Why do people cheat?

The million dollar question. Everyone wants to know, why do we cheat?

Hello, I'm here with Lauren LaRuso, author psychologist, and her new book, Beyond Infidelity,

How to Turn the End of Your Relationship, into the Beginning of Your Life, is coming out in January. Lauren, how to turn the end of your relationship into the beginning of your life is coming

out in January. Lauren, welcome to Rock Bottom. Thank you so much. I have to say, I have been

following your Instagram account, and I really like your content. I think it is very helpful in that you're building a community full of healing and hope and clarity for people.

And I just, I'm excited for this conversation.

And I want to know a little bit about how you got started on this journey. I know that you're both a therapist

and an author as well as a betrayed partner, someone who's been through the pain of infidelity

firsthand. So why don't you tell me a little bit about your journey? Absolutely. And it's been a

journey. So I became a therapist in 2011 and just going about building my life, doing the things that all of us kind of grow up envisioning. You know, you go to school. I got married. We had a child. And I built a private practice. Now, all of that was happening at the same time that my spouse was having an affair.

So my investment in our life together was ultimately, you know, about to blow up and it did.

So I discovered, you know, he was having an affair.

And essentially, the process that began at that

time is exactly what I share now in my Instagram and what I walk readers through in Beyond

infidelity. So it's the crisis phase, the stabilization phase, trying to figure out what is anything, what is real,

where to go, where to turn, how to get through this, if you can, what that looks like, right?

All of those really overwhelming questions.

I mean, while your nervous system is just completely hijacked.

So it's just a very traumatic and intense and grief-stricken and confusing

time. So I was going through all of that. And essentially, as a therapist, I was ill-equipped

to understand what was going on inside of myself. And so I sat on my therapist couch and one

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