Welcome back my homies to part two. Alright, are you ready for this mind-blowing, cheetah exposing trauma healing conversation with the world renowned psychologist, my woman, my girl, Dr. Romney? Now, if you've been cheated on, you already know how painful and heartbreaking it actually can get. You question yourself, this is something you could have done better. Was she more attractive? Oh my god, that negative voice, the spiraling of questions and endless doubt and uncertainty will just never end. And the broken trust doesn't want to actually heal. Well, the second half of this conversation, they were about to get into it, maybe exactly what you need to start healing and realize it was never a you problem to begin with. Now, let's freaking go in this part to Dr. Romani, a women of impact where she unveils the freaking truth and gets down to business. It's so complicated. It's very complicated. Especially when it comes to the different type of person, the dynamic that each of you have. And I actually haven't got a bunch of stats here. And in LA Weekly, it says, ages between 20 and 29, women are more likely to cheat and over 30, men are more likely to cheat. So probably the difference there might be, and I'd be curious to know if that LA Weekly Survey, if these were people in marriages, if they had kids, and how long the relationships had lasted. That's actually, yeah. What would be the... Those who, because to me, the women under 29 might be either less likely to have children, or if they did have children, might be with a partner they met very, very young. So there's almost this sort of exploratory curiosity that they had. The relationships, like I said, might be shorter term where it feels sort of lower stakes. And that over 30 you might have more of those men who are they can't quite be grown-ups yet and they do have kids and they they have the other responsibilities and there might be less sex in the relationship and all of that it's like as this it does come down to communication right which you can't do with a narcissist so that group is out but. But with everyone else, it is really, do you feel like you can,

if a person says, listen, I've gone to my partner several times and said, I wanna, I would like this more, can we do this more, can we spend more time hanging out together, can we talk to each other more, can we have more sex, whatever it is? And they felt like over and over again, partner was not willing to talk about that or meet them or compromise with them on that. And then they cheat. I'd still have the question of, did you ever think of asking your partner if they would be interested in an open marriage? And you'd say, not getting these needs met here. So I need to have, I need these things to happen in my life. I do, they're important to me.

I do love you and I do love this relationship and I don't want to betray you, but something's got to give. A lot of people would never have that conversation. It seems like now there's a lot more open marriage. There are more open relationships and I'm not mad at them. I'm really not mad at them. I will say if you communicated in a way and you have a clear set of expectations and

rules, there was actually a really interesting article about this. I think it was in the LA Times, a woman was talking about her open relationship. She had a very ordinary job, like a teacher or something like that. It wasn't like she was working in something where she goes, it's all very fabulous and glamorous or not like the norm is just a very ordinary job. they didn't have children though. And when I read that article, it was very interesting for me, okay? I'm someone who's been cheated on. So to me being cheated on is like a, is a mortal wound. And when I've done my own work in therapy and I've dug deep in, and I've been cheated by narcissists and non-narsists. So I've had both kinds of cheating. I am a living laboratory here, darlin. So I can tell you both of those feel like, right? And I think that I wasn't going to ever be able to change these men and I've no interest in doing that. But I really had to sit down and say, why did this bother me so much? Was I mad because this person betrayed my trust? Would I be equally mad if they shared a secret about me? Would I be equally mad if they took some money from me? I had to sit with that and I said, no, this cheating, this betrayal, romantic betrayal bothered me more than those two things. I mean, imagine how much money? Like if they sold $500 for me, I wouldn't be happy about it. But it would be different than this, right? And so we also have to do a deeper dive into what is the meaning of this? Is it abandonment? Is it replacement? Is it betrayal of trust? Is it because we saw it happen with parents? Is it because we felt replaced by a sibling in another part of our life? There's a whole litany of things I could have been going on. Right? So it took me that bigger thought of like, would I ever want an open relationship,

right? I did this. I'm using myself as an example and I thought, no, I thought, but you're an, you know, I could do it too. Not that I have the effort or anything, but I could do it too. They have to be open and honest about what I loved about this woman sharing her story. Because she He said, we had the pact that we would come home and tell our partner if we had been

with someone else, met someone else.

That kind of thing.

There was no holding back. So I could do it. They would have to tell. And I literally felt physically ill. So I'm like, something somatic is happening here to me. What is this about? And so the best I could get to in my particular case is that sense of I wasn't good enough. And so you had to go to someone else, which is a core wound for me from a lifetime of narcissistic abuse, right? That sense that if you could replace me, then I wasn't good enough. Now I know that's not true for the client. It was time. I'm like, no, that's not about you. They're cheating. It's about them. internalize these experiences You'll book. It's not you. Right. It wasn't me. When these men wandered off, it had nothing to do with me. Even though they tried to make it seem as though it did, it's a lot of work to say, no, they made a choice. They made a decision. The other place though, where Lisa people get lost, is people will make that they will wonder and say, why wasn't I worth not doing that? If I was all, if I was so special to this person, no, you're special. They didn't have the capacity to integrate your specialness and make choices in the best way. So it's a very, very, it's very difficult for people who have any kind of inner narrative around, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve, I'm going to be left, I am replaceable. It hits those wounds like a, I mean, like I can't, nothing I could ever describe. And so, and this is why I think I'm so not just because it's happened to me but because I've seen it happen to so many clients and I'll tell you the wound of infidelity and betrayal is one that takes a lifetime to heal and it always leaves a pretty big scar. I do not see people blithely coming back from this. I do not, and I don't care if it's a marriage, not marriage, shorter term relationship, longer term relationship. I've worked with clients in their 70s who still remember when they were cheated on when they were 19. So you better believe it's stuck with them. And that's why when I hear people minimize it and make light of it,

it's not to be made light of. Betrayal hurts, relational betrayal hurts most of all. And I can sit here and tell you all day, there's complicated reasons people cheat, a whole bunch of reasons people cheat. I can even understand some of the reasons people cheat. I really can. But it does something to the other person that changes them. It changes their relationship with trust. It changes their relationship with themselves. It changes how they affect themselves. And like I said, I will never, ever, ever buy that somebody cheated because of somebody else, even if you don't like someone,

you can still say, yo, I can't, I can't, I just, I can't. But listen, I get it, it's complicated. I just, I really take Umbridge at, especially when it's in a heterosexual relationship and there's people out there saying, well, the reason your guy might have cheated is because you didn't do this, this and this. I'd be like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not buying that because by and large

for most people, they will describe the experience of being cheated on as an asteroid that crashed into their lives. So if you don't know how did you start to heal from that then, I mean, obviously, in my, I have to tell you in my own self, it's what I tell everyone who's trying to heal from

narcissistic abuse.

It's about slowly but surely. tell you in my own self, it's what I tell everyone who's trying to heal from narcissistic

abuse.

It's about slowly, but surely allowing yourself to be your true self, to actually no longer live a life where you are trying to be for other people, especially a partner.

How can I please this person? How can I be for the... What do I need to be to win over other people versus who am I? What am I about? What's important to me? What do I stand for? What are my values? What? Who?

M.I.

Because once you really start getting there, you're no longer defining yourself in this deficit model of, well, I wasn't even good enough to not cheat on and I wasn't even good enough. N-n-n-no. I really have to go back and say what the hell was going on for me that I even made those kinds of choices. I'm not blaming myself. I'm really not. But why was this good enough?

And I see that now.

I really, really see that.

But it was definitely, I'm going to tell you, I really not. But why was this good enough? And I see that now.

I really, really see that.

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