway is fine, if that's what someone else agrees to cool, but this is a conscious relationship, this is the vision. I have for my relationship and you may be in a relationship that is not working and you can still heal in the relationship and create a conscious relationship together, but you may find that you are not the right partner for each other and that is difficult to achieve. Cara, I'm not telling people to break up, but what I am saying is that if you are single, make sure you develop a conscious relationship with yourself and clarify your relationship.

Vision. I am very clear that this is the relationship I want to have first. I met Martha I said this is what I want this is what I'm creating this is what I'm going to take from myself you know if I want to be these uh create this I need to become that for myself too and then I need to be so clear that these are my limits and that I'm not going to abandon myself, so I was saying all these things to Martha when we started our relationship and she was like, "I love it, this is amazing and this is where I'm going." of and I said great, I accept it, but if she were like that, you know, I want, I want to have a different lifestyle or I want to live in I don't know Mexico full time, I would say well, our lifestyle is not in alignment with my vision, that doesn't mean you are a bad person or that you know something is wrong with you, it just means we are out of alignment and therefore can we create an agreement?

I'm okay with living in Mexico one month into the year and I have to check and not give up if I'm not, I shouldn't be in this relationship, isn't it funny how we convince ourselves that one of us is right and the other is wrong? mistaken? It's not about right and wrong, it's about whether we are aligned and we are a good match, but we do it in those moments, if we haven't done the job like you say, of course it will end up doing it, but this is what I want and We do it because we are afraid of being alone and we want the other person to simply give in to our fears and our needs.

This is what I need and if you're not going to do that, you don't care about me, you don't love me. They are not here for me, they are selfish and then we live manipulating another person because we are afraid and insecure, as we assume you are saying, okay, that's not what they want for their life, okay, 8 billion people who don't you need. forcing a person to get in your way, uh, and I'm not saying that everything is going to be perfect and that everything is going to be good all the time, but it's about finding as many compromises as possible to minimize frustration,minimize arguments, anger and upset, that's all.

It's just making it clear that these are my expectations and what I want to create is that your expectations are great now that we have an agreement on this together so that we're clear that there's less stress about it and I think a lot of people just don't have those conversations and then oh, they didn't do this for me and they didn't do this for me and that's how they were supposed to do it, if you made it clear, you know, it's so true that you actually mentioned manipulation, how much did you have to watch your friends manipulate and how did you manipulate them?

Maybe without realizing it, sometimes I'm sure I'm sure we're both manipulating each other again when you're hurt you're in some kind of I don't know if I don't think it was like intentional manipulation, it was like you were hurt. and your fears are just making you less aware and that's why you need to protect yourself you need someone not to do something they did to make you feel safe it's a form of manipulation because you don't feel comfortable with who you are so you need someone to change make you happy Well, I don't need Martha to change at all.

I'm happy that she's happy. We come together to increase our happiness, but when we get into a relationship, we are not a happy human being and we expect someone else to make everything right. to make ourselves feel safe and secure and meet our needs, that's just the wrong way to do it, we need to meet our own needs and meet our own happiness and support the other person in their needs, but not be their needs, that's a recipe to pain dude, that's so powerful and this is the only thing I say over and over again is like no you may not need a man but you want a man like why can't you just say what you want and it's right and it's like Yes so worry if I say I need something do I look needy?

That means you shouldn't ask for it at all, but just acknowledge that you want it, yes, I think it's not exactly about need, I don't need. a relationship I want a conscious, healthy, loving and abundant relationship, that's what I want, so I'm not going to jump into a relationship, that's not that I'm not going to be in it again, it doesn't mean that there won't be The Life's adversities are okay, but the intention is to build a relationship that you want to create. That is the vision of our relationship. If I needed a relationship to feel loved, then that's the wrong way to do it.

I can feel loved and be loved. First, I love my life first and I didn't fully love myself in previous relationships and they didn't fully love themselves MH, so we were just two hurt people in every I need this, you need this not to do this relationship. You don't make me happy, I'm afraid you're jealous because we're hurt, so it's just a process, you know, and maybe that works for people, but that's not what I wanted anymore. That's where the fireworks come from because there are so many people in relationships and you're smiling because I guess you've had this thing where it's like when you're arguing, it's hidden in the fan, the house is on fire and then as soon as it's over, it's gone. finish you. you kiss and have sex like a rabbit and then you sweep it on the carpet and repeat it two weeks later exactly man it's a lot I want to say again I raised my hand because this was most of my life so have compassion and empathy because this is what I once was, but there are a lot of trauma bonds and there are a lot of intense emotions when there are traumas that you are bonding with another person or when someone is there to fill a trauma that you need to fix a hole that you need to fill. , uh, fill and if it doesn't fill consistently then it's more trauma and more energy and more fighting and explosion, but what I've learned is that for me that doesn't bring harmony to my life when there are explosions and fights and fires that's not harmony you're burning yourself out emotionally up and down up and down it's a lot of wasted energy it's exhausting and that's not the life for the vision I have of a conscious relationship again if that's the relationship in life that you want then know that that has certain consequences, that comes with arguments, that comes with mistrust, that comes with your partner dating and you being jealous and insecure and then fighting and then making up and this whole cycle, that's not the life that I want anymore it's wasted energy and when you have clear your mission and your purpose, which is the first step in my book, which is about being clear about a meaningful mission, you want to eliminate everything that does not support the mission because you realize that it could disappear at any moment this life can fracture into any time and why am I wasting so much energy going up and down with a person where we are misaligned?

It's really about alignment, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. or bad doesn't mean they're right and good means you're aligned and want the best for the other person if you want the best for them why would you get mad at them? Why would you yell at him if you want? All the best for them if you really love them on a conscious level, why would you constantly scream and say that you did this wrong, just wrong? Unless you've agreed, there's nothing wrong with them living her life, so if they did something, if Martha cheated. about myself I wouldn't yell I would be sad I would be hurt I would be disappointed and disappointed I would feel a wide range of emotions but what does yelling do for me what does it do for the moment what is it holding a grudge against someone do it for me and my mission takes me away from my mission it takes away from my health and my harmony with myself I may have moments when I need to release and let go I may need to process it I may need you I know how to do my own techniques to really get out the emotion of anger, sadness or frustration, but yelling at someone a and again for what he did to me that only goes so far and I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's useful for my life and I want peace and harmony, that's my most important currency is peace, harmony and it's just create a life that supports me with that as much as possible, so I have processed all of this as well and used it. being the girl that when in my first relationship before Tom I was with a guy for about 3 or four years and she was very manipulative, she was very, you know, like yelling and then you know, hot sex, all that stuff, etc.

What I realized was that when I started doing the work, like what you're saying, you start to have complete clarity in your behavior in how you present yourself and then you start asking: Why am I doing that? And when I started when I met Tom and we started to really work on our relationship, he was the man for me. I realized that he was using crying and tears as manipulation, yes it's true, and I realized that, so what I started to do was I actually started to leave the room when I started crying my eyes out. point where he says, honey, why can't you cry in front of me?

And I told him because at a moment when we are arguing, if he was upset about something else, I cry happily in front of him but at the moment when he discusses my emotional state he says he is crying but at that moment I know what he is doing to him. and the truth is I don't want him to back out because he feels bad because I'm upset so he has to give in and take care of you exactly and I know that doesn't serve our relationship so I do know that the fact that he backing off is not serving our relationship, I don't want to manipulate him with my Tears so I have told him that sometimes I need to walk away so I can cry and process how you have impacted me and then I can come back and articulate it instead of using tears to make you feel better. he acts in a way that I think is prudent and I also want to point out that you know you should.

I think women should be open to crying in front of their men, but I think when it happens every three days because you didn't do it. If you don't get something you wanted and there's a crisis then it starts to feel a bit manipulative in that sense where the guy doesn't feel like he can really say what's on his mind, he just has to take care of you and he wants you to be happy you know. that the man wants you to be happy, he doesn't want you to be sad and crying, no man lives his life thinking, I hope my wife cries today and is angry with me, that doesn't happen, it's not intentional, he acts like that, and I know it from our last conversation, you know, You said you had cried in a long time, this was about a year and a half, yes, a year, a year and a half ago.

I think you said I haven't cried in a long time. Once I think you said I don't remember the last time I cried. I've really been working on it and that's why I really liked it even in this episode, I saw that I was allowing myself to, but it's a conscious effort. a damn lecture when you block something for so long you have to be aware of it, yes you have to allow yourself to feel. I think part of it was also my ex-boyfriend, where I was like no one saw me cry. Yes, oh, yes, yes, 100% and how does that show you?

How does it work for you? I mean, it works on certain external results, but it doesn't give you the internal harmony that you really want in the long run. Oh, okay, here's the truth as a business woman. It serves me 100%, it helps me to regulate my emotions and in my personal life, I have used it so that it can help me in emotional regulation, so that is super important, but then let's also talk about guys. Sometimes it helps guys to come in and be an alpha male and be strong and stick out your chest depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

It could be useful in football when you go out on the field if you walk with your head. kind of hung up and you don't seem sure you're losing, so I understand why it might actually help you, but it also might not help you at all if you go into a relationship with your chest out and if you do that with a woman, I think that would end up causing some friction. and you know, bullying, which I don't think is healthy. Well, this is what I have heard so many times over and over again that women want their husbands or their partners, their men in their lives to be more vulnerable with them.

I've heard this many times over the last five six years since I got into But any job and then, you know, men would come to me and say okay. lysis like I'm going to go and finally be vulnerable with my wife. I'm going to F. She's been asking me for years that I'm too closed off. I'm too stoic. I don't show emotions. I was never sensitive and always felt like I had to protect the family. I had to make sure I took care of things and make sure she was taken care of. And I have to be in a different state.

I can't be sensitive in those moments but I'm going to try and then they go and try and let their guard down in the sense of opening their heart, they start to feel a little sensitive or when there is a crisis they allow themselves to process and cry in front of their wife. and many of them had come back to me and told me that I couldn't receive it because I was vulnerable, she can't see me cry, that turned her off, she felt afraid, she felt like I wasn't protecting her and all those things, so when a man feels that a woman actually goes against him when he is vulnerable, he will never say never again.

I'm going to show vulnerabilities with my wife again if she can't take it why would I do this? She has been telling me for years that she wants this. I'm doing it and she can't stand it. Then the men were going to go back up. I'm just going to take care of it. things I'm going to be the protector and provider and I'm not going to show emotions, so I also think it's important for women to really look in the mirror and say, can I have my man if he cries in front of me? I can receive it in a previous relationship I cried once and she laughed at me she laughed at me and I remember saying thank God I have enough confidence in myself that I'm going to continue crying in a movie or in a sad moment I mean whatever, I'm going to keep crying because I don't care if she cries at me, I don't care, but if I wasn't in a place where I had confidence in myself, I've been like okay.

I'll never cry again Oh, you're right, if you laugh at me, why would she cry? And so you have to be. I think women also have the opportunity to be aware and say: could I really if my man of 10 years? years that I'm married to or my boyfriend of two years who I've never seen cry if he cried, I mean like a little tear or an ugly cry, could I be a loving presence for him and would I really love him more? He would turn me on more. Would I be excited to have an emotionally evolved man in my life and not just a man with only one emotion?

That would either excite me or scare me and if it scares you then you have to look in the mirror because you are influencing, I'm not saying you know it's a man's responsibility, but you are influencing a man to shut down. More and more closed off men cause more damage so you just have to ask yourself what is inside me that doesn't? It's not that I don't allow a man to get emotional in front of me and I understand that it's all about timing in situations and you want to be aware of that, but ask yourself again that it is not right or wrong, but if women I want men to be more vulnerable and emotionally sensitive.

They have to be able to receive it with care and not make fun of them. Do not belittle them and do not think that they are weak when they are sensitive. God, thisIt's like that. trick, I appreciate it. I love this conversation because it is very complicated, in fact I can imagine in that exact moment when the woman laughs at you as if we could discard her. How can she be so bad? But at the same time I have compassion for that. What if they raised her? with a father who was super stoic and where she actually says oh I don't know how to respond and her laughing reaction is automatic, but not because she actually finds it funny, it's funny because we had a conversation like she didn't know anyone.

After a year, an hour later, and she goes to listen. I know I'm not supposed to laugh and think he's weak, but I've been so conditioned to think a man who cries is weak and could. I was like in shock that you cried and again, that doesn't mean it's okay or it's right or any of these things, but I can look from outside of myself and have compassion for that because I know that her father left her when she was younger and she never felt like she trusted any man and all this stuff so it doesn't mean it's okay and it doesn't mean it's okay but it's okay this is where you are at your relationship level and how I responded to vulnerability and it was another reason why I thought, "Okay, this relationship is not for me." You know, this happened in multiple previous relationships.

You know, it's like she's vulnerable. I would be made fun of or I wouldn't be. received well by almost all the women I have been with. Wow, uh, and again, why would men open up and be vulnerable if they're going to be laughed at if they're not going to be welcomed if they're going to be made fun of that doesn't feel right, so I'm calling all the women who listen and watch to discover what INS is. I know you say you want your man to be more sensitive and vulnerable, but when it happens you really have to honor the space honor the sacredness of your man be vulnerable if he's never been vulnerable lean on comfort him guide him you don't have to say anything just hold him touch him say I am here for you I have You are safe because a man does not normally feel safe when he is vulnerable, capable if he has not been trained on how to feel safe in that environment, so allow your man to release Decades of pain in front of you, he could be a little tear.

It could be a moment of something, but that moment could open your heart and begin the healing process and bring harmony to the relationship. God, I think it's because, if I could project why women might feel uncomfortable when a man is vulnerable because I In fact, I think it's very important, there's so much fear that we've been conditioned as women to see men as the stoicism as the person who is going to save me. Now here's the tricky part, Lois. I absolutely want my husband to save me. Someone is entering the house. So it's 100% situational, yes, but you want to feel safe when there's an attack, yes, but when there's a sensitive moment and you're on the couch and something is coming at you, there's no one attacking you, you have to do it. allowing the man to let his guard down and be vulnerable right and I think what we end up doing is oh, he's vulnerable, he can't save me from the person, he can't take care of me, he can't pay the bills.

He cannot provide me with all these things and this is what he is not. I think it's just the confusion we have that it has to be one or the other even when I talk to Tom about my own career, right? It's like it is, you know? I was a housewife for eight years, I took care of him, I fixed his clothes and I cooked for him. He wanted four kids and now I don't cook for him on any tours and I never do laundry, so it's like I've evolved. but what makes him proud is that we are the couple that can navigate the changes but also navigate between masculine and feminine to the point where if you think of masculine and feminine as if it's a spectrum, I'm actually more on the half. he can oscillate between being more masculine and being more masculine and I don't think that's a bad thing and so can Tom and because we can both understand when he's in his feminine or masculine form and then vice versa and now it's not a war either, not that we wait a minute If he's vulnerable it means he can't protect me or if he's protecting me then he can't exactly be vulnerable and I think you know, women just have to learn to process. that and receiving that and knowing that now listen, if your man is on Breakdown every day and cries constantly, then you may have some worry and you may need some support to get out of it, but just the normal range of emotions that human beings have. and laugh, love, cry, you know, if you don't feel able to do that, you're shutting something down inside of you if you don't feel safe with your most intimate partner, who is supposed to love and accept you the most.

If you are not accepted by them, who in the world will accept you? Imagine the fears and insecurities that come with that. If you are the person you trust the most, you can't receive your emotions and I don't mean shouting emotions. and hysterical emotions and angry emotions, I'm saying like your vulnerabilities, your sadness, like your fears, you know what I mean and I think it's something that we can all work on so that men receive their women better, women receive their men better, but it starts with Look at yourself, in front of yourself first and especially if you like your story where you said that you were raised with parents who were not necessarily emotionally intelligent enough to be able to guide you and I think that They were 20 years old when They were 19 years old when they had my brother, I mean, yeah, again, they didn't know how to love each other, so to think about that and then think about yourself as this little 5-year-old leis, at any time, if you You become vulnerable, I can only guess that either they made fun of you and put you down, you know, I was very sensitive growing up, but then I was made fun of and picked on in school and in sports and that made me say I want to fit in.

I want to fit in. belong I want to belong Being accepted means I have to be tough, I have to be strong, I can't show emotions and I almost need to dominate others in sports to prove how worthy I am, so I need to be bigger, faster, stronger and When I face someone, I really need to make them feel pain so they never want to get up when, you know, I dunk someone. I need to make sure I give them an extra nudge when I fall to make sure they don't mess with me, whatever it is. is that I need to make sure I have all my strength and dominance in sports and this mentality of win lose is always lose lose, there is no winner in the sense that I don't win anything, I could win the game but I lose the lesson and I lose my harmony and my peace within me.

I could make a lot of money and build the business, but then at what cost to my peace and harmony? So my goal is to figure out how to support myself. Work this out because it will be a forever process. I'm going to continue making mistakes. I will still be out of integrity, but the goal is to remain as aware as possible. Have responsibility and support as often as possible. Stay the course and stay in harmony. You had a quote that really resonated with me and it's so important again that I understand men and where they come from.

This quote really struck me. The problem is that the hardness does not stop and grows like cancer until it strangles all other feelings. I thought, oh God, I've never thought toughness was like that and then with everything we're talking about, you understood when you were younger, the vulnerability, you were made fun of, you were made fun of, you were bullied for that, is that okay? , so you have T? and now, in that difficult moment, I had a lot of anger, you had to do it, but I'm sure in those moments people now show you more respect, it's like they get more quotes in line, so the harshness actually gives you He's teaching a Lesson a lesson of strength, but he was teaching you a lesson and then on that journey for 25 30 years, no wonder your feelings were strangled, yeah, yeah.

I was out of integrity with myself internally because I was getting external results from living one way but not getting the internal results of peace, Harmony and Alignment because I was living in anger, resentment and unforgiveness for all the things of the past and a feeling that I will never allow anyone to abuse me, take advantage of me or abandon me again. So if this ever comes up and I get triggered, I'll block RNG so it never happens, instead of just saying life is going to happen, people are going to do what they do, I can interpret it as abandonment and abuse, or I can interpret it .

Interpreting it as something else and not taking it personally and I can create new meaning from the events that are happening, doesn't mean I have to like something. I may still feel disappointed, but I don't need to get angry about it. all of that does not serve my mission or my health, so again I return to Priority One and Two, health and Mission, if it is not useful for my health, why do I allow it to consume and create a cancer within me, like this Which again doesn't work? I mean, I'm a perfect human being. Sometimes I will get angry and angry, but it is human, but I allow that.

That's why I have training and accountability every two weeks to get back on track, process it, and talk about it. Get it out, I didn't like this, okay, let's get it out and get back to Vision, get back to your mission, get back to who you are, which is a loving, passionate, wise, conscious human being, and that takes constant practice to learn what romantic gestures . they're really just a manipulation tactic, so click here right now, you're not really that important to them when it comes to sex other than you're an accomplishment and that can be very confusing to people because they think, oh god mine!

God, I just met the most charming person and