“Dealing with serial cheaters is exasperating. With serial cheaters you experience a double-whammy. You are faced with ““here we go again“” blast, while punishing yourself for ‘being such a fool.’
The double-blow leaves you stunned, with your breath knocked out of you and feeling hopeless. Being in such a state, it is tempting to fall prey to two dangerous options.
The first option of being a Superhero who can ‘do it all’ with your super love, thinking the cheater just needs more of it to make it all better.
The other option is to act like a powerless victim who has no power to change anything. Both options are dead ends. So how can you deal with a serial cheater?”
Dealing with Serial Cheaters <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. The topic we’re going to be dealing with today is dealing with serial cheaters.
This is one of those questions and concerns that actually came up from a reader, who gave the suggestions to me and so we are responding to it. Because some of you wonder what do you do when you’re faced with a situation where you’ve got a serial cheater.
Whether you call it a repeat offender, there’s many different terms that you can call it, but serial cheaters I’m going to go ahead and use at this point.
Dealing with serial cheaters is very exasperating. It’s almost like you are on a merry-go-round and you can’t get off because here we go again one more time.
With a serial cheater you’ve got a double whammy. You’re faced with the here we go again blast, while at the same punishing yourself for being such a fool. How can I let this happen again type of stuff, along with here we go again. From both sides.
It’s a tough situation. This double blow often leaves people feeling stunned, almost like that sensation that you experience when your breath gets knocked out and you’re feeling hopeless.
You’re just kind of struggling to get it back. When you’re in such a state it’s tempting to fall prey to two dangerous options.
Because in those helpless situations a lot of times we say what do I do, and these two jump out a lot of times and they’re both of them are potentially dangerous. One is where you act like a superhero who can do it all with your super love, thinking all that the cheater needs is more of my love and they’ll be all better.
It doesn’t work that way. I mean, you gave them your love. Did it work?
The other option is going to the other extreme, where instead of being the superhero who can do it all, you assume that you’re helpless and there’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing you can do to make it better. You’re a powerless victim who has no power to change anything.
Both of these options, the superhero and the helpless victim, they’re both dead ends. They’re not going to change things. Which us back to the question, how do you deal with a serial cheater. If these are not the options, what can you do? That’s what I’m fixing to share with you.
The answer today is the anagram TTUFF, because it’s going to take Truth, Tough love, and Facts rather than Fantasy. I’m going to explain each of those.
1. Tell yourself the truth.
The truth is that when you’re dealing with a serial cheater or repeat offender, and repeat offender is more of a legal system term, the truth is you’re dealing with a sex addict.
You’ve got a sex addict on your hands, and when you’ve got an addict you’ve got to ignore or trash a majority of what the affair recovery experts say.
When you’ve got an addict on your hands it means you’re going to need different tools. Because when you’ve got an addition you’re going to have get that addiction taken care of before you can get the affair stuff taken care of. That’s what you’re going to have to realize.
That’s part of telling yourself the truth. Nobody wants to admit that they’re married to a sex addict. But you may have to.
2. Tough love is your friend.
I know that this is a challenging prospect to some of you. Especially those that are just “they need more of my love.” The kind of love that they need is the tough love.
When you are using tough love you’re not being mean, you’re not being unloving. This is part of building on the first part, that you’re dealing with a sex addict. Because addicts need confrontation rather than coddling.
Let me repeat that. Addicts need confrontation more than coddling. This is one reason why I say that you need different tools, because you’ve got to call it as you see it. You’ve got to be willing to say no. Sometimes the most loving thing that you can say is no.
3. Learn to deal in facts rather than fantasy.
Cheaters thrive on plans, hopes, and dreams, fantasies, and good intentions. They will sell you all kinds of wonderful plans. This is what we’ll do, and then we’ll do this, and then I’ll do this.
This is living in la-la land. And they’re going to do everything they can do to get you a ticket on the la-la land bus. You’re going to have to say no to that. You’re going to need to test before you trust.
Test before you trust. I came across that idea, it’s a catchy one, in an old movie. Test before you trust.
Because you’re going to have to insist on proof rather than promises. When you’re dealing with a serial cheater they’re going to give you all kinds of promises. You need to see what’s the proof.
When they say hey, I’m doing better, what’s the proof? Hey, I’m no longer seeing so-and-so. Where’s the proof? Hey, I’m going to my SA (Sexaholics Anonymous)meetings. Where’s the proof?
You’re going to have to push for facts rather than fantasy because these people are experts at selling you a bill of goods based on fantasy.
Now, these are not easy answers to put into place. I’ll be the first to admit that, because dealing with a serial cheater is not an easy situation to deal with. On any level. But these are tools that can help you navigate through a very difficult and very confusing situation.
I encourage you to go ahead and put them into place. Since this is a recording, if you found it helpful you may want to keep this one around and replay it several times.
Because I know if you’re like most of us you need to hear something that challenges your thinking several times before you finally do something different.
When you’ve lived with a serial cheater for a long time you’re probably caught up in that whole idea of good intentions, as well. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. What are you going to do? What steps have you taken?
By listening to this radio show you’re taking one of those first steps.
I welcome your questions. I will try to answer, as many times you may be asking the questions that somebody else is struggling with. Here at Affair Recovery Radio my goal is to help you through affair recovery one step at a time. I encourage you to put these steps into place if you are dealing with a serial cheater situation.
If you continue struggling with the effects living with a serial cheater, there’s a good likelihood that you are experiencing Affair Trauma. The video “Overcoming Affair Trauma” guides you in moving past that trauma that comes with living with a serial cheater. You can return to healthy functioning again, and I’ll show you how.
Just click the link, fill out the form and within minutes you can be starting some relief for your trauma.
Best Regards,
Jeff
