There's nothing more heartbreaking and absolutely disrespectful if I have to say. In a relationship than being lied to and cheered on by a partner that you have freaking loved and committed yourself to. While we make no freaking excuses for cheaters or for men who turn around and make themselves out to be the victim or blame the partner for their cheating, what we can do is understand the game and know what to look out for and then absolutely take our power and move accordingly. And homie my guest today, Sadiya Khan is a psychologist and relationship expert that is known to give the hard-fricing truth followed by those of reality for men and women to heal and start having healthier and happier connections with each other. In this two-part episode, Sadiya reveals how the heck we can love and still be cheated on anyway. Ladies, my homies, this is going to be really hard to hear but I promise you it's worth a listen so that you can get to the truth and then like I said just act accordingly. It's time to step into your power and you can actually start doing that by sharing this episode with any other female in your life that may be struggling with this exact thing. It's time for me to start bringing on even more powerful, freaking women with heartfelt no BS stories so that you can see what is possible and of course then become the hero of your own life. Stick around for part 2 with this PowerPack conversation with Sadiya Khan.. When they say I love you and she as much as that sounds like a paradox to us, unfortunately for them what that meant is... Now you're a psychologist who really focuses on actually helping a lot of men. Yes. And what I want to start today actually is why is it that a man can say he loves you, he can actually seem really happy in that relationship and then turn around and cheat on you? Weirdly, my experience, it is true. It's a dichotomy that I took me a really long time to understand because for me, in order to love me, you have to respect me. And cheating involves an element of disrespect that, you know, I'm sure that yourself as well, we don't really tolerate. But having worked with so many men over the years, what it is is that they can love you but have unmet needs. And with men, because communication isn't there for Tay, they don't like to communicate what these unmet needs are. So they outsource them in another environment. So when they say I love you and she, as much as that sounds like a paradox to us, unfortunately for them what that meant is I loved you, I didn't want to hurt you or upset you or tell you what was going on. So I just wanted to appease my own needs elsewhere at the expense of my relationship, which is not right, but it doesn't mean they didn't love their wife, which is really hard pill to swallow, but unfortunately in their world that's what it means. So how the, they think that's actually really brilliant way of breaking it down, but then how as women, when we're in a relationship, do we know that we can actually trust them? Because to your point, if you think that they're happy, if they're saying, oh my god, I love you, trust is a big frickin' thing in that relationship. And so how do you start to communicate that and how do you start to identify? Because I do think a guy has to take the responsibility as well that if you're not happy, you need to speak up. Absolutely. But if they don't, how do you start to navigate that situation? How do you maybe even try to help prevent that situation and how do you not take it as a personal thing? Or is it personal It's definitely not personal. In my experience of working with them, it's definitely not personal. How you know if you can trust them or not, one of the good ways to understand is looking at their value system before they met you. Now if they have a set of values where if they have unmet needs, the desire to have, feel desired or the desire to feel intimate with somebody exceeds their desire to remain in a monogamous relationship, then chances are at some stage they're going to risk the relationship. So you really have to look at their values as a person. Now if they're the type of person that if they want something they'll get it and they don't mind risking it all, then in the course of a relationship they can stray. But if they're the type of person who as much as they might want something, they recognise that the risk is not worth the cost and they're quite risk averse in general and they genuinely value their wife's well-being. That person will find it difficult. Even if his wife hasn't slept with him in a long time, has it made him feel special? If he cares about her well-being, he doesn't put his needs first. And so that guy is less likely to cheat. Now, as a woman, how you can navigate that is, you sometimes some women, especially after children, they forget that the man still has needs. They forget that I'm tired of she is and exhausted of she is. And so preoccupied, and this this is no floor of hers is just what happens when you become a mom. She naturally can forget that he needs a bit of attention, he needs a bit of love, he needs a bit of affection and in her in her attempt to become a mother and a fantastic mother she can often neglect her duties as a wife. So what happens is he doesn't want to say oh by the way can you stop looking after the kids and come back to me? So he might outsource it. How I recommend you navigate that is just as it's so difficult for women, but if you can make quality time to ask more open-ended questions to your partner, it makes a world of a difference. Rather than just what time you come in, can you pick up the kids, can you do this?

It's like how are you feeling?

Is everything okay? What's stressing you out?

You haven't been yourself. You stay tuned to your partner. They're less likely to stray. Doesn't mean they won't 100% and doesn't mean you're responsible, but they're less likely to stray. So it isn't personal, but what it is a reflection of is the communication has broken down in some way shape a form.

It is finding a time to reconnect, reconnect will prevent that from getting to an affair Okay, I love your honesty. I know what people are thinking at home right now in the comments They're saying why is it my responsibility? The guy should own it and actually I actually want to be the voice of saying You can't control them. You can't control if they're communicating, right?

Like people are home right now, please hear me.

This isn't to blame women,

but you can't control how the guy shows up. You can't force him to communicate. So I just say in that situation, what is it that I can do and choose to do or not do, right? I think that what you're doing right now, And it's going to be very tricky to navigate,

but I think it's super important.

What you're doing is you're saying,

this is the way the situation is.

This is how men feel.

Whether you like it or not.

Now as And it's going to be very tricky to navigate, but I think it's super important. What you're doing is you're saying, this is the way the situation is. This is how men feel. Whether you like it or not, now as women, at least if I have the choice to say, I'm going to ask my partner if there's any needs or I'm exhausted. No, I'm not going to ask him. Cool. Don't ask him. But just know the reality of what the potential outcome is going to be. So now I'll say that in that stage. One goes back to something you just said about the value system. So how do you start to identify that value system in them? I've heard you say that you can also ask some questions about their childhood that reveal how they are today. So take me through what sort of things that we can ask our partners if we're dating or if we're starting or we're already in a relationship with someone to start identifying what those values are. Okay, so great question by the way, but what I would recommend is how you identify a man's values is you assess their kind of opinions on things that are not related to them. What I mean by this is one of the great things about our jobs is that we can kind of say, oh, someone said this today, what do you think about that?

And so you might want to say something like, I read this article about men feeling neglected

after a baby's born. What do you think about that? Or my colleague at work said that he feels like his wife doesn't want to have sex with him anymore. What do you feel about that? or one common thing that a lot of people don't talk about

is how men sometimes lose sexual desire

for their wife after marriage, after living together.

They might have been really rampant before,

but they kind of lose their desire and they're not chasing their wife for sex the way they used to. And these kind of conversations, how you identify as values, is the ability to be honest. Now if you're with somebody who will tell you the truth, even if it hurts you, you luck. And as much as that might sound difficult, it actually creates emotional achievement. He's teaching you how to love him and you do the same with him. But if you have a partner who is unable to express himself, what will happen is he'll find an outlet to express himself. Hopefully that will be a healthy outlet, but sometimes it can be an unhealthy outlet. So how you assess his value system is you assess how honest he is, even if he does he stick to the truth, even if it affects some people. And if he's the type of person who truth matters to him, then chances are he'll be more honest and you can create a connection that will prevent infidelity. So I love the idea of asking someone the questions to see how they're going to respond. And then I've heard you say that it's actually more likely that when a guy becomes a father, they're more likely to cheat. Is that why? Because they start to, do they feel the guilt of putting it on the mother? And so they're just like, if I just go take my needs over here, now I don't have to make her feel bad that she's not giving it up. Absolutely, unfortunately what happens is they recognize it is a selfish desire to expect her to be breastfeeding looking after the baby just pushed a baby out and then going look after him. They realize they know there's a part of them that can't always expect it but they want it. They miss the woman they had pre-kits because women do change after children and they become exhausted because children are exhausted. They become preoccupied with the child. They find it difficult to just kind of forget the child and just go for dinner and just think about dinner. Whereas for a man they can go and play football, leave the baby and they can think about football. What they're doing is what they're thinking about. So they miss that one-to-one connection with their wife so much. They really miss it, but they don't know how to say it. And because they don't know how to say it, but they do know how to outsource it, they'll look for somewhere else. And a lot of the time after children is when men turn to pornography more, or they'll turn to escorts, or they'll turn to webcam women more, because they actually don't want to put in the effort of falling in love with another woman, but they do want to feel intimacy again. They're looking for either a sense of vulnerability or emotional connection with somebody else, especially with these webcam girls. They talk to you and so on and so forth. So I'd want to know what is the emotional and feeling he's seeking from pornography that he isn't being able to get from us. And I would consider it a bit aponigree because it has a trickle down effect on the relationship. They either find it more difficult to get aroused by their partner or they're less physically attracted. So because it has an impact on my connection with him, I would consider it a bit of cheating. Would you consider it? No, so Tom and I have very open communication.

And so we talk about porn all the time.

And sometimes, we have a wall, don't ever get offended if he asks for sex, but don't ever get offended if I say no. And so because we've got that wall, if I say no, I still want my husband to have sex. So I'm just like, go watch porn, babe. Like I'm too tired. And so because we have that communication now I think it'd be very different if he didn't approach me

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