Why Do People Cheat And How To Stop It

Kevin Anthony 0:11
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man or woman single or a couple, this is the show for you.

Céline Remy 0:20
We are your hosts, Kevin Anthony and Céline Remy and we are here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and beyond.

Kevin Anthony 0:27
All right, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 270. And it is titled, Why do people cheat and how to stop it? So today, we’re going to be doing a deep dive into the reasons why people cheat. We’re going to talk about some statistics for how many men cheat versus how many women and the different influencing factors there, that are probably going to surprise you. So we’re going to cover some demographics. We’re going to go over what is cheating exactly because different people have different ideas of what cheating is. Or we’re going to talk about the primary reasons for people cheating, and then some secondary reasons for people cheating. And then, of course, we’re going to talk about how do you prevent cheating. And that is really important because nobody wants to be cheated on. All right, so that’s what we’re gonna cover in this show. There’s a lot to go over.

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Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about how we kind of lay a little foundation here. Let’s talk a little bit about the demographics of cheating because there are some surprising statistics here. And I’m going to read some stats from a few different places. I generally try not to read too much on this show. But there’s some interesting stuff here. And there’s no way I would remember it if I’m not reading it. So bear with me while I read this. This comes from the Institute for Family Studies, you can go check out their website at ifstudies.org.  They just happen to have a really good synopsis of the data here. Although this data or similar data is available in a lot of different places. In general, men are more likely than women to cheat 20% of men and 13% of women repeat that they’ve had sex with someone other than their spouse while married. So that actually comes from data from the General Social Survey. So that’s some General Social Survey data. However, the figure above or as the figure above indicates this gender gap varies by age. Among ever-married adults ages 18 to 29. Women are slightly more likely than men to be guilty of infidelity. 11% versus 10%. I would call that pretty equal but alright. The numbers say slightly. But this gap quickly reverses among those ages 30 to 34 and grows wider in older age groups infidelity for both men and women increased during the Middle Ages. Women in their 60s report the highest rate of infidelity 16%, but the share goes down sharply among women in their 70s and 80s. By comparison, the infidelity rate among men in their 70s is the highest at 26%. And it remains high among men ages 80 and older 24%. Thus, the gender gap in cheating peaks among the oldest age group at a plus difference of 18 percentage points between men and women. Okay, that’s interesting. You know, I would say that has a little bit more to do with hormones and physical body function than anything else really. But they don’t really say why those those numbers are what they are that that’s just what they are.

So let’s continue on a little bit. In addition to gender and age, the infidelity rate also differs by a number of other demographic and social factors. For example, cheating is somewhat more common among black adults. Some 22% of ever-married blacks said that they cheated on their spouse compared with 16% of whites and 13% of Hispanics. And among black men, the rate is highest. 28% reported that they had sex with someone other than their spouse, compared with 20% of white men and 16% of Hispanic men. A person’s political identity, family background, and religious activity are also related to whether or not they cheat overall, Democrats, adults who didn’t grow up in intact families, and those who rarely or never attend religious services are more likely than others to have cheated on their spouse. For example, 15% of adults who grew up with both biological parents have cheated on their spouse before, compared with 18% of those who didn’t grow up in intact families.

Among ever-married adults who have cheated on their spouses before 40% are currently divorced or separated by comparison, only 17% of adults who were faithful to their spouse are no longer married. On the flip side, only about half of cheaters are currently married, compared with 76% of those who did not cheat. I mean, that’s that’s pretty obvious those stats, right? Men who cheated are more likely than their female peers to be married among men who have cheated on their spouse before 61% are currently married, while 34% are divorced or separated. However, only 44% of women who have cheated before are currently married, while 47% are divorced or separated. So those are just some really interesting statistics. And you know, why? Why do an entire show on cheating, I did a video on YouTube about this was a much, much shorter video, it didn’t go into nearly as much depth as we’re going to go into today. But why take the time to do a whole show on cheating? Well, because I think, as these numbers show, it is far more prevalent than people realize. And because of that, it needs to be addressed. like cheating is never healthy, no matter what the reason behind it is, and we’ll get into that later on. But it’s not healthy. And so we need to do what we can to change people’s behavior. And yeah, try to shift the situation.

And there are lots of reasons it’ll make more sense to you as we get further. I mean, nobody wants to be cheated on that’s obvious. But when you realize how destructive it can be, and how simple the solutions to avoid it can be. It’s a no-brainer, like, why don’t we just fix the problem? Okay, so I want to go just a little bit, I have a few more stats to share with you here. Before we dive a little deeper into what is considered cheating. This I thought was really interesting, which is why I wanted to share it. So according to La intelligence detective agency, numbers are somewhat higher. So this is interesting. This is a detective agency, who gets hired right? To find out if people are cheating. And according to their stats, 30 to 60% of married couples will cheat at least once in their marriage. That’s a pretty broad range. 74% of men and 68% of women admit they cheat if it was guaranteed they’d never get caught. Oh, that is pretty huge right there. And we will talk about that and why that is a little bit more later. 60% of affairs start with close friends or coworkers. Well, that’s pretty obvious opportunity. An average affair lasted two years. And 69% of marriages break up as a result of an affair being discovered. So nearly 70% of marriages in which an affair is discovered end up in divorce. And so that’s a really high number. So, you know, I would hope that if you’re out there and you’re thinking maybe I want to cheat or maybe I have cheated in the past, and or if you think your spouse is cheating, please just listen to the show and take the advice to heart and maybe just maybe you can change this.

So let’s talk a little bit about what is considered cheating. Like what are we really talking about when When we say somebody cheated? Well, the first thing that is important to know is that different people have different rules for what constitutes cheating. So, for some people, cheating is penetrative sex. And for other people cheating is going out to dinner and just connecting with somebody. And pretty much everything between those two extremes, somebody considers cheating. So why is that important to understand? Well, because you need to have a conversation with your partner and say, Hey, what is considered cheating, maybe simply going out to dinner with an old lover, or an old female friend, as just friends, I might think that’s perfectly fine. And no problem. And my partner might think that that’s cheating and grounds for divorce. I was actually just talking with a friend of mine this weekend, who was telling me about a woman that he was engaged to be married to when he was younger. And it didn’t, didn’t work out, they ended up breaking off the engagement. But what was interesting about that is after they were no longer a couple, she basically said, Well, I can’t talk to you anymore. And he was like, What do you mean? And she was like, well, we’re not dating. So you can’t talk with anybody who’s an ex. And so for her that was the line is like cheating is talking with somebody that you once dated, right?

So we have to understand that that one person considers cheating might be very, very different from the other person. So when you’re in a relationship, you need to understand, because you might be like, hey, my old girlfriend from high schools in town, haven’t seen her in 20 years, I want to go grab dinner and catch up and see what she’s been up to. And your partner might go berserk over that or not. Right? So you need to understand what each other considers to be cheating. So in general, kissing or sexual contact of any sort is usually considered cheating. So most people will consider cheating. When you have some sort of physical contact, you made out with somebody, you touched each other’s genitals, maybe you had sex, maybe you gave oral sex. You know, again, remember the famous Bill Clinton line, I did not have sex with that woman. Because in his world, in order to get out of getting in trouble for that, and publicly embarrassed oral sex apparently was not sex to him. But why do I say that? Well, because it’s important to understand what one person considers cheating and sex and what another person considers cheating and sex. So even though in general, kissing or sexual contact of any kind is usually considered cheating. In some cases, Heavy Petting, spooning, cuddling, even getting emotionally close, sleeping in the same bed handholding, or even going out as friends could be considered cheating. So you really need to have these types of conversations like, Hey, I’ve got I’m still friends with, you know, many of my exes. Like, what would you consider cheating? What is allowed in this in the context of our relationship, you need to have those conversations and negotiate that and make sure that you’re both on the same page. That’s really important. Let’s see, for some talking or texting with another of the opposite sex is considered cheating.

So this is like the story I just told you about my friend where his ex was like, Nope, I can’t, I literally can’t even talk to you or text you because that’s considered cheating. And then lastly, it’s important to clearly communicate what each of you considers cheating. So both parties know what is acceptable, which I’ve just said several times. So when you’re talking about what is considered cheating, you really need to understand that there’s a range of things that one person or another might consider cheating. So make sure that you have these conversations with your partner, and that you are both on the same page. And if your partner’s rules are not acceptable to you, you need to start figuring out is this the right relationship, right? Because if your nature is to be friendly to steal, you know, talk with your exes. I mean, I’m friends with pretty much every ex I’ve ever had in my entire life. I don’t talk to them very often. But every once in a while, you know, somebody who, you know, will reach out on Facebook, we’ll have a little chat every once in a while and might see one of them you know, out and about, we’ll talk or whatever. So we’ve never had a problem with any of that. In fact, she felt that it was quite healthy, that I was still on good terms with all of my exes as did I was something that I’ve always tried to make it a point to really be on good terms with them. But that’s not always the case for everybody and if that’s how you like to operate, but that’s totally unacceptable for your partner, that’s going to be a challenge, it’s going to be a challenge. Because you’re going to have to forever longer together, modify your behavior. And maybe that’s fine. And maybe it’s not, that’s something for you to decide. All right.

So we know what is considered cheating. Now let’s get into the meat of it. Why do people cheat? Why did they do it? Why do people cheat? Okay, there are actually quite a few reasons for it, we’re gonna go over each one of them. I’ve got them in two categories, the primary reasons and the secondary reasons. Obviously, primary reasons would be the most popular reasons that people cheat. Number one, unhappiness slash dissatisfaction. I mean, that’s pretty simple, right, unhappiness, or dissatisfaction. So you’re unhappy in the relationship, or they’re unhappy in the relationship, and they’re not satisfied, right, so their needs aren’t being met in the relationship. Now, I’m not saying that’s a good reason for people to cheat. But it is an understandable one. Let’s say you have two partners in a relationship. One has an extremely low libido and doesn’t really want sex, the other has a very high libido and wants constant sex. And the sex isn’t happening because the one with low libido is the one that is basically dictating the amount and frequency of sex that you have. That can be a powerful motivator for one person to cheat. Now, I’m not saying cheating is the way to handle that what I think is you need to have a really good conversation with your partner and say, hey, look, I understand this is where you’re at. I understand that this is, what your needs are. But let me explain to you what my needs are. And is there a way for us to work to come to some sort of a solution where we can both get our needs met? And we will talk about that much more later on in the show when we talk about how to basically stop people from cheating.

Number two, feeling unappreciated. This one is really interesting, because it seems softer, right? Like, obviously, hey, I’m not I’m not getting laid as much as I want. Like, that’s pretty obvious. But simply feeling unappreciated. Sometimes it’s enough, I would say, for both sexes, but especially for women, when women don’t feel loved and appreciated they’re going to seek that somewhere else. And if they find another guy who’s willing to show up and appreciate them, and believe me, guys, there is a line of men waiting to appreciate your woman and have sexual inputs, especially appreciate your woman. So yeah, if she’s not feeling appreciated, she’s likely going to seek it somewhere else. And, you know, the same is true for men. If men feel unappreciated, they will often seek appreciation out elsewhere as well. So it’s not just a female thing. But I would say that might be a bigger motivating factor for women. They will tend to be less physically driven and more emotionally driven. Number three, low self-esteem. They don’t believe they deserve love. So that’s an interesting one low self-esteem. Why would low self-esteem make somebody cheat?

Well, it’s kind of okay, so this goes into the next one on the list to the number four reasons self-sabotaging and self-sabotaging can be connected to low self-esteem. So when people have low self-esteem, you will see them sabotage their relationship, and then they will try to build their self-esteem. By having multiple relationships, and multiple affairs, the more people that love them, somehow, maybe they’ll feel better, and yet it never actually solved the problem. So that’s, that’s one reason and then of course, you know, the low self-esteem can lead to self-sabotaging, but there’s lots of things that can lead to self-sabotaging. And this is something I have seen so many times in relationships when working with people, watching them sabotage their relationships, unconsciously and not even realize that they are doing it. Ah, somebody has a relationship that is really good for them, and it’s really working out. But for whatever reason, whether they don’t feel they deserve it, or there’s something else going on. They find ways to sabotage it. And one of the ways that they sabotage it is by cheating. They didn’t really need it, their needs were being met. But for whatever reason, they felt like, well, they probably didn’t consciously feel like it but subconsciously, they cheated because they wanted to self-sabotage. The relationship. And you could do an entire episode, in fact, that I would, I would love to have a psychologist on to talk about why people self-sabotage because I see so much in relationships. I’m gonna, I’m gonna see if anybody takes me up on that one.

Number five, avoiding the confrontation of breaking up. So a relationship has run its course. And people’s needs aren’t being met, but they’re no longer really, they don’t care so much anymore about trying to fix the relationship, but they also don’t want to break up. And so they just cheat on the side anyway and continue to stay in their dysfunctional relationship. Number six, still figuring out what they want, oh, this is a good one, too. This is a conversation I have with so many of my clients when they’re struggling with dating, and I listened to the words that they use when they describe their dating experiences. And I often come to the conclusion, you don’t actually know what you want. And so the very first thing you need to do is figure out what you want, how can you possibly go out and find what you want if you don’t actually know what you want? I mean, it sounds simple, but I watch it over and over and over again. So if you’re not really sure what it is that you want, you’re probably not going to be happy or satisfied in your relationship. And I’ll tell you, I’ll give you the exact words that I have heard from a client. Well, you know, I think I want like a solid relationship and a woman and maybe to have kids and start a family. But then like, I think what I really want is to just have like, you know, a couple of different lovers or and be in like a sort of an open relation poly thing? Or, or I don’t know, maybe, maybe it just want to just, you know, have sex with as many women as I can. Something like that.

Okay, those are three very different scenarios. Which one do you actually want? So, if your partner thinks that they are in a monogamous relationship, and you’re like, yeah, maybe I want a monogamous relationship, but maybe I just want to be poly. That often ends up in cheating, because the person who’s undecided is like, Well, I’m not really sure. So let me go try this while I’m also doing this. Obviously, not the healthy way to handle that situation, which we will talk about later on, what would be a healthy way to handle that situation? Number seven, lack of commitment. Ooh, this is a good one. You will see this a lot in people who’ve been dating for a long time but haven’t actually committed to, we are a couple. And we are exclusive. You will see this in people who have dated for a long time. And at least one person in the couple is like, Hey, we’ve been doing this for a long time, I would like to be married and you’re not stepping up. You’re not proposing you’re not wanting to be married. So lack of commitment is a big one. You will often see this again, a bit more often with women. You know, you’ll see guys, they’ll date a woman for 5, 8, 10, 12 years, the whole time being like, yeah, yeah, one day, we’ll get married. Yeah, one day, we’ll get married. And you know, she loves you, she wants to marry you, obviously. And she’s willing to stick around until a certain point in time, where she gets frustrated and is like, this is never gonna happen. Like I want to be married, I want to start a family, whatever it is, and this guy’s just not doing it. And that will often lead to cheating.

Number eight, boredom? Well, if your relationship is not very fun and exciting, when somebody fun and exciting does come around your partner may indeed stray. And you know, with every one of these, I will talk about how to avoid them in a little bit. So I won’t go too much into that now. But just know that you know, if you kind of do what a lot of people do, when they get into relationships, it’s like in the beginning, it’s all fun and exciting, and you do all these cool things. And then once you’ve been together for a while, you kind of just stopped doing all that stuff. So you stop planning the fun date nights. You stopped making it a point to make sure you have sex on a regular basis. You stop doing the appreciations, all that kind of stuff. And your relationship gets into this sort of boring rut. Well, Most people are not content to be in that kind of relationship. And when somebody comes along who does all those things that you used to do, but don’t do anymore? Well, that’s when they tend to stray.

Number nine is body image or aging. Yeah, so this, this one can lead to it too, you’ve seen this a lot as well. Like there’s a certain amount of as we get older, our bodies change. And there’s a certain amount that we can’t really help. But there’s a lot of it that we can help. And what you often see in long-term relationships is, wow, I’m married. Now I don’t, I don’t have to care about what I look like, I can let myself go, I can eat whatever I want. It doesn’t matter if I have a big old beer belly or, you know, whatever it is. But it does matter. It does matter, don’t you? Well, first of all, you should be taking good care of your body, dressing nicely, and grooming yourself. And, you know, being the best that you can be for yourself so that you like what you see in the mirror so that you feel good about yourself. But you also want your partner to continue to be attracted to you, as the years go by, you know, and granted, you know, Celine and I were still pretty young, during the time that we were together. But my desire for her never changed at all.

And of course, I know a lot of you Oh, of course, she was young and beautiful. Alright, that’s fine. I was significantly older than her. Her desire for me never changed either. Even though I’m getting older, a lot more gray, right? But it’s because we took care of ourselves. And we made it a point to eat right to exercise to groom to dress nicely for each other. There’s a great meme that Celine used to share all the time, it was a picture of a woman. And in the one frame little cartoon. And the one frame was all dressed up in this cute little dress with heels and her hair and makeup and all that and it says this is how I dress for complete strangers. So showing how she would dress if she went out like say to, you know, a club or a restaurant or business meeting or something like that. And then the next one was showing her at home. And she’s in like big baggy sweats and slippers and her hair’s a mess. And it says this is how I dress for the one I love. Right? So this idea of body image aging can lead people astray. If you’re if you’re not taking care of yourself, and you’re not doing the things that would make you attractive to your partner. You know, you’re there. You can’t really blame them. When somebody who is doing all those things walks by and all of a sudden their eyes go whoa. Right. Now, I’m not saying that that is an excuse for people to cheat. There’s never an excuse for people to cheat. We will cover that in a minute. But again, you can understand why these things would lead people to cheat.

Alright, and then the last primary reason is revenge. unfortunate but true. Sometimes people use cheating as revenge. So you did something to really hurt or upset your partner, and they want to get back on you. So they cheat. Most often what I see is cheating used as revenge because somebody else cheated. Well, he cheated or I think he cheated. So I’m going to cheat kind of thing. That’s how I’ve seen it most often. But according to the research I’ve done, people do say that they will revenge cheat even when the thing that they’re getting revenge for didn’t have anything to do with cheating, to begin with. Absolutely terrible behavior. Low consciousness behavior. Sorry, if anyone listening if you’ve done that, but we just have to call it what it is. It is low-consciousness behavior.

Okay, so those are the primary reasons those are, you know, what I would call the top 10 reasons why people cheat. Now, you know, some of these obviously come from my own experience of working with men, women, and couples. But I also did, as I always do for the show’s research ahead of time, and I combined, I took a whole bunch of research materials, and combined, they’re sort of top reasons into that top 10 list. But while doing that, I did come across some other reasons that are actual reasons, but, I personally do not think they’re really primary reasons. But they’re worth mentioning. So that’s why I consider them secondary reasons. So there are four secondary reasons here.

Number one, the internet. Okay, so how does the internet have anything to do with this? Well, it’s because of all of the hookup sites that are out there and the quote-unquote, dating sites that are out there. It just puts more opportunities in front of people. So people don’t have to leave their house to go meet people, they can just connect, you know, via the Internet without their partner actually knowing they can have whole conversations, whole relationships via these platforms or messaging or emails or, or whatever it is. So it just, yeah, it gives it presents more opportunities to people. Number two, well, opportunity. Well, if people have opportunities to cheat, like an example, a girlfriend I dated many, many years ago, I don’t know if she listens to this show, or not. But her father ended up cheating on her mother. And it was really one of those opportunity issues. Now, I’m sure there was more to it than that. I’m not privy to all the details. But the reason why I bring this up is because he traveled a lot for work. And he was gone a lot. And so obviously, when he’s gone, her needs aren’t being met, his needs aren’t being met, he’s spending a lot of time alone. And he’s meeting people, and there were opportunities being presented, and he ended up taking one of them. So that’s sometimes how these things can play out.

Number three, is poor boundaries, somebody doesn’t have good boundaries. So you know, in the context of a relationship, you know, you need to have boundaries, we’ve done an entire show on boundaries before go back and listen to that one. I don’t remember what it was titled or even what number it was, but there’s an entire episode there on boundaries. So you can go check that out. But poor boundaries in relationships like, hey, when we have committed to being in a relationship together, there’s a boundary, there’s a boundary there that says we don’t go do these certain things, whenever we do, whatever we’ve agreed to, that is considered cheating, outside of the bounds of our relationship. But sometimes people have poor boundaries, or their boundaries tend to change or tend to be semi-permeable, right? And so there was a boundary about cuddling with somebody, but they didn’t stick to it, right? So sometimes people’s lack of boundaries, or their wishy-washy boundaries, can lead them to cheating, even though they weren’t necessarily wanting to cheat. They weren’t looking to cheat, but they happened to be at a party, and their boundaries weren’t real good. And they ended up cuddling and making out with somebody, and that is now considered cheating to their partner.

And the last one, on the secondary reasons is pornography. I not going to say that pornography is a reason why people cheat. But it’s a secondary reason because pornography does often present this unrealistic world of the way the women look, the way the men look, and the way they have sex and the acts that they perform, that don’t happen in real life. And so if somebody is into a lot of excessive porn use, and that’s their, that’s what gets them turned on. That’s what they’re wanting, but their actual relationships in life, don’t mirror that as they rarely ever do. Because porn isn’t real. That can lead them to cheat because they’re seeking that thing that is in the pornography, that they’re not getting in their relationship. Again, not a valid reason to cheat, but it does happen. So those would be the secondary reasons. And there’s, trust me in doing research, I could have made a top 20 list, and then like another 10 seconds, there’s lots more, but I’m trying to give you the main reasons why people cheat. And I think that does a pretty good job of giving you sort of the top reasons why people do cheat. And it’s important to understand what it is that leads people to cheat because if you understand that, then you know what you can do to prevent cheating. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about next after a short word from our sponsor.

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Audio Clip 35:40
“I’m going to say two words to you right now. I want you to listen to them very, very carefully. Then I want you to take them out of the office with you and incorporate them into your life. Should I write them down? Well, if it makes you comfortable, there are just two words. We find most people can remember them. Okay, are you ready? Yes. Okay, you’re there. Stop it!”

Kevin Anthony 36:18
Right, there you go. I don’t know if you remember that old Bob Newhart skip, just stop it. But there you go. That’s all that you need. In order to prevent cheating. Just stop it. All right, you know me, I like to lighten the show up a little bit. I like to have some fun with it. Also, you’ve heard me play the sound effects before many times. And that just popped into my head when I was writing that? How do you prevent cheating? And I thought I would share that with you. So I hope that that gave you a little bit of a laugh. But all joking aside, how do we prevent cheating?

Okay, I have a list. As I always do, you shouldn’t tell by now. I’ve got a list. Number one, communicate, and do regular check-ins. So a lot of the things that lead to cheating could be solved before cheating occurs, if you would take the time to literally just have conversations, do check-ins, Hey, how are you doing? How is the relationship going for you? Is there anything you need? What’s working for you what’s not working for you? You need to communicate this can solve so, so many of the problems in your relationship. And I would suggest doing regular check-ins even if you’ve been together for a long time. You know, one of the things that Céline and I used to do is in the beginning, we did it more frequently when we were first dating. But after we had been together for a while and after we were married, we would do it about once a year, about once a year, we would sit down and just say, hey, let’s check in how is this relationship going for you. Is everything working? Is there anything you need? You know, is there something that could make it better? Right?

So it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together, you should be doing that. I mean, it’s kind of like taking your car in for a regular checkup. You don’t just drive it for 100,000 miles. And then finally take it to the mechanic and say, Here you go. And then the mechanics like, whoa, you should have brought this in 50,000 miles ago cuz you got this thing wrong and this thing wrong and this thing wrong and this thing wrong. Right, you’re going to bring it in on a regular basis and have your mechanic look at it. And he’s going to address the things as they occur. And when that happens, it’s generally a lot cheaper and easier to fix than when it’s way on down the road. So same thing with your relationship, communicate and do regular check-ins.

Number two, be genuinely interested in your partner and their needs. You know, I’m gonna I’m gonna relate some of these back to the reasons but remember, number two was feeling unappreciated. Right? So if you’re genuinely interested in your partner in their needs, and you’re actually asking them how they’re doing, and asking them what they need. And if I would add on top of that, you know, do appreciations. But that’s the next one on the list. But if you’re genuinely interested in them, then they’re going to start to feel appreciated. They’re going to feel like you care because well unless you’re faking it, you do care. That’s why you’re asking, which of course brings me to number three, which is playing the appreciation game. You’ve heard us talk about this many times on the show. It is really, really a great tool. It’s something I teach to all of my clients. I don’t have time to go into the whole game and how we used to use it and play it up. Have you heard it many times on this show anyway, but this idea of appreciating your partner on a regular basis, and by regular, I don’t even mean like, once a month, or once a week, every day, in some way, appreciating your partner.

Number four, healing your self-worth issues, we talked about that before, if you have healed your self-worth issues, which so many people have, you’re not going to be constantly seeking external validation from people outside you. And you know, again, in the context of a relationship, if your partner is not giving that to you, you’re gonna seek it out elsewhere from other people. So really do the work that it takes to deal with your self-worth issues, it, it will make a really big difference. So obviously, you know, if you’re trying to stop your partner from cheating, you know, there’s nothing you can really do there. But as far as self-worth, but what you can, you can’t force them to work on their self-worth. But you can work on your own self-worth. And if you do that, that’s going to change how you show up in the relationship. And if you’re showing up in the relationship as a better version of yourself, you will see things shift in your partner. That’s that’s the way that that works.

So number five, address your self-sabotaging patterns Oh, yes. When I brought up self-sabotaging before, I think I made the same noise and rolled my eyes just like I did now, because to me, man, there is nothing worse than self-sabotaging. It’s just, I just see it happen so much. And it could so easily be avoided, if people were just aware of the patterns that they repeat over and over again. So please be honest with yourself, look at all of your past relationships, and look for the patterns there, if you’re not capable of seeing it, hire somebody, go talk to somebody, tell them about your relationships, give them the details, let them identify the patterns, and then be open to the feedback that you get. This is definitely something I do when I work with clients. You know, I don’t like to spend a ton of time dealing with the past, you know, like some psychologists will spend years just delving into your past and your mommy and daddy issues. There’s relevance to that. But my approach is not to spend so much time there. But I do have to spend a little bit of time on that because I need to be able to recognize the patterns. Because if I just see or hear what’s happening in your relationship. Now, I might think that that’s due to some circumstance and not realize that oh, you did that in the relationship before and the one before that, and the one before that. So yeah, it’s important to be able to recognize the self-sabotaging patterns. And if you can’t do that on your own, then get some help with that one. I see this just so often. That’s why it’s one of my big pet peeves in relationships, just watching people sabotage what is otherwise a perfectly good relationship.

Number six, show up in the relationship as your best self. Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing we talked about, you know when it comes to physical appearance, and figuring out what you want, and you know, that kind of stuff. That’s what this is really about, is a lot of times people cheat because they’re not satisfied in the relationship because people aren’t doing the things they should be doing in the relationship. So if you show up as your best self, right, I’m taking care of yourself, physically, you’re eating right, you’re exercising, you’re grooming yourself, you’re dressing nicely. You are, you know, learning better communication techniques, you are appreciating your partner on a regular basis, you’re stepping up and doing things around the house, you’re doing things to make the relationship fun and exciting. If you’re showing up in that relationship as the best way that you can show up, then your partner is probably not going to be interested in cheating, because they’re going to be really happy and satisfied. So yeah, always, always, always show up as your best self and of course, that’s going to inspire your partner to also show up as their best self.

Okay, number seven, and bad relationships before you cheat. So we talked about you know, boredom in a relationship or just wanting to avoid having the conversations and breaking up and having a move or change whatever you know, you’re gonna have to change as a result of this breakup. Really just end the relationship before it gets to that point. If the relationship isn’t working for both of you, and you either decided you don’t want to try to fix it or save it or you’ve tried you can then just end the relationship now before it gets any worse before people get any more hurt through cheating or anything else. I mean, that’s pretty self-explanatory there. Number eight. Don’t commit slash getting married unless you want to. So this has a little bit of something to do with understanding what it is that you actually want.

But you will see sometimes one person really, really, really wants to get married, sometimes a partner will actually lay down an ultimatum. Like if we’re not married by X number of years, we’ve been together, then I’m leaving you, that number of years rolls around and the birthday, I don’t really want to get married, but she said she’s gonna leave me if I don’t, I guess I’ll propose, it happens way more often than you think. The problem with that is, though, if you don’t really want to be married, how dedicated and committed to that marriage Are you really going to be right? And you know, the same goes for you know, committing to a relationship, it doesn’t even have to be marriage could be your dating in the beginning, and you haven’t decided to be exclusive yet. But, you know, the other person really wants to be even though you don’t really want to be so you just go along with it. The problem is, you can’t hold up your end because you end up cheating, right? So just don’t, don’t commit to those types of relationships, if you can’t commit to it. 100% and, you know, put in the effort and the work that it takes to make it successful.

And of course, number nine commit 100% to your relationship, which is what I was just talking about, right? So you just need to make sure that if you are in a relationship with somebody, you are 100% committed to it, whatever that relationship is, just be committed to what you have decided that relationship is for the two of you. Number 10, put in the work to make sure your relationship and sex life stay fun and exciting. You know, on that list of primary reasons, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, number one reason number one reason so you can avoid that by making sure that you’re doing what it takes to have a rich and fulfilling sex life a fun and exciting relationship. It’s not that hard. Not only is it not that hard, but it should be fun for you. You know, sometimes when I work with guys, or you know, I get comments on videos and shows I do and guys are like, Oh, that sounds like so much work. Oh, I can’t believe I have to do all of this. And it’s like, it’s not supposed to be work supposed to be fun. That’s the fun.

You’ve got other hobbies, right? Maybe you’re into cars. And for you, it’s like fun on a weekend to rip an engine out and rebuild it and put it back in the car. That’s actually work. That’s work. But it doesn’t feel like work to you. Because it’s your hobby and you enjoy doing it. Doing what it takes to have a healthy successful sex life and relationships should be the same way. Yeah, it’s technically work. There are going to be times when you’re not going to want to do some of that stuff. But it shouldn’t feel like work the majority of the time, you should want to do it because it’s fun. Right? And because you get a benefit from it. So yeah, you need to put in the work to make sure your relationship and sex life stay fun and exciting. Otherwise, people will feel unsatisfied and or bored, and they’re likely to stray.

Number 11, keep your body in good shape for yourself and your spouse, I think we’ve covered this one. Pretty darn good already. Always, always, always do it for yourself. First and foremost. If you’re not doing it for yourself, then you’re not likely to keep up with it. But you should also be doing it for your spouse. You know, I want my partner to look at me and get wet. I do when she if she sees me in the shower with my shirt off or even in a nice pair of jeans that makes my butt look good. I want her to feel a tingle in her genitals. Why wouldn’t I want that? So yeah, it’s important to do that. And of course, you know if you’ve heard us talk a lot over many, many episodes and years about a constant state of arousal. Well, that’s one of the ways to maintain a constant state of arousal.

Number 12 Become a sexual master. You know, there is some truth to the fact that guys that if you fuck her into oblivion, and we’ve talked about this, go listen to my episode on this  “what sex could be, are you missing out?”. If you can, as a man, make love to a woman that way and take her to those depths those places. Trust me, she’s not going to be looking for anything outside of that she’s going to be blown away, most likely because no other man has taken her there before and she’s going to be so satisfied and happy she’s not gonna want to go anywhere. And ladies, you know, this goes for you to maybe it’s a little bit less about mastering technique and body. But keep in mind You know, most men have a healthy sex drive. And if you’re simply not keeping up your end of that, you know, they may stray. I’m not saying that they should, again, I’m not, I’m not saying that this is an excuse or justification, I’m just telling you, if you don’t want your man to cheat, and your man has a healthy sex drive, and you’re not meeting that need, you got two options, you meet the need, or you allow him to meet the need somewhere else. And that leads me to the very last one on the list, which is to find alternative ways to get your needs met. I have seen in a lot of relationships that aren’t working correctly, where somebody decides, well, let’s just be open, that’ll solve it. It’s kind of like that, well, the relationship isn’t really working. So let’s have a kid theory. It’s complete nonsense, and it doesn’t work. And it just creates more carnage for everyone.

However, if your relationship is otherwise, working well, and you love each other, and you want to be in a relationship together, but there’s something some need that is not being met in that relationship, then I strongly suggest that you have really open and honest conversations about how you can get those needs met. I have seen this work successfully before where one person in the couple is no longer interested in sex. It happens as we age, as often due to hormones, which people are not aware of, and then they don’t have their hormones checked or rebalanced. And they just decide to live with the problems. And I’m not saying that’s the only reason why. But that’s a big reason why. There are other reasons as well. But one person either can’t or doesn’t want to have sex anymore. And I think it’s really, really unfair to say to the other person, well, hey, I don’t want to have sex anymore. But because we’re in a relationship, then you can’t anymore, either. That’s not fair. If you love that person, you would want them to have their needs met. So you need to have a real conversation about, okay, what is a way that you can get your needs met? And, you know, again, if you really love each other, and you really want to stay together, you would be willing to do that.

And it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be having sex with somebody outside of the relationship. But that could be one thing. You know, you could arrange to have maybe what people call a monogamous relationship where the person gets to go to cuddle parties, or make out with women but not have actual sex, it could be that they’re allowed to have a lover on the side. And what we would call more of an open or poly relationship could be you allow them to go to massage parlors, you know, from time to time, I mean, you got to figure out what works for you. But if you’re not capable of meeting your partner’s needs, then you really need to have some real discussions about how those needs can be met. And your partner might say, You know what, that’s okay, my need isn’t being met, but I’m okay with that. Alright, fine. And it might be, hey, I really appreciate the fact that you are open to this because this is an important need. For me, I have not felt satisfied or happy in the relationship since that need hasn’t been met. And I would love to have that need be met and still enjoy, you know, our relationship. You know, maybe you’ve got businesses together, kids together, you own houses together, you still love each other, whatever, but there’s something that’s not able to be met. And so you want to think outside the box and find alternative ways.

If you are struggling with this, this is another thing that I help couples with is figuring out how they can stay together and maintain a long term healthy, happy relationship, while all partners involved, find acceptable ways to get their needs met. So that is something else I work with a lot. I have had a fair amount of experience and alternative relationship styles myself over the years. I’ve got a lot of knowledge and resources to help people in that way. Okay, so there you go.

That is my list of 13 ways that you can prevent cheating. Now, obviously, there’s there’s a ton of more things. You know, you could say stuff like, you’re not allowed to go on dating sites or, you know, porn uses out or like, okay, yeah, what I really wanted to get to with these, however, we’re getting to sort of the root cause of why people cheat. So in other words, you know, telling somebody, they’re not allowed to watch porn, because that will make them less likely to cheat doesn’t address the root cause. Right? Watching porn isn’t the root cause. Not getting your needs met is the root cause. So I really wanted to stick with things that could address the root cause that are more like. I want to say behavior modifications. But again, I think that I’ll just leave it at things that address the root cause because that’s always where we want to go when we’re trying to solve a problem. So there you go. That is the reason why people cheat. That’s what people consider cheating. That’s the primary reason why people cheat. And that is a list of ways to prevent cheating. So that’s the deep dive on cheating. I hope it was helpful. I know pretty much everybody has either cheated or been cheated on at one point or another throughout their life. It never feels good in either direction. So I would love to see people make more conscious choices about how they show up in relationships so that they don’t have to cheat. And I think that this episode gives you a really good framework to do so. So there you go. That’s all I have for this episode. And I will see you next week.

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Céline Remy 56:21
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