Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red tabletop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the Facebook
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review on
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts. On this Red Table Talk, I'm asked a lot.
Speaker 1: Was your infidelity in your relationship with well world renowned
Speaker 1: couple therapists A Stair Parrel comes to the Red Table.
Speaker 1: So you've been really instrumental in my marriage. Every relationship
Speaker 1: has a scorecard, and when distinct happens, the scorecard gets
Speaker 1: revisited and the circumstances where I was the cheater, I
Speaker 1: was always looking for something. Yes, Plus our Urtt family
Speaker 1: opens up. Sometimes you just don't know what's wrong with you. Alright, girl, girl, girl,
Speaker 1: our girl A stair ye prel. Yeah, today to talk
Speaker 1: about infidelity, and it's gonna be a good one. It
Speaker 1: is gonna be a good one. Once you start engaging
Speaker 1: in relationships, in romantic relationships, you either at some point
Speaker 1: in time are gonna cheat or have been cheated on.
Speaker 1: You'll be in either one of those positions or both. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I've been on both sides, and so have I.
Speaker 1: I had a really interesting experience. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I had to relationships before will that were kind of
Speaker 1: serious to me where I got cheated on, which really
Speaker 1: broke my heart. And then I cheated on somebody that
Speaker 1: I really cared about. And I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: me cheating on someone was more devastating than me being
Speaker 1: cheated on. Really, yes, it actually taught me to forgive
Speaker 1: when I got cheated on because I understood, and what
Speaker 1: I understood most is that it didn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with me. Because when I had to look at
Speaker 1: myself and understand why I did it right, I realized
Speaker 1: it had absolutely nothing to do with my partners at all.
Speaker 1: When I look over my history of relationships, I would
Speaker 1: always say, oh, I'm a one man woman, and then
Speaker 1: I would look over and be like, wait, my hold relationships. Like,
Speaker 1: particularly when I took my fourth step in my recovery process,
Speaker 1: I was like, uh, no, you're not missing, No you're
Speaker 1: not you know. So, like I said, I've been on
Speaker 1: both sides of it. But what I also recognized too
Speaker 1: was like, even when my relationships failed, typically it was
Speaker 1: not over that. Like I never got cheated on and
Speaker 1: felt like I'm out, I'm not tolerating that, you know,
Speaker 1: which is what what I constantly tell myself in my
Speaker 1: head or if he ever write all of that. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, until you get there,
Speaker 1: you really don't know. You don't know what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I found that, you know, in the circumstances where I
Speaker 1: was the cheater, I was always looking for something, something else,
Speaker 1: that there was something lacking in the relationship, and not
Speaker 1: that it was not that I'm blaming the other partner,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, but yeah, I just don't feel
Speaker 1: like I was just out here, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: hurt people and just being messy. So we got somebody
Speaker 1: here today that I am so excited yes to be
Speaker 1: talking to. And we've been trying to get this woman
Speaker 1: to the table forever since the beginning of our show.
Speaker 1: Her insights are just powerful and um deep and progressive,
Speaker 1: king poking, and she's been really instrumental in my marriage
Speaker 1: to Will. Will he introduced meeting in captivity to me,
Speaker 1: and then I introduced the state of affairs to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we are her big guest fans, and you are
Speaker 1: now her big fans too. I am a stair parrel
Speaker 1: is a world renowned psychotherapist who specializes in marriage and infidelity.
Speaker 1: She's the author of two best selling books we have
Speaker 1: read them cover to cover, a groundbreaking podcasts and making headlines,
Speaker 1: and as a couple's counselor for over thirty years, her
Speaker 1: unconventional insight has helped thousands of couples. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: so wonderful to see you. We're so excited to have you.
Speaker 1: I actually think you've had conversations with Will, haven't you. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know if you knew yes, yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: definitely he shared that with me for sure. That's right,
Speaker 1: because you are. Yes. So, the latest stats that I've
Speaker 1: heard is that fifties seven percent of men and fifty
Speaker 1: four percent of women have cheated on their partners. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us why the typical view has always been well,
Speaker 1: because there's something listening in the relationship. Because they're unhappy,
Speaker 1: they're miserable, they're lonely, they're depressed, they're wants a cheater,
Speaker 1: always a cheatter. They have no morals because they feel neglected,
Speaker 1: because there is indifference in the relationship. There is a
Speaker 1: myriad of discontent within relationships that may propel people to
Speaker 1: respond to the kindness of strangers. What are the alternatives
Speaker 1: of divorce? Everybody thinks that as soon as you find
Speaker 1: out there's an affair, you gotta get a divorce. I
Speaker 1: am not of that persuasion because I think that there
Speaker 1: are many relational betrayals, contempt and neglect and violence and indifference,
Speaker 1: and nobody tells people get the hell out, get the
Speaker 1: hell out, And especially on women, it's the real new pressure.
Speaker 1: God forbid, you still would love the person who actually,
Speaker 1: you know, cheated on you. Maybe that person is a
Speaker 1: lot of things and cheated. That's like the shame of staying.
Speaker 1: You know, now that you can go, you gotta get out, right.
Speaker 1: I so relate to that, because you know, I'm asked
Speaker 1: a lot about their infidelity in your relationship with Will,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, But there have been other portrayals
Speaker 1: of the heart that have been far bigger then I
Speaker 1: could even think in regards to an infidelity situation. When
Speaker 1: you talk about contempt or resentment or what have you, neglect,
Speaker 1: it can just tear your world apart. So many of
Speaker 1: the people that I see have been faithful for decades
Speaker 1: and then one day they crossed the line that they
Speaker 1: never thought they would cross, right, you know, why would
Speaker 1: they risk losing everything that they built for what? You know?
Speaker 1: The idea is that if you have everything that you
Speaker 1: wanted them, there should be no reason to go looking elsewhere. Hence,
Speaker 1: if you go looking elsewhere, there is something missing. Either
Speaker 1: it's in you, there is in your partner, but there
Speaker 1: must be a deficiency somewhere. One person whould treats on
Speaker 1: another a perpetrator and a victim, a good person and
Speaker 1: a bad person. And it's a lot more more than less.
Speaker 1: And if you wear more, whatever, smarter, toller, gender, richer,
Speaker 1: more powerful, it wouldn't have happened. It's not the case, right.
Speaker 1: You might be married to someone who is just a
Speaker 1: innate adventurer, like there's just certain kinds of desires within
Speaker 1: of that that had nothing to do with you per se.
Speaker 1: But there are personal desires that need to be um
Speaker 1: explored in some manner. And even if it's not necessary
Speaker 1: an exploration that lasts forever, it's an exploration that needs
Speaker 1: to happen to get through a passage of some kind.
Speaker 1: That is an important idea because, specifically for me, in
Speaker 1: regards to creating now, redefining my marriage as a life
Speaker 1: partnership was the necessity of autonomy for myself and for
Speaker 1: will you know, and finding the core of us that
Speaker 1: wanted to be together outside of the constraints of the
Speaker 1: traditional ideas of marriage because they weren't working for us.
Speaker 1: We went on that journey of of that life partnership
Speaker 1: to find that autonomy and to find the true authentic
Speaker 1: bond outside of obligation. I don't want you to be obligated.
Speaker 1: What part of this is the part that you actually
Speaker 1: want and the part that you want to be devoted to?
Speaker 1: And what part of it do I want and want
Speaker 1: to be devoted to outside of what we've been told
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be obligated to. What were you're told
Speaker 1: you have to do? You know, you have to be
Speaker 1: a perfect wife. You have to be that source that
Speaker 1: supports his dreams no matter what it is, whatever he
Speaker 1: wants to build, you're there to support that. Our whole
Speaker 1: life looked like his dream and the title for that
Speaker 1: your go to us and his muse his Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: you know I'm his energy source. That's great, but but
Speaker 1: I've got to create part of this life that is
Speaker 1: designed and looks like me. And when you said that,
Speaker 1: did he was he receptive or he felt abandoned. He
Speaker 1: felt abandoned at first. He felt really abandoned, because if
Speaker 1: you take a little bit of autonomy, you may leave
Speaker 1: alto exactly. And that's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: stayed in it the way I did for so long,
Speaker 1: because I was so terrified. First of all, you never
Speaker 1: want to hurt the person that you love. I never
Speaker 1: want to create instability in that way. So I stayed
Speaker 1: in that position for so long because I just didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to say it. It was one
Speaker 1: of those truths when I say that the truths get deeper.
Speaker 1: That was that was a core truth that took years
Speaker 1: for me to just go can't. But you just made
Speaker 1: a fantastic distinction. It's not the same staying in the
Speaker 1: marriage versus in a role, right, Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 1: I have this way. I always think of relationships. For me,
Speaker 1: relationships are stories, right, So I think you pick a partner,
Speaker 1: you pick a story, right, But then sometimes you find
Speaker 1: yourself recruited for a play that you didn't audition for exactly,
Speaker 1: And it's the rule that you want to change, and
Speaker 1: people confuse changing the role with wanting to change the
Speaker 1: whole relationship and leave right. Not only did I want
Speaker 1: to change the role, but I wanted to change the play.
Speaker 1: And once you change the life story, you can create
Speaker 1: a new lost exactly exactly. And that's exactly what has occurred.
Speaker 1: And it's been beautiful, but when I tell you, it
Speaker 1: has been one of the most excruciating processes of my life.
Speaker 1: I wanted to personally break out of will needing to
Speaker 1: be something for me because I felt like it was
Speaker 1: so unfair and a lot of it had to do
Speaker 1: with my father issues. I just realized one day, I
Speaker 1: was like, this man is not your father. He's not
Speaker 1: stop it or he's not meant to be everything your
Speaker 1: father was exactly, and that was the thing, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you gotta grow up, you gotta be a woman,
Speaker 1: that little girl. Trauma does not work here, and that
Speaker 1: was the work I had, he must have. I mean,
Speaker 1: usually it takes two to tango, So if you know
Speaker 1: that's what is that, That's where we connected was our
Speaker 1: childhood traumas exactly, And in my codependency, I was like,
Speaker 1: don't you worry. I'll take all your feeling and emotion.
Speaker 1: You don't have to deal with that. I'll deal with
Speaker 1: that for you. And that was the secret contract that
Speaker 1: I had made with him. And then I had to
Speaker 1: make the decision, one of the most painful decisions, was
Speaker 1: I gotta give that back to you. I can't do
Speaker 1: that for you any longer, and I can't ask you
Speaker 1: to do it for me. We're gonna have to be
Speaker 1: in this thing together as individuals, and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to be real grown and this because they ain't working
Speaker 1: like this. We got to do our own work. It's interestingly,
Speaker 1: when people do their own work, they're able to be
Speaker 1: more there for the other. Yes, I can be there
Speaker 1: for you because I'm not busy doing it from the
Speaker 1: place that says I'll be the custodian of everything that
Speaker 1: you don't want to deal with and then be upset
Speaker 1: about it and then ask you to reward me for it.
Speaker 1: That was that. That was the cycle right there. That
Speaker 1: was my cycle. And then I went into market and
Speaker 1: his will then be, look what I've done for you?
Speaker 1: You know, every relationship has a scorecard. Yes, right, what
Speaker 1: you've done, what you gave up, what I gave up,
Speaker 1: you know, And when this thing happens, the scorecard gets revisited,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of things that I was willing
Speaker 1: to do for us just because that I know I'm not.
Speaker 1: You know, they never said now we are going to redistribute,
Speaker 1: you know, the need. It's assessment in our relationship. Who
Speaker 1: gets what? When? What attention? No, I'm not okay anymore
Speaker 1: with your being out in ten o'clock at night every
Speaker 1: night and me taking care of everything that took the
Speaker 1: house looks so beautiful, So you can be really proud
Speaker 1: of me and do absolutely not so if you need
Speaker 1: they're saying French, that's you know, because I think people
Speaker 1: don't really I think, and you talk about it in
Speaker 1: the book that people are afraid to even sit down
Speaker 1: and have a discussion, you know, but same after they
Speaker 1: have a crisis. Yes, not before, and even like that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't my case. It was after the fact that
Speaker 1: I had the discussion. I'm glad I did, but and
Speaker 1: what was your discussion? We went into a relationship with
Speaker 1: the automatic expectation that sexual exclusivity was expected, like this
Speaker 1: is how, this is how it is. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: be getting married, you you're sexually exclusive. You're not going
Speaker 1: to be having sex with other people, you know, And
Speaker 1: I don't think people really talk about what what is needed?
Speaker 1: What does it mean? What is being exclusive or not?
Speaker 1: You know? I think it's important to understand why is
Speaker 1: that conversation so difficult? Because I meet you and I
Speaker 1: fall in love with you, and I think I have
Speaker 1: found the one and the one means especially since I'm
Speaker 1: not eighteen these days in the West and eight so
Speaker 1: I've had I've been around. Now you are the one
Speaker 1: for whom I'm going to delete my apps and you
Speaker 1: are going to fulfill every one of my needs. And
Speaker 1: how can I then say to you in the same
Speaker 1: breath I found the one. Let's talk about what would
Speaker 1: happen if we had desires for others? What do we
Speaker 1: do with our sexuality? Can we have a sexual health
Speaker 1: conversations about boundaries, about desire, about fantasies, about plastics, parents,
Speaker 1: is about trauma, but a lot of things now we
Speaker 1: don't because the minute I tell you I want to
Speaker 1: talk about anything that isn't you, You're gonna say what's
Speaker 1: wrong with me? You know, monogamy used to be one
Speaker 1: person for life. Today monogamy is one person at that time.
Speaker 1: You know, so I come to you. It's not like
Speaker 1: I have been exclusive. It's that that for you, I
Speaker 1: will stop being with anybody else. That's your importance. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we live with the model. The romantic ideal
Speaker 1: is a tenacious model, and that model today is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to have with you everything that
Speaker 1: I was supposed to get in traditional marriage. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be my co parents, and I'm going to have economic support,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be partners. But on top of it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be my best friend, and you're gonna be
Speaker 1: my confident, and you're gonna be my person, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna help me become the best version of myself. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to climb the Olympus with you. You know,
Speaker 1: so when this happens, it becomes the ultimate betrayal. It's
Speaker 1: always been painful, but today it has become the ultimate betrayal.
Speaker 1: It's the first time that we divorce because there is infidelity.
Speaker 1: At the time people talked about exclusivity or monogamy, it
Speaker 1: pretty much was an economic imposition on women. It had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with love. It was in order to
Speaker 1: know which are the children that I need to feed
Speaker 1: and who's going to get the cows when I die.
Speaker 1: Once we brought love into marriage, and once we brought
Speaker 1: sex to love, and we combined all of that with happiness. Now,
Speaker 1: when you cheat on me, it becomes a romantic crisis.
Speaker 1: It becomes an emotional betrayal. It's not just an economic betrayal.
Speaker 1: And now I start to think this whole thing that
Speaker 1: we created was a lie. You know, it's a fraud.
Speaker 1: The fifteen years we had together were just one big lie.
Speaker 1: As if everything you've therefore said is not true, and
Speaker 1: the whole thing comes crumbling down. R Wow. Infidelity is
Speaker 1: a subject that comes up a lot with our viewers.
Speaker 1: Most of you want advice, So we're bringing our viewers
Speaker 1: into today's conversation. So first up is Whitney and Dennis
Speaker 1: from Nashville. Hey, welcome, Thank you for having us. So
Speaker 1: me and my husband, I've been together going on nine years.
Speaker 1: Been about six years ago. I found out that he
Speaker 1: had had an affair. At first, I didn't forgive him
Speaker 1: because I felt really broken, But I decided that I
Speaker 1: was going to work really hard because of how good
Speaker 1: we are as a family. I mean, he is a
Speaker 1: very good teammate. We have worked really hard. He's shaking
Speaker 1: his head, yes, next to you. Definitely worked hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there are still times that he'll go out and
Speaker 1: I'll start to get anxiety and I'll get a little angry,
Speaker 1: and it kind of obsessed me. But you know, I
Speaker 1: brought upon myself, So I guess, like she is, We've
Speaker 1: done all this work, but what else could we do
Speaker 1: to regain like a hundred percent trust. The voice that
Speaker 1: you want him to be for you also exists inside
Speaker 1: of you, and it is a voice that says normal
Speaker 1: that you get triggered, that's not unusual. But you also
Speaker 1: can you can breathe, you can reassure yourself, you can
Speaker 1: remember what just happened two hours before. That lets you
Speaker 1: know that you are in a completely different place from
Speaker 1: where you were, and you bring yourself on the solid
Speaker 1: ground so that you can also calm your nervous system
Speaker 1: and deal with the trigger and not feel completely at
Speaker 1: the mercy of him. Hey, Dennis, do you have any
Speaker 1: clarity or understanding on why you might have cheated? I don't.
Speaker 1: I think it's more do I still have it at
Speaker 1: my age by other women? That yeah, got it? That
Speaker 1: makes sense. The more you tell her that she's inside
Speaker 1: of you in this beautiful way when you're not with her,
Speaker 1: and the less that she will only reach out to
Speaker 1: you when she's triggered, because it will be replaced by
Speaker 1: a caring connection versus a fear based connection. Carings fear
Speaker 1: based You really want to know if you still have it,
Speaker 1: show what real talk. Thank you so much that I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you being here for us today. What would
Speaker 1: you say are the key elements in the healing and
Speaker 1: forgiveness process? Okay, the first thing I do need to
Speaker 1: know is that you care about the fact that you
Speaker 1: hurt me, and that you can show me the appropriate
Speaker 1: guilt anymost. And now that you've already apologized, so what
Speaker 1: now you want to bring it up again? You know
Speaker 1: how many times we're gonna have to talk about this, No,
Speaker 1: how many times many many many times, because you have
Speaker 1: just fractured my reality and everything that I thought was
Speaker 1: is no more and I'm trying to piece it back together.
Speaker 1: And you need to do me the courtesy of answering
Speaker 1: the question, even if I'm asking it you ten times.
Speaker 1: And that's part of the healing process. That's you know,
Speaker 1: the old saying is that men are meant to be
Speaker 1: monogamous and that women are meant to be monogamous. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you hear that all times, that all the time, this
Speaker 1: idea that men want sex and women want love. We
Speaker 1: could look at it like that, but we could also
Speaker 1: see this. Men have historically and all over the world
Speaker 1: being given the permission to want sex and true sex.
Speaker 1: They have to access every other emotional need that is
Speaker 1: usually denied to them. It's the gate yes, love, connection, intimacy, attention, tenderness, surrender,
Speaker 1: you name it. Sex is the only way that they
Speaker 1: can legitimately receive any of those things. So of course
Speaker 1: it looks like all he wants is sex, but it's
Speaker 1: a code for everything else that is usually forbidden. And
Speaker 1: women have we received the language of love and intimacy,
Speaker 1: so that's what she needs to use in order to
Speaker 1: access her desires, her sensuality, her sexuality. Got it. Next
Speaker 1: on Skype is Jennifer from the Bay Area, and she
Speaker 1: has a question, Hey, Jennifer, what's on your mind? So
Speaker 1: me and my husband have been together for twelve years.
Speaker 1: Got it about four years ago we moved from the
Speaker 1: Bay Area to Las Vegas after he got laid off
Speaker 1: a couple of months later, I became depressed and I
Speaker 1: met a man at a bar and engaged in a
Speaker 1: one month affair with him. I don't really understand why
Speaker 1: I did it. It really rocked our relationship, right, so
Speaker 1: I need help understanding what he might be feeling so
Speaker 1: I can regain his trust. Tell me something. Did he
Speaker 1: find work again? Yes, because this happened at a moment
Speaker 1: when he felt particularly vulnerable and he felt that he
Speaker 1: had lost a lot of his value. What am I
Speaker 1: worth that I'm so easily replaceable that you can go
Speaker 1: and rock everything that we have with some dudes? Like
Speaker 1: who is this guy? You know? For that you would
Speaker 1: destroy everything that we have built? Is that all I
Speaker 1: mean for you? It's a real crisis of meaning. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: well there it is, Jennifer, I got it. Yea. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing story. Welcome, thank you. What
Speaker 1: have been found is the reason that women cheat? What
Speaker 1: they tell you all the time is it's not that
Speaker 1: I wanted to find another person. Is that I wanted
Speaker 1: to find another self. It's not that I wanted to
Speaker 1: leave the person that I'm with. I have a great husband,
Speaker 1: he's a fantastic father, etcetera, etcetera. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: leave who I had become calm and relationships, committed relationships, marriage,
Speaker 1: family life. However beautiful it is, also sometimes can feel deadening, numbing, constraining, flattening,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think we hear women talk about
Speaker 1: that all the time. Should you talk about how you
Speaker 1: lost yourself? That's what I was a mother, I was
Speaker 1: a wife. I was taking care of his mother. I
Speaker 1: was taking care of my parents. This is the first time,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how long that I did something
Speaker 1: that was just for me. Okay, Renee is next on Skype. Hey, Hi,
Speaker 1: welcome to the table. Hello, Hello, hi Data, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on the show. I've been involved with a
Speaker 1: younger man for about three years and he was separated
Speaker 1: from his wife, started dating and never did I ever
Speaker 1: imagine that I was gonna be the other woman, but
Speaker 1: that's what That's what happened. And then he decided that
Speaker 1: he was gonna go back to his wife. My heart,
Speaker 1: but like somebody just ripped it out my chest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we stop dating, and I'm a love with thing right
Speaker 1: and I was just wondering what should I do because
Speaker 1: people want to stay in touch with me. He and
Speaker 1: called me all the time. They so will be different.
Speaker 1: If you ask his wife, Yeah, I don't think she
Speaker 1: would welcome you to stay as close to him when
Speaker 1: they are just trying to rebuild. It's gonna be hard
Speaker 1: for you because you probably had hopes for more with him,
Speaker 1: and so the idea that we're going to just stay
Speaker 1: friends you can't not yet you're still you know, a
Speaker 1: month ago, you were still hoping that maybe you would
Speaker 1: have a life with him and for him. You know,
Speaker 1: if she finds out that he stays in touch with you,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a mess. At this moment. You
Speaker 1: need clear boundaries and that means you need a lot
Speaker 1: of support. You need other people. You reach out to
Speaker 1: other friends who are there for you because it's a loss.
Speaker 1: It's a big loss. Yeah, thank you, appreciate all your advice. Wow,
Speaker 1: how would you define infidelity? I think that's the heart
Speaker 1: of infidelity is the secrecy. The secrecy because you could
Speaker 1: have the same behavior in a negotiated, consensual way and
Speaker 1: at this a different story. The center of infidelity is
Speaker 1: the fact that there is a secret. Is the secrecy
Speaker 1: the aspect that creates the feeling of betrayals and the
Speaker 1: violation of trust and the line and the duplicity and
Speaker 1: the crazy making and the gas lighting. There's a secret.
Speaker 1: When you have a secret, it's like a mushroom. So
Speaker 1: if you won't tell me where you've been between six
Speaker 1: and eight, then you stop telling me where you've been
Speaker 1: between four and six, and distinct grows and it takes
Speaker 1: on a life of its own, and it lives there
Speaker 1: in the center of our life. And later that's why
Speaker 1: you start to retell the whole story. And when this
Speaker 1: was happening, and this was was this at the same time,
Speaker 1: and where we at the table and you were looking
Speaker 1: with your phone underneath while you were singing like me
Speaker 1: happy Birthday? And what the secret? The fact that there's
Speaker 1: a whole other story going on in the midst of
Speaker 1: a place where I think I know what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to not know the future. It's another
Speaker 1: thing to question your entire past. Yeah, that's real talk
Speaker 1: our right now, we have Victoria's on Skype with a question,
Speaker 1: Hey Victoria, how are you? I'm so good, Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us today. What's on your mind? I was
Speaker 1: dating someone for three or four years. They were like
Speaker 1: my high school sweetheart. I thought we were gonna get
Speaker 1: married everything, but I was actually waiting to get married
Speaker 1: to be with someone. So I had like a promise
Speaker 1: ring and everything. H it got rocky after two years
Speaker 1: because I, like I said, I wanted to wait. I
Speaker 1: went out of town and apparently he didn't want to wait. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he tells me that he had sex with this girl.
Speaker 1: I never understood why I was cheated on because I
Speaker 1: felt like I was like the best version of myself
Speaker 1: to this person. Even now, it makes me emotional, not bad,
Speaker 1: because sometimes you just don't know, like what's wrong with you,
Speaker 1: and you're like, why I'm not good enough for this person?
Speaker 1: But then about two months three months, I started seeing
Speaker 1: someone else. But you still have that memory in your head.
Speaker 1: Part of me just still feels like at any moment
Speaker 1: you could just cheat on me. I just want to
Speaker 1: feel okay and stop feeling so like and secure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the question is what do you do when you've
Speaker 1: left a relationship and you meet somebody by you and
Speaker 1: you carry the legacy of the previous wound into your relationship.
Speaker 1: I think it's very very common. I mean, we carry
Speaker 1: so many legacies and wounds from prior relationships. I think
Speaker 1: the most important thing is really to make a distinction
Speaker 1: between I can't trust you versus my trust was broken,
Speaker 1: and I bring a vulnerability about that with me, right,
Speaker 1: I carry this and you need to know that I'm
Speaker 1: not and it's going to take some time for me
Speaker 1: to really let go of that and feel calm again,
Speaker 1: be in your arms and not start thinking. And it's
Speaker 1: really about holding a lot of it, and it's it's
Speaker 1: one thing is to own it and one thing is
Speaker 1: to project it onto the other person. Thank you. That's
Speaker 1: real talk right there. The conversation about what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do when we have these infidelities, how do we
Speaker 1: deal with lies, how do we deal with deception, how
Speaker 1: do we deal with roaming deserves, how do we deal
Speaker 1: with sexual secrets, etcetera has to become a part of
Speaker 1: a conversation. Conversation and that's the challenge to our ur
Speaker 1: TT community to sit down and have these conversations now
Speaker 1: with your partner because it could be life changing to
Speaker 1: your relationship. Yes, thank you, thank you so glad. This
Speaker 1: has been really fantastic. You have no idea. This has
Speaker 1: been a true blessing to all out of us. Here.
Speaker 1: On the next Red Table Talk comment, what was that
Speaker 1: moment that made you decide I gotta talk to somebody
Speaker 1: like I was going through a pain. I had to
Speaker 1: get in the back seat to talk in private to
Speaker 1: the therapist, but I needed it right then and there.
Speaker 1: You've accomplished everything, but you're not a husband. I would
Speaker 1: like to be a husband. What's your ideal? Woman comments ladies.
Speaker 1: Let'sten up. Yes, we have a speria needed to talk
Speaker 1: about in facility. Wipe up. Thank you so much. Hey,
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk
Speaker 1: podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.