Love Letter: What cheating is REALLY about… (10/12/22)

I know that I am about to take on a HUGE topic. I’ve been doing relationship coaching for almost 11 years, and I have worked with countless clients recovering from betrayal. 

I have worked with couples who are repairing their relationship after an affair, AND I have worked with clients who have admitted to cheating on their partner. 

This is a hot topic, and I want to help people break free from the idea that cheating always means a relationship is over and help them regain their sense of self-trust and inner security when they have been betrayed. 

Your midweek mantra is, “I find security through my relationship with myself. My inner strength, wisdom, and love sustain me.” ✨

Okay, so I know Adam Levine’s affairs are a few news cycles behind at this point (and we have many other important things happening in the world), but I want to talk about cheating this week. I received a flood of DMs about this topic at the time and wanted to dedicate a Love Letter to this topic for us to dive deeper. 

One thing that breaks my heart (and is patriarchal conditioning) is women thinking that “if only I were more XYZ,” then my partner wouldn’t have cheated on me. This is the BIGGEST LIE we tell ourselves because we do NOT have control over other people’s behavior. Women do not “cause” or “prevent” their partners from cheating. 

I’m sure many of us loosely followed the Adam Levine drama as it unfolded. We saw the cringey DMs between Adam and Summer and Adam and a few other women. 

I shared this on my story on Instagram, but I’m sharing it again here – Adam’s behavior was about power, entitlement, and control. 

Cheating is not always about power and control, but it is, on some level, about entitlement.

Entitlement is about taking without regard for the impact the behavior might have. 

What is vulnerable about a relationship, and one of the reasons so many people struggle with it, is that everything we do impacts the other person. 

There are many reasons why people cheat and many reasons why people engage with people who are already in committed relationships. 

We have to be willing to dig deep around this – to move away from the idea that the person doing the cheating is “a bad person” or that any of us are immune to acting out in our relationships. 

Cheating emotionally or physically is an act of betrayal, but did you know that many of us do things that would be considered betrayals in our relationships all the time? Little white lies, people-pleasing, and ignoring ourselves are all considered acts of self-betrayal. 

I want to acknowledge that lots of couples successfully repair after affairs. It is a long road but is totally doable when each person in the relationship wants to heal, and repair and forgiveness become possible. 

Cheating is about adrenaline, passion, mystery, and reclaiming lost parts of ourselves.

It’s also about intimacy fears, lack of relational self-awareness, and an unwillingness to tell the truth. 

It is a complicated topic, but I want you to know that if you have been on the receiving end of betrayal, you CAN heal and rebuild trust IN YOURSELF and open your heart to love again. 

And… this is such a big topic we decided to bring it to The New Truth podcast!

Check out The New Truth podcast episode from this week, where Kate interviews Mark Groves in “The Truth About Cheating.” In this episode, Kate interviews human connection specialist Mark Groves (you may know him as @createthelove on Instagram!)  on all things cheating. They unpack why people cheat, what drives women to choose unavailable men, how to heal your heart after you’ve been cheated on – and how to break free from any aspect of this pattern.  

I love you,