Need Counseling For Cheating Husband? Don’t Fall Into This Trap

When counseling for cheating focuses on what a wife could have done differently to stop her husband’s betrayal, it misses the real issue: her husband made choices in secret and withheld reality from her. It can be soul crushing for the wife, and she needs support that personally understands like the Betrayal Trauma Recovery groups.

Here are five things a therapist or counselor may ask you to do, that you’re probably already doing.

5 THINGS DURING COUNSELING FOR CHEATING A THERAPIST MIgHT SUGGEST, THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY DOING

1. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS THE WAY FORWARD AFTER HIS CHEATING IS FOR YOU TO BE MORE SELF-REFLECTIVE

You may have spent years asking yourself:

“Am I too critical?”
“Did I communicate that badly?”
“Am I being unfair?”
“Should I be more patient?”
“Do I need to change my expectations?”

Self-reflection can be healthy in a safe relationship. But in an abusive or deceptive relationship, self-reflection becomes a trap when your husband or uses it to keep the attention on your “faults” and off of his choices.

2. IF DURING COUNSELING FOR CHEATING THE THERAPIST SAYS THERE’S NO WAY TO HEAL YOUR MARRIAGE IF YOU KEEP SCORE, WELL…

You may have chosen grace over confrontation. You may have tried not to bring up the past. Or you may have avoided keeping a mental ledger of who did what, who apologized first, who sacrificed more, or who caused the most pain.

And yet, he still lied.

A wife can be generous, forgiving, and non-punitive, and her husband can still exploit that kindness. In fact, men who live double lives often benefit from a wife who keeps giving them the benefit of the doubt.

3. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS “TOGETHER”

Many wives are already the solution-focused, repair department of the family.

When there is conflict, they look for the book, the podcast, the therapist, the date night, the conversation starter, the prayer, the apology, the new schedule, the softer approach, the better system.

They try to make home peaceful and emotionally safe for everyone.

If a husband is lying about cheating, using inappropriate media, emotional affairs, financial betrayal, or other secret behaviors, then the wife does not have the information she needs about the real problem. The equation is unsolvable as long as he’s lying with or without counseling for cheating.

4. WHEN IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU RE-COMMIT TO THE MARRIAGE

At the first sign of trouble, most wives lean in and try harder.

But trying harder does not cure his entitlement. Being more available does not cure his secret behavior. Being more patient does not cure his dishonesty. Offering more love does not cure his emotional or spiritual abuse.

A wife can pour herself into the marriage until there is almost nothing left of her, and still not fix his intention to hide the truth.

5. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS THAT YOU SHOULD ASK IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

This is one of the most painful parts for many betrayed wives. When a counselor or someone else says, “Why didn’t you say something,” or “Maybe you should have communicated more clearly about your expectations,” it can feel like you’re being betrayed all over again.

The truth is that most women did, they:
Checked in.
Brought up concerns.
Asked about inappropriate material use.
They asked about the phone.
And asked about the distance.
They asked about the late nights, the mood shifts, the secrecy, the intimacy problems, the strange feeling in their gut.

And their husbands used these concerns as another opportunity to undermine her instincts and reality. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take our free emotional abuse test.

Key Points From this episode:

• How Marriage Counseling After Betrayal Misses the Real Issue
• How His Lying Undermines Your Confidence and Emotional Safety
• Couple Therapy is for People Who Tell The Truth, Not Liars
• Moving on After Betrayal is Not as Simple as People Think
• Is Online Betrayal Actually Cheating?

TRANSCRIPT: WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MAKES HIS CHEATING “OUR PROBLEM”

Anne: I have Hannah, a member of our community on today’s episode. Welcome, Hannah.

Hannah: Hi Anne. How are you?

Anne: Thank you so much for coming on today. Why don’t we start with your story.

Hannah: Yeah, I am about a year out from finding everything out that changed my life forever. I was married for about 12 years. We had five kids. I had known him most of my life. We were best friends. We’re Christian. I was very active in our church community, and even in high school I was involved in youth work, and I was a huge anti-porn advocate. My husband knew all this about me. We talked about this kind of thing nearly daily, as we’re also raising kids, just like how we protect them from the world.

We prayed every day together, and then one day he decided to drop the bomb on me, that he had been lying to me since before we were married, that he had been watching porn, and that he had also had a four year affair with a colleague. So he decided to come clean to me.

I was completely blindsided. Over the last year, I’ve been realizing the subtle ways, like he was a very good liar, and I do feel like he had this complete double life. I was really grateful to find Betrayal Trauma Recovery, because it was the only resource I found online that didn’t make me want to throw my computer or phone across the room. Because everything was very much just talking about my part in it, which to me felt so wrong.

WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MISSES EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Hannah: I knew I wasn’t perfect, what human being is? I knew that throughout our whole marriage, I had been self-reflecting. I had been not keeping score. Anytime we had any kind of conflict, I was all about finding solutions. I was always leaning into our marriage and trying harder. Also when it came to the betrayal, the pornography use.

A lot of resources say maybe you didn’t ask, or maybe you were naive. I had asked all the questions. We had all the conversations. I had been checking in all these things, and it was just a lie every time with counseling for cheating.

So to be met with what was your part in it? Or anything like that made me angry right from the start. And I just knew that this isn’t something that I contributed to somehow. And at that, Betrayal Trauma Recovery, that’s definitely how you frame things. This is abuse. Abuse is one sided. That’s my story in a nutshell. It has been an awful year, and I still most days can’t believe this is my life.

That I had this husband, who I thought we were soulmates, best friends. I thought I knew him so well. I’ve been coming to this realization that I could have just gone down to the nearest bar and been like, You sir, you’re attractive. Let’s go get married. And it would’ve been the same outcome. Because I did all the things. We talked about this stuff constantly. I think people think, he was doing this thing and it’s not a big deal.

FINDING OUT HE HAD BEEN LYING THE WHOLE TIME

Hannah: Like it was his private life that he kept private. No, you don’t understand the amount of lies, blatant lies, subtle lies, lies of omission, but also the things that we would do together. Like, we sit down to watch a movie. We weren’t like the average couple who’s just oh, put on HBO. We don’t watch HBO, we look up every movie before we watch it, because we’re protecting our marriage, protecting our family. From all the trash out there. Our kids have minimal screen time, they’re not on devices, so that’s exactly the type of thing we’re trying to protect them from.

So for him to come out and be like, “Oh yeah, by the way, for our entire marriage, I’ve been watching pornography, and I also had a girlfriend for a huge chunk of our marriage.”

Anne: Why now? He’s been lying to you the whole time. I’m sure that’s crossed your mind.

Hannah: Oh, it has. I can tell you what he says versus what I think.

Anne: Probably a lie, right? Since he is lied about everything else.

Hannah: A very close friend of mine called me up and told me that she had discovered that her husband had been watching pornography.

So I was very upset and obviously like always I went to my husband. And the thing that gets me about that is, it’s not the first time this has happened. I would read some horrible story on the internet, in the communities that I was in. And I’d go to my husband and be like, oh, this poor woman, she just found out she has cervical cancer, ‘Cause her husband cheated on her.

I WANTED TO LEAVE, BUT COULDN’T

Hannah: These types of stories. So that alone isn’t enough, because it’s not like it was the first time, but it was someone very close to me. And also close to him.

Anne: I wonder if, because it was someone really close to you. He thought, well, maybe this is the time to tell her because this other person did it.

Hannah: So I was like talking to him every evening when he came home from work about this couple. My heart was breaking for them. I was in constant contact with my friend, checking with her, wanting to spend time with her. So I was actually planning to go away that weekend to spend the weekend with her. And then he dropped the bomb on me before I left.

Anne: Maybe it was to stop you from going.

Hannah: It could have been.

Anne: Because, these liars don’t think too much about long-term consequences, or counseling for cheating.

Hannah: Looking back, something that haunts me a lot is the fact that in those weeks leading up. He asked me, “What would you do if?”

I was obviously caught off guard. I mean, excuse me? Are you trying to tell me something? Like, why would you say that? I told him, “I would pack up the kids, and I would go to my mother’s, and you would maybe never see us again.”

I didn’t mince words. Funny story, my reaction, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t pack up any kids. I was trashed, laying on the floor, not eating or sleeping, not able to drive a car. In my mind, I wanted to leave, but physically could not.

WHEN HE USES THE TRUTH TO MANIPULATE YOU

Anne: I had that same thing where I told my husband that. And then found out I couldn’t do it. I’ve come to believe now. This is 10 years post-divorce, and failed counseling for cheating, that he wanted me to do that. He was like, “Okay, I’m gonna tell her and then she’ll leave.” And because I didn’t. Then, at least in my situation, he was like, “Oh, shoot, now I have to act like I am repenting.” Because he didn’t know what to do when I didn’t do the thing he wanted me to do. Because the same thing, he could have told me a million other times, why did he tell me right then?

Hannah: There were so many moments when I asked him explicitly. Have you done this? Would you do this? Where I asked to check his phone. I felt like a terrible person. I have this amazing, good, trustworthy husband, and I’m being this paranoid, crazy person. And him being like, sure, of course. But obviously sweating bullets, because he knew that there was a possibility that something could happen.

So when he did tell me, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t sleep, but the next morning I made him drive me to my sister’s house. I said we’re leaving right now. I had all these other health issues at the time that I physically can’t drive.

So I think that in his mind he was so deluded, he still thought it was somehow going to be okay. But for me, it was like the whole unraveling of everything.

Like any marriage, we’d had our struggles and then to find out that this was going on underneath it all the whole time, for me it was very much a, what’s left?

I SAW THE SIGNS THAT HE DIDN’T CARE

Hannah: The only thing I was clinging to in this marriage was that you’re this good, faithful, loyal man who’s trustworthy and honest. And turns out you weren’t even that. And I’ve been making all these excuses. He’s tired, he works so hard. The honeymoon phase is over. This is just marriage. So we’re not crazy in love anymore, but we deeply love each other. That’s what I was thinking. And meanwhile, these were all symptoms that he actually didn’t care.

Anne: Oh, that’s so heartbreaking. Before you found out, had you been to couple therapy, had you done marriage intensives or counseling for cheating?

Hannah: There were moments in our marriage where I checked in with him. “I feel like we’re having a lot of petty fights. Are we okay? I feel like you’re ignoring me a lot, like what’s going on?” There were times when I felt like it was getting to the point that, okay, I think we need counseling for cheating.

And I said that to him, and I asked for it, and his reaction was, no, absolutely not. That didn’t surprise me, just because I feel like that’s the way both of us were raised. Our parents think it’s good for someone else, but they’re not gonna do it. “We can get through this. We don’t need some professional meddling in our lives.” Then it would be good for a while, now that I’ve reflected on all these years. I can see it more clearly that he would avoid me and treat me poorly.

Then if I started to question it, he would love bomb me and make it okay. He would bring me flowers or he would say something to make it feel all better.

HOW HE Benefited FROM MY WORK ON THE MARRIAGE

Hannah: I was like relationship low maintenance. I didn’t need him to be Prince Charming all the time. He just had to come home and tell me he loved me and that everything was good, and I just believed him. I would let it go. I thought we went on dates and did things to invest in our marriage, but now that I look back, I planned it, or I nagged you to plan it. And it never was like, “You’re planning these things for me, or for us.”

We actually went to marriage retreats to reconnect. But now looking back at that, it’s just cements the betrayal even more. We’re sitting there talking all day about our relationship. And what we can do differently and how we can improve. And you’re just sitting on all this information. These are all the reasons you’re passive aggressive, angry, a little bit volatile, all these things. That explains a lot. I would feel that way too if I was hiding this entire secret life from you. I would be anxious and irritable.

Anne: Mm-hmm.

Hannah: We never did any kind of counseling for cheating. I thought it was communication. I think I am a terrible communicator. And I think you need to work on your communication too. I just leaned in, I read books, did different things. The typical marriage advice is, don’t keep score and forgive your spouse. You shouldn’t be dwelling on their faults. That’s the type of thing I was doing. Which now makes me feel like I’m a giver, he’s a taker. It made me a very easy target, constantly giving into the relationship.

PEOPLE IN HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS DON’T NEED COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, that people in healthy relationships do that naturally. We know that people aren’t perfect. With a healthy relationship with someone who’s not perfect and we’re not perfect, we know that people make mistakes.

We know there’s gonna be communication issues, stuff like that. We don’t have to read a book that tells us that people make mistakes. So the people reading the book, we who married an abusive man. I’m almost like those books should never have been written, because the only people reading them are women who are married to an abusive man.

Hannah: Oh my goodness, you’re so right.

Anne: People in healthy relationships don’t read books like that ’cause they don’t need to. They don’t need counseling for cheating, ’cause they already know. Oh, that was just a communication problem.

Hannah: It makes so much sense. One book I read, it even said in the book, you just need to do this, and this week you should work on giving words of affirmation to your husband. Or plan something for him. And at this point you might be feeling like, what is he doing for me? But don’t reflect on that. And I remember being like, okay, I’m not going to. That was a turning point for me where I cemented into my character, that I am not going to keep score.

WHY NOT KEEP SCORE?

Hannah: If this is neglect, he’s not investing in the relationship, he’s not paying attention to you. And the kind of things I thought was when is the last time he held my hand? Why am I always the one reaching out for physical contact? Why is it that every time he touches me, he wants something more? He doesn’t wanna sit next to me. When we’re out in public, he’s far away from me, and he’s okay with that. Why am I always the one feeling like I’m chasing him? That book shouldn’t have been written.

Anne: No, that’s what I mean. I don’t think people keep score in healthy relationships. They don’t need counseling for cheating. I’m saying this tongue in cheek, but like, why not keep score? What’s wrong with being like, wait a minute, I do all this stuff and he doesn’t. In fact, when it comes to abuse, it’s almost the opposite. Literally, write down these are all the household tasks that I do all the time, and these are the ones that he does.

And then just look at that list, see what that looks like. How many hours a day do we have? And if he’s not abusive, you could take that to him and say, you know what? I actually wrote all this down. And look at the disparity between our household tasks. A non-abusive person would be like. Wow, maybe I should stop watching so much football. Where an abusive person would be like, you don’t respect me at my job! What’s wrong with assessing the truth of the situation, which is essentially what they’re saying when they say don’t keep score. They’re basically saying, “Don’t assess what’s really happening.”

COUPLE THERAPY IS FOR PEOPLE WHO TELL THE TRUTH

Hannah: Yeah, when you’re on the abuse side of it, what marriage counselors say is all wrong. None of it works. Which is actually why I wrote to BTR, why I wanted to speak to you. What does counseling for cheating look like if you stay with your partner? Because I feel like with that history of abuse, that never goes away.

If the person does genuinely change and stops all their abusive behaviors, and then you’re rebuilding trust and in this relationship with someone. How do you approach counseling for cheating in the future? Because it’s unethical. Even if it’s 10 years down the road and you’ve stayed together. For the women staying and are rebuilding their trust. What do you do?

Anne: Yeah, so couple therapy is for essentially healthy marriages. It’s for two people who tell the truth, genuinely care about each other, have integrity, and make good choices. And they’re having trouble communicating or something. All the marriages I know that are like that, where they genuinely care about each other, where they’re both honest, they would never need to go to couple therapy. So the whole idea of couple therapy now to me is frankly ridiculous. If it were as healthy as it needs to be to go to couple therapy, you wouldn’t ever need to go.

Hannah: This dynamic seems unethical. The therapist automatically has to side with you. If this was any other kind of abuse, they wouldn’t put you in the same room, and they will have to side with you. So even if you were doing something wrong. They have to look at it through the lens of okay, but you’ve been traumatized.

IS COUNSELING FOR CHEATING UNETHICAL?

Anne: They would ethically have to, but I’ve never met a therapist that does in counseling for cheating. The very foundation of it is family systems theory, basically their ethical standards bind them to not see a perpetrator and a victim. If they do, they have to stop doing the therapy.

Hannah: Right.

Anne: ‘Cause it’s not ethical. So if they’re not noticing the abuse and doing the therapy, that’s unethical. And then the second they noticed it, which should be right away, but most of them aren’t doing screenings for it. They should quit, but most don’t. So I think all couple therapy is not a good idea, because healthy couples who don’t lie to each other don’t need to go to couple therapy.

Hannah: Mm.

Anne: In general.

Hannah: And that does resonate with me. There’s part of me that’s like individual therapy.

Anne: Yeah, the problem with individual therapy in this case is that assumes for the victim that something’s wrong with her. Because the purpose of therapy isn’t to fix what’s wrong with someone else.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: It’s to fix what’s wrong with you.

Hannah: Yeah.

Anne: Therapy for an abuse victim depends on the therapist, victims might need skills. We might need confidence.

Hannah: It is about coping skills. I think I even have a visceral reaction. It’s like when someone loses an arm, it doesn’t grow back. You just learn to cope with it. You’re not healed from it, really. And I feel like that’s how I see my life now. Talking to many people who have experienced this, it stays with you for life.

MOVING ON FROM CHEATING IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS PEOPLE THINK

Hannah: It’s a scar. You don’t forget it. You don’t have this magical I don’t remember anymore. That doesn’t happen. And so I guess for me it’s like for the women who are staying, how do you even frame that? For me personally, I am separated from my husband, we’re not divorced. I’m still trying to make a decision. I don’t wanna be that person who strings him along or is in limbo for years and years, but we have five kids, he’s gonna be in my life, permanently, whether I want him or not.

So I feel like he trapped me there. But there are women who choose to stay. And when I look at that, it’s like there’s always this dynamic of abuser and victim. Even if all the abuse stops, it’s like that’s still part of your history.

So how do you deal with that moving forward? Because even therapists who talk about if you decide to stay, then you have to work on yourself. Which like you said, what am I working on? What’s wrong with me?

Anne: Nothing’s wrong with you.

Hannah: You have to commit to the marriage, and you have to stop ruminating, stop bringing up the past, be all in. That language used in counseling for cheating obviously deeply bothers me, because I’m not choosing to remember this.

First of all, it’s like when people say you’re ruminating, no. It’s not even once or twice a day I get this flashback moment. It’s like from the moment I wake up, every thing reminds me all day long. So it’s on a loop all day long. ‘Cause this has been my life. So it’s not like I’m choosing to hold it against him. It’s just, it’s our life.

MAKING A DECISION TO GO OR STAY WHEN IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: Also that’s just not true. Did they tell him, “Well, if you’re gonna be married, you have to stop looking at pornography and lying to her.” And did he do it anyway during counseling for cheating? Yeah, he did.

So you can feel the way you feel. You can not be committed. When I say not to be committed, I don’t mean to cheat on him. I don’t mean that, but I just mean you can be like, yeah, I’m married to him, but I don’t like him and I’m not committed to him as a person. You could still legit do that. So anybody who’s saying, if you’re gonna stay married to him, then you have to do this and this and this. That’s not true.

Hannah: For me, I’m just thinking about a dynamic of I know all this, but objectively, when I hadn’t had this experience. How I would’ve thought about it. If you’re choosing to stay in a marriage.

If he is genuinely choosing to change, be a good person, I want that. The world does not need another person like him. Good, great, that would be awesome. I don’t know about my personal ability to believe him. I guess that’s what I’m still trying to work out. But I do know that when I’m trying to have empathy and sit in his shoes. And humanize him. Because obviously that’s very difficult for me at this point. He does need to, from a Christian perspective, forgive himself, see himself as a child of God, all these things to have a true conversion.

However, you wanna phrase it if you’re not Christian, genuinely change. I feel like we’re so incompatible now.

FORGIVENESS DOESN’T MEAN RESTORATION OF THE MARRIAGE

Hannah: If I’m staying, my needs and what’s going on in my head all day are exactly the opposite of someone who is trying to love themselves and see themselves as a child of God and needs a cheerleader. Obviously, I’m not capable of doing that, and I’m not going to do that. I don’t think any woman should. I am the survivor over here, and he’s the one who cheated.

I’m the loyal person who can’t even wrap my head around any of the things he’s done, because I loved him so deeply. He didn’t love me at all. And to move forward in a marriage like that. How do you move past, that feels like it’s been thrown off forever. That doesn’t come back.

Anne: However you want, I think is the answer. And you also don’t have to, you can stay married and not move past it.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: There is no right answer. And I think that’s the hard thing for everybody, because the right answer has to be that you have to forgive me and start sleeping in the same bed.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: Well, that’s just more manipulation and more lies, ’cause that’s not true. You can be married and not sleep in the same bed, not live in the same house. There’s like all of these options out there.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: You can do literally whatever you want, but the hard part of it is having the confidence to do what you wanna do.

FINDING CLARITY ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING

Anne: Rather than listening to someone who tells you, well, if you’re gonna do this, then you have to do it this way. And I think that’s where a lot of us get tripped up in counseling for cheating.

Hannah: I did the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop. I got the workbook and worked through. It was very helpful, especially recognizing gaslighting. I think I was a frog in the boiling water. You would hear about all these other people who’ll stay through abuse. How will you do that?

Now when I reflect, how is that me? I saw him as this person I’ve known my whole life. So when he would say things, then he’d say, well, I didn’t mean it. And I believed him, it felt genuine to me.

That’s just him. That’s just us. He is just joking. He doesn’t mean it that way. And he does love me. It didn’t feel that bad to me when it was happening. Even though the logic, hang on a second, you’re just joking. What part of that is funny? I don’t think you’d speak to a colleague this way. Or find myself saying things like, you just changed your story. What is happening here?

Anne: The “excuse or the reason” doesn’t happen until after we call them out on it. So they say something, we call ’em out. Then they say it’s a joke. They don’t say, I’m gonna tell a joke. I know it might hurt your feelings, but I just thought of this. It’s funny, I actually don’t mean it. Are you ready? ’cause I think you might think it’s funny too, and then they say it. No, that would be like someone who’s aware of our feelings, who knows us well.

THERE WAS ALWAYS A GOOD EXPLANATION IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I think things like that about my kids sometimes I’m like, oh my word. This would be so funny to say right now.

So I’ll prepare my children like, Hey, I wanna say this joke. It’s not meant to hurt your feelings. And they laugh and think it’s funny. But that’s different than saying something. And then if you didn’t call him out, if you didn’t say, Hey, that hurt my feelings. Or if you didn’t say, Hey, wait, a colleague wouldn’t say that. He just goes about his day? The only time he says, oh, it’s a joke, or, oh, I didn’t mean it that way, was after you call him out on it.

Hannah: I’d be like, “oh, that makes sense, because I don’t wanna believe you could ever actually be hurtful and think of me that way.” There were moments throughout our relationship where I would question like oh, you’re talking down to me. There was always a good explanation. So when I did the workshop, that was very eye-opening, I saw the patterns of behavior.

It took really stepping back from it because I just believed he didn’t mean it that way. But obviously there are certain words and phrases, no one else uses it any other way. That was eye-opening.

My kids are getting older. A year has passed, and what am I supposed to do with my life? What does God want me to do with my life? What about my children? What’s best for them? These are questions that I find are very circular. I can answer them all.

THE PERSON I THOUGHT I WAS MARRIED TO NEVER EXISTED

Hannah: Obviously, God wouldn’t want anything bad for me. What’s best for me and what keeps me safe is best for my children. I do know that.

Anne: We know God wants you to be safe . Not knowing what the specifics of that are, is okay.

Hannah: I don’t think anyone is like calling me up and pressuring me or anything like that. But people in your community check in, they ask how are you and you’re Chuck? And they’re asking if we’re back together yet. Or have we been to counseling for cheating? I think there’s always that kind of pressure. I have been realizing that it is mostly my own view. Because ultimately, I don’t know what other people think.

I don’t know what actually goes on in their brains. I just know what I think they think and what I think they think often is how I see the world. Even when this first happened, I knew I would tell me to leave. I knew that pretty much instantly, because I’ve had so many conversations with different people.

My own parents were divorced. My dad married his affair partner. I wanted to avoid divorce, I did everything to find a good guy, looked out for all the warning signs, or so I thought. It seems like I am living the worst version of life possible, the worst nightmare come true. And the acceptance of living every day grieving the fact that this person I thought I was married to never existed. And the man that’s before me now is this person I don’t even know. I don’t even recognize. It’s hard to reconcile that this is the guy who’s made all these choices.

ONCE A CHEATER, ALWAYS A CHEATER?

Hannah: Part of that for me is once a cheater, always a cheater. People say this. It’s not that I believe he can’t change or won’t change, or even that he’s going to do it again. That resonates with me. The once that cheater always cheater. Not just because of the stigma, but because to me, it’s the same thing as a murderer. I know that sounds extreme, but even if you just killed the one guy, we’re not gonna stop calling you a murderer.

Like it has that impact on people’s lives, it changes how we see you to the point where you just earned yourself a new name. It’s the type of thing that doesn’t go away. We as a society try to rehabilitate these people. But if you’re the person who knew that person who did that, they’re a murderer in your mind, just because of how it changed your view. You didn’t know they had the capacity to do that thing, and now that you know that you can’t unknown that even if they never do it again.

Anne: It’s a character issue. There are a lot of people in this world who never do that, like ever.

Hannah: Exactly.

Anne: I’ve never cheated on my husband or lied him for seven years. Good people, when they’re making good decisions, they never do that. And shouldn’t need counseling for cheating.

AN EBOLA ANALOGY FOR COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I fully believe that people can change with or without counseling for cheating. Maybe that is not the right thing for someone who is an abuse advocate to say, but I just believe it in my bones. I can’t not believe it.

The way that I view it is more like, I don’t know if you’ve heard my Ebola analogy. My analogy is Ebola is a thing that you can get treatment for and that you can heal from. But nobody would say hey, move in with this person, or sleep in the same bed with a person who has Ebola, ever, ever, ever. That person’s literally gonna be isolated until they legit do not have Ebola anymore and so I think that that’s the way I think of it.

Is that if they have a little bit of Ebola. I’m not going to be around them. So like my ex for example, he still lies. If he didn’t, he would do some things differently. Like there’s some things that he would be doing with our children that I would be able to see with my own eyeballs. He pays zero and when I say zero I mean legit zero child support, zero alimony, zero things for our children. His relationship with them stinks. The way that he interacts with them stinks. So I can see he still has Ebola right now. So it’s not like I’m gonna be like, oh I can hang out with you now.

Hannah: So I guess the limitations for myself are that like everyone thought he was a great father, a great husband, myself included. And he was involved and he did do all the things. Like we prayed together every day.

Anne: So did we.

THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE IS THE CHOICES HE MADE

Hannah: Can’t tell that he had Ebola in this case. It’s like maybe he has Ebola and he’s just hiding it very well.

Anne: Yeah. I love your point about the murderer. It’s okay to be like, you know what? I don’t really wanna be with someone who’s murdered somebody. So if you were dating someone new, And you said I don’t really want to be with someone who lied to their wife for 4 years and had an affair. And used pornography the whole time That would also apply to him. That’s also fine to say.

So just because people can change doesn’t mean that you owe them anything. It doesn’t mean you have to stick around. It doesn’t mean any of that.

Hannah: Yeah, exactly. The the crux of the issue for me is the choices you’ve made and even if those are in the past. That does bring it back to the marriage counseling for cheating thing. There’s no timeline for these things so you might be rebuilding trust for the next 40 years or till you die. Obviously some people are going to be like I’m not here for that, that’s too hard. When someone has broken your trust so deeply you might always have that catch in your gut, oh, what if?

Anne: It might not even be rebuilding either, it might all be manipulation. This question of are they still lying or not? Even if they’re not can I view them differently now? All of that is hard to process. And there is no right answer and that’s also the hard thing. It would be much easier to be like, if this is here and this is here and this is there then this what I should do.

EVERYBODY’S SITUATION IS DIFFERENT

Anne: Nothing that we do we do at BTR is like that counseling for cheating. Because everybody’s situation is different. Everybody has a different feeling for what they want to do with their life. The only thing I care about is that women know what emotional safety is and that’s their top priority. And they’re working toward that in whatever form that takes for them.

The other thing I really care about is that women are living their own life. There is a part in the workshop that I love. That’s like what are your dreams, what are your goals? What do you want to do with your life? Knowing that it literally is your one life. When you’re with someone who’s lying to it really feels like your life, my life is on hold. Helping women in whatever way overcome that so that they can start building the life that they want to live.

Hannah: Yes, It’s helpful obviously hearing other people’s stories and trying to work through. I do recognize that everything I’m going through now is through this somewhat narrow lens of my own experience. Some people feel a lot differently, because their experience was different. It’s not a one size fits all.

I was very active in the community and obviously it blind-sided me, just having to take time off from all the things I was involved in. I told him, I’m not explaining this to anyone. If you wanna be accountable, if you wanna prove yourself, go ahead I don’t care. I’m not policing you, I’m not doing anything. I’m just gonna take a step back from everything. I didn’t want to be the person checking his phone. ‘ Cause in my mind there’s no point.

I CAN’T CONTROL YOU IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Hannah: I can’t control you. You hid this so well for so long. You were already pretending to be open and transparent. Also you already let me go through your phone you already pretended like you had nothing to hide. So with his job, he travels. I knew where you were before cause you were where you said you were I just didn’t know you were with someone. You could have a whole second family and I wouldn’t know. There is no point in me trying.

He said he genuinely wanted to change, that he didn’t want to be that person anymore. He’s like, I don’t deserve to be with you. I don’t know.

Anne: I know that could either be true or it could be manipulation. In your case, the way that you’re feeling right now, for you, it doesn’t matter and the reason I’m saying that is because even if he is telling the truth you can still make different decisions. Just because he told the truth doesn’t mean that you owe him something. Or that you have to go to counseling for cheating.

As a Christian myself, in the scriptures over and over it talks about forgiveness in the context of debt. That’s what Jesus is talking about, He’s like forgive the people indebted to you so that you’re not stressed out all the time, By like hey you owe me money, you owe me money. If you forgive the debt they can go on their way and you never have to see them again.

He owes you a good marriage. If you forgive him, you could rip up the contract and be like, I’m forgiving you of the debt that you owe me of a good marriage and we can move apart.

THE GOOD NEWS

Anne: In the scriptures forgiveness is a way of moving away from someone, not toward them. So I think it’s weird that so many Christians have interpreted it that way when it’s continually used in the context of debt. There’s just different ways of processing it and you will figure it out. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and whatever the right thing is for you. You will do it. That’s the good news.

Hannah: Well, thank you.

Anne: Well, you are awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with me to talk about cheating and counseling for cheating today, Hannah.

Hannah: Thank you for having me. It’s been really helpful And I hope that this conversation helps other women who come and find your channel. I know that your channel has been really helpful for me. It’s been wonderful meeting you and talking to you. So thanks for everything you do, Anne.

Anne: Thank you.

Is ONLINE BETRAYAL CHEATING?

Anne: And now you’re gonna be introduced to my mom. The first time I aired this, women were like, “I love your mom. She’s awesome.” And I love her too.

So a lot of women wonder if their husband is “just” looking at inappropriate media online is that cheating and do we need counseling for cheating? I think it is, and my mom thinks it is. In fact, the word we use is adultery. And so here’s a conversation with my mom about why a husband secretly using inappropriate media online is actually, and technically adultery. Some husband’s actually secretly film their wives.

My mom is joining me today because lately she’s been on a soap box, an awesome soap box. That we should talk more about how inappropriate media isn’t just viewing videos, or pictures. It almost always involves self-pleasure.

It involves the bonding chemicals that you release during intercourse. I have a section of this in my book that will be coming out soon, about how masturbation is always part of the equation.

COUNSELING FOR CHEATING? It’s CHEATING Because Of What He’s Actually Doing

Anne: Can you explain why you think that instead of calling it what we normally do, we should just say virtual sex?

Mom: Well, the reason I thought it’s important is because a lot of the world doesn’t think it involves anything else other than just looking.

But when they look at those pictures, there are real women who had their picture taken. They’re somebody’s mom, they’re somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister. They are real women. The other thought I had is that, usually in connection with the it, men masturbate. Just like Anne said at the opening, that involves the same chemicals. The same hormonal response that a man would have with a live woman.

So, I just felt instead of everybody saying, well, avoid exploitative media, blah, blah, blah. You need to call it virtual sex. Because that’s what it is. Back when I was younger, many men used phone sex. That’s what they called it, phone sex. They would call on the phone, it was a real woman, and she was responding in real time. Of course, he would be masturbating at the same time. So that was where I came from. There wasn’t talk about counseling for cheating.

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS ABOUT ONLINE BETRAYAL

Mom: And then also the quote in Matthew, I think it’s in chapter 5, and I believe it’s verse 28, where it says, If a man lusts after a woman, he has already committed adultery in his heart. That isn’t the focus in counseling for cheating.

Anne: Many people don’t think that it’s adultery. But if you combine it with masturbation to create a sexual experience that someone’s having or performing with another person or thing. In this case, with a virtual scenario, they are actually having sex with a computer.

Mom: Yeah, you wouldn’t say computer. That conjures up all kinds of other issues, but no, I mean …

Anne: It’s not just a picture though. it’s a video.

Mom: A video of a real person, yes. They’re just providing their own physical stimulation.

ONLINE BETRAYAL Is Adultery

Anne: Through the masturbation part. My Mom’s idea, and I liked it, is for all of us rather than saying pornography is to say virtual sex all the time. Which is gonna be hard because everyone says pornography. But I’ve started saying it, and it’s actually been kind of cool. Like the responses I’ve received from the few people I’ve said it to so far. That virtual sex is adultery. And what includes virtual sex isn’t just a virtual reality, like goggles that you would wear. But actually viewing anything and masturbating is virtual sex. That’s what it is. Why do you think people think it’s not adultery?

Mom: I think they have in mind that it’s just this innocent thing. On the man’s part, I guess I should say, but it doesn’t involve a real person in real time. But these women, many of them, are either sex trafficked. Or forced into doing this by virtue of drug abuse or slavery.

Anne: Regardless of how they got there.

Mom: Right.

Anne: They’re a real person.

Mom: Yes, they are a real person.

Anne: And the man still has real, actual sex with that person. That he does not know, that has no name, that’s on the film. The other thing is that he actually has real sex with himself.

HOW Soft Language HideS HIS ONLINE Betrayal IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Mom: Maybe I’m wrong, maybe when people hear that he just uses this stuff all the time, they don’t view it as innocent, just looking at a picture type of thing.

Anne: Or a video.

Mom: Or a video, yeah. But I think, this is my soap box here, it really is virtual sex. And we should call it what it really is, so that there’s no confusion about it.

Anne: When you think of a man sitting in front of a computer or his phone. Just looking at it.

Anne: People do not envision him looking at their phone or computer while masturbating. Because who wants to think about that?

Mom: Yeah.

Anne: No one.

Mom: Yeah, it’s too awkward, it’s too uncomfortable. Many people have trouble even saying the word masturbation.

Anne: Right

Mom: It’s not a comfortable thing.

Anne: No, so it makes sense that when you say it, that’s what people envision. That they’re looking at their phone or computer.

Mom: Many people in the world, me not being one of them, think masturbation is fine. So, that’s the other issue. It’s not just that we don’t see them as maybe not having sex. But they don’t view that as “sex” when it really is. It involves the same hormones, the same body responses.

Anne: They’re having sex with themselves.

Mom: Yes.

Religious Perspectives On ONLINE BETRAYAL

Anne: We want to know what you think about this. We would welcome your comments. If you relate, comment below. Do you think it’s adultery and why?

Mom: When it involves someone in a committed relationship.

Anne: If they’re not in a committed relationship, is it fornication? Yes. In my opinion. If you are a religious person and believe in the commandments and law of chastity, then it would be fornication.

It’s either fornication or adultery, but in neither of those cases, in my opinion. Is it okay. Maybe you disagree. We’d love to hear your thoughts on it and counseling for cheating. Again If you relate, comment below.

We’d also like you to share this on social media, see what other people think. You’re going to get a lot of people who think it’s crazy, and that’s okay. But that’s what we’re here for. So many people don’t know what is exploitative. To validate women who feel this way, and let you know that if you do feel this way, we feel the same way too. You’re in good company.

Mom: Or bad company.

Anne: Or you’re in very bad company. We’re such an evil influence.

Mom: Dangerous.

Anne: I know. We’re laughing because people call my ideas dangerous a lot of the time. So, it’s so dangerous to say that exploitative media is adultery. Woo! When Christ himself said it. In what, Matthew?

Mom: Matthew chapter 5.

Anne: I love my Mom.

What We’ve Learned About ONLINE AND EMOTIONAL BETRAYAL

Anne: I’m super grateful that she came on today, and I love her opinion that we should start saying virtual sex.

If you agree with our stance, that it’s adultery. And is lying emotional abuse? If you agree with us, maybe because your husband does this with women online, and you need support, and you totally get it. You know what we’re talking about.

We’re here for you. There are many so-called betrayal trauma therapists, coaches or groups out there. But they don’t approach using exploitative media or infidelity, as an abuse issue. Or they try to “treat” both the abuser and the victim in the same setting, which is unethical. BTR groups sessions are different.

We get it. We never victim blame, and we are here to support you. So if you relate to anything we said in this episode, check out our daily support group schedule. We’d love to see you in a group session today.