The Infidelity Formula
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Summary
In this episode, Dr. Andrew G. Marshall shares a formula that explains what three factors add up to infidelity. And once you know them, you can reverse engineer them to prevent infidelity from showing up in your relationship.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Among supposedly monogamous couples, 23% of men and 90% of women have cheated on their current
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partner. And while studies have long found that men are more likely to cheat than women,
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that gap has significantly narrowed over time. In fact, married women between the ages of 18 and 29
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cheat at a slightly higher rate than men do. Behind cold bits of data like this are the
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many real stories of infidelity and the heartache and destruction they create. If you're not yet
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part of the cohort who's experienced the fallout of cheating firsthand, you probably want to avoid
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joining its ranks. Well, my guest has a formula that explains what three factors add up to infidelity.
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And once you know it, you can reverse engineer things to prevent those factors from showing up
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in your relationship. His name is Andrew G. Marshall. He's a marriage therapist with over 30 years of
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counseling experience. Today on the show, Andrew first shares the breakdown in age and gender
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amongst the clients who come to see him in this practice and the two stages of life where he's
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found infidelity to be the most common. Andrew shares his formula for what leads to infidelity.
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And as we unpack its elements, we discuss how quiet desperation is a major driver of cheating,
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why men who don't have good male friends are more likely to have an affair, how to know if you're
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forming an inappropriate friendship that could lead to infidelity, Andrew's seven deadly sins of bad
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communication, and more. We also talk about the practices that healthy couples use to ward off
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infidelity, and the best question to ask yourself to start improving your relationship today.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash infidelityformula.
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All right, Andrew G. Marshall, welcome to the show.
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So you're a marriage counselor, and you've written several books on infidelity. I'm curious,
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based on your experience as a marriage counselor, how many of the couples that you work with
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come to you because they're dealing with the fallout of an affair?
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Well, I've been doing this for 35 years, and infidelity has changed a lot. Basically,
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my clients used to fall into two categories. About 50% of them were coming because one partner had said,
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I love you, but I'm not in love with you. And then the other half came because of affairs.
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More recently, I've moved to Germany. And here in Berlin, I'm getting a slightly different cross
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section of people. And I'm getting younger people as well, because it's a much younger city than
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London, where I used to work. And often, it's about how to communicate better. So it's almost like
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stages you go through. If you don't actually resolve better communication, one person tends to fall out
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of love. And if you don't solve the fact that one person has fallen out of love, generally,
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the relationship becomes much, much more vulnerable to an affair.
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Yeah, I'd like to flesh that out more, because you have this formula that you've developed about
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what leads to an affair. But before we get more into the specifics, what do you think is at the
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root of the prevalence of infidelity in general?
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I think we take love for granted. We feel that when we fall in love, it's like sort of entering
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into a new building. And once you're in that building, only if it burns down will you come
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out of it. But we sort of know very little about love. We don't want to look at it too much,
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because we're frightened that we might spoil the magic. And with that special connection,
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this sacred connection almost, we think we've got all what we need. But we need to put the work in.
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We need skills. We need to know how to communicate effectively. And we need to know the things that
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kills love. And the first and most important one is that we put our work over everything else.
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And this one's a controversial one, but we put our children before our relationship. We think
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the children should come first. But no, the children sit in the success of the relationship. So you need
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to put the relationship first to really look after your children. And we sort of put our phones before
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our partners. How many times you've been in a restaurant, and there's a couple, and they're both
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sitting there looking at their phones. So we don't know the skills. And we sort of take love for
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granted. Oh, and on our phones, there's 1,001 ways of connecting with somebody else without our partner
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knowing. I mean, when I first started, if you wanted to have an affair, you used to have to phone
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people from phone boxes. You know, nobody had a personal telephone. If you wanted to write to
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them, you'd have to put a note through their door. Now, all the time, you're getting thousands of
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messages. It could be from your bank. It could be from your lover.
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Okay, so infidelity is very common because people just assume when they get married that that's it.
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They're done. They've done it. They're set. Let's talk about this. Like, are there differences
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between men and women when it comes to infidelity? Well, I mean, traditionally, men are looking for
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sex and women are looking for love. And that's a lot to do with how both men and women are actually
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socialized differently. But actually, underneath it, we're looking for the same thing. We want to
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feel alive. We want to feel connected to our partner. So there's no difference. I mean,
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in your practice, was a male more likely to commit adultery, same as a woman?
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Well, when people try and ask, you know, do more men cheat than women, you have to remember,
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who are these people cheating with? The vast majority of men cheat with women.
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So, and most of the time, it's another couple. So effectively, there are two relationships in crisis.
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Yes, there are single women who will have a short-term dalliance sometimes with a married
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man. But generally, single women have actually realized that it's a bit of a dead end. And so,
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most of them are not that stupid. Generally, people have affairs out of desperation. And
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generally, you've got a desperate wife and a desperate husband. They just belong to different
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I thought that one of the things in your books, you highlight case studies from your practice.
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And of course, you change the names and everything. But I was surprised the number of
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affairs that happened between couple friends, right? So it's like, the husband had an affair with the
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Yes, that's incredibly common. And I think that the difference between men and women that is actually
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really interesting is that women, when they're feeling that their relationship is in a very dark
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place, generally are more likely to say, I've had enough. And we know from statistics, it's far more
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women who initiate divorce than men. But men, because they are more likely to outsource their emotions to
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a woman, are likely to line up another woman before they leave. So if a man is going to end a
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relationship, unfortunately, more times than not, there's either a woman who actually he's having
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an affair with, or what sometimes people call overlap of relationships. So he has effectively
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left the relationship, he just hasn't told his wife. So they tend to line somebody up, whereas women
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generally tend to say, I've had enough, I'm going to have some time to reassess, see what I want,
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before starting on another relationship. So often when a woman ends a relationship, it's sort of much
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tidier than the way the man ends it. And that generally makes for a better relationship the
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next time around. Well, let's talk about this. Is there an age when people are more likely to have
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an affair? I think that ending up seeing a marriage counselor tend to be two particular phases. It's
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when you have very small children, and when your children are teenagers. And why are those the two
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particularly dangerous times? When you've got a woman after she's given birth, all of her hormones
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goes into bonding with the child. It generally takes about 18 months for that to return to normal.
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And what is the age difference most people have between their children? About two years. So almost as
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soon as their hormones are back together in a normal kind of way, then they've got the second child.
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And during this time, women are available for sex, but they're not going to feel spontaneously horny.
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They've actually got to be wooed and persuaded to make love. At this point, a lot of men feel that
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their wives are not interested in them anymore. It's not that they're not interested. They just don't
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know how to recruit them. So two children under five is an incredibly difficult time for people's
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sex lives, and that can lead to an affair. And the next time is when the children are teenagers,
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because it sort of reminds the parents unconsciously of the fact that they're getting old. They're feeling
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less vibrant. They're heading towards midlife and the changes that come there. And instead of
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actually dealing with those, instead of answering the difficult questions like, who am I? What do I
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want to do with the rest of my life? They answer an easy question. And an easy question is, do I fancy
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the woman sitting next to me at work? And they tend to have affairs at that point as well.
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So the teenage years, you're going to be probably late 40s, early 50s, likely.
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Yeah, that's the sweet spot for an affair or a sweet spot for a really serious affair.
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Okay. So there's two points in your life, Sam, where you're most susceptible to an affair right
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after the kids are born, and then when they become teenagers. Let's talk about this. In your work
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and with dealing with people who are dealing with affairs, you've developed this formula
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for what causes an affair. What is that formula?
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It's problem plus poor communication plus temptation equals an affair. And the problem
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is often an individual problem. Sometimes it might be something that you're very aware of,
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like you've had a knock in your confidence from losing a job. It could be something that actually
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you're unconscious of and is actually beginning to sort of build up unknown to you. So, for example,
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your father left when you were eight or nine years old. And when your own children get to that age,
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it unconsciously brings back all of those kinds of issues of abandonment and pain. And rather than
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actually being aware of those feelings coming up and actually thinking about doing something about them,
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that unconsciously you are going to do exactly what your father did. So, the problems can be personal,
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and they can be conscious and unconscious. It could also be relationship problems. It could be that
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there are unresolved issues in the couple. You know, they can't talk about money, for example.
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I mean, that it can be a shared problem, but often it's an individual problem. Or in fact,
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actually, both people have problems that aren't actually being dealt with, and they're turning up
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in nasty fights between the two of them. If you have a problem and you and your partner can talk
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about it, then it's going to be resolved. You know, if, for example, the problem is you have a dull or
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non-existent sex life, if you had good communication, you could actually say,
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you know what, honey, I'm a little unhappy about our sex life. How are you feeling about it? Would
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you like it to be better? And then you could sort of possibly do something about it. But if you can't
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communicate, all of these problems go underground. And then you've just got to have a little bit of
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temptation coming along, and you've got an affair. In your practice, what have been the most common
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Well, I think you're going to like this answer because I know you're a Thoreau fan. The mass of
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men lead lives of quiet desperation, and the mass of women lead lives of quiet desperation. And
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what is often called resignation is confirmed desperation. So, you know, what is this quiet
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desperation? We sort of don't, we feel that we're not being seen. We feel that we're not attractive.
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We sometimes actually feel that we're not truly alive. We might be angry, or we feel controlled.
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You know, these are the sort of surface kind of things. But somehow deep inside us, there's a
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feeling of deadness. And instead of actually thinking, why am I feeling dead? And, you know,
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the answers might be spiritual, it might be professional, it might be all sorts of things.
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But we look for a connection. And the sort of, our culture says the answer is love. You know,
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listen to all the popular songs, love will build a bridge, love is the answer, love will save the day.
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You know, it's easy, you find love, and all problems magically melt away. So we've got quiet
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desperation, a feeling of deadness, wanting connection, and our society is pushing love as
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And how do you figure, like, how does a couple figure that out? Like, let's say they're, you
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know, someone's recognizing, I'm on the path to, I mean, I'm looking, I'm feeling this quiet
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desperation, I want to maybe spice things up. Or maybe they're in the throes of it, and they're
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trying to figure out, like, what happened? Like, how do you, how do you figure that out,
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especially when the source of the problem could be hidden or buried?
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I think you need to look at what have been the most difficult parts of your life. You know,
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go back, you know, what sort of relationship did your parents have? What sort of relationships did
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you have with your parents? What was your very first ever memory? Because sometimes those actually
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holds the key to what's going to be issues for us further on. If you, your first memory is actually
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of being abandoned, you know, that might actually give you some clues about what's going on. I think
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you have to think possibly about getting therapy, talking to somebody, talk to your friends as well
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about, you know, what they discovered about their marriages. I mean, I think this is the big problem
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that men have. We're not socialised to ask for help. We don't actually talk to our friends about
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anything beyond football and, you know, sending jokes, and we might talk about politics a little
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bit. But you don't actually talk openly and honestly about your relationship. Women talk about
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these things all the time. They learn from each other. The number of women who contact me for help
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versus the number of men that contact me for help, it's like 80% of people who speak to me are
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women. Only 20% are men. So get more friends. I think that's always my advice to men, you know,
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get more friends. Start talking to your friends in a different kind of way. I had a male client who was
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going through a sort of midlife crisis. And he was going back to, I think it was his 20th, 25th
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anniversary of college breaking up. And I said, you know, at this reunion, will you tell your friends
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from college days that you're actually having, you've got a therapist and you're looking into,
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you know, why have I got a life of quiet desperation? And he said, hmm, that's an interesting idea.
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Maybe I will. And do you know what happened? What happened? Well, every last one of his friends,
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bar one, were also in therapy as well. The one person who wasn't in therapy, they all agreed
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should have been in therapy. But it takes one person to say it, and then suddenly everybody's
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saying it. Yeah, this idea about male friendship, I thought that was interesting. You made this,
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you've noted in your practice, you've made an observation that men who don't have a solid group
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of male friends are more likely to have an affair than men who have good male friendships. And that's
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just because they've got someone to talk to? Yeah, because if you start talking to somebody about
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emotions, you get closer to them. If it's your male buddy, that is absolutely wonderful.
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If it's the woman sitting next to you at work, that can be incredibly dangerous. Because I've said
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this before, and I think it's worth saying again, men outsource their emotional welfare to women.
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You know, when they're young, it's their mother, then it's their girlfriend, then it's their wife.
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Now, what do you do if you've got problems with your wife?
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Right, and then you find an office wife. It's basically a co-worker. And you first,
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it's just sort of like you keep it professional, but then you're like, well, you come in, you're
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looking like dejected. And she's like, what's going on? It's like, well, and then you start
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unloading the problems. And that's when things can go awry.
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Yep. Or she's unloading her problems, and you can become the knight in shining armor and rescue her
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from it. And then you immediately feel brilliant. So that you're the savior. It's the same dynamic,
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Well, and similar to this idea of, you know, and the importance of having male friendships,
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so you can talk to your, you know, if you're having marital problems, you can talk to them
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instead of confiding into a woman who could be potentially an affair partner. You have this
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idea about inappropriate friendships. And this has become, this is something that's harder in this
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day and age. And if you ask this question 150 years ago, most people, they had homosocial
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relationships, right? Just men were friends with men, women were friends, there's like two separate
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domains. But now, men and women can be friends.
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Yeah, which is great. But sometimes those friendships can become inappropriate. How do
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Well, an inappropriate friendship is one that you can't actually have in the full daylight.
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If you're off and you're going to watch rugby together, that's a very English example. If you're
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going off to watch sport together, that's perfectly acceptable. And, you know, if anybody else wanted
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to come along, that would be fine. The minute you actually have to start lying about where
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you've been, you know, you've been to lunch together for the 15th time at work with another
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woman, the minute that nobody can actually look in on this event, the minute you are actually
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crossing over between, you know, I saw X today, and we had lunch together, and we talked about
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why. If you can't have that conversation, you are actually lying to yourself. Most people
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who end up having affairs are lying to themselves about actually how serious it's getting. You
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know, they sort of tell themselves things like, oh, you know, we're just friends. But they actually
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know that it's more than that. Once you're actually lying about what you're doing, you are in a danger
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zone, you are having an inappropriate friendship. If you can't invite them home to the family
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barbecue, they're in an appropriate friends. We're going to take a quick break for your word
00:19:35.880
from our sponsors. And now back to the show. Okay, so there's always a problem at the start
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of an affair. And usually it's this quiet desperation. People just don't feel alive. They don't feel
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appreciated. They don't feel loved. And because they can't communicate with their spouse, they'll
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go to someone else. And for men, that's usually another woman, because they don't have good male
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friendships, or they don't feel like they can talk about their problems with their buds.
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Let's talk about this communication aspect between a couple. Like, what is the communication problem?
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Is it like they're just not talking at all? Or is it they just kind of snip at each other? Like,
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what is stopping people typically from talking about these problems?
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Okay, I've got seven deadly sins of bad communication. So count up how many of these
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you do, Brett. I'm right and you're wrong. I mean, I can't tell you how many hours couples can argue
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this one about. And I've just reached the point where I was saying we're just having another game
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of I'm right and you're wrong. You're never ever going to win this. So let's stop.
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Number two, trying to control your partner. It's not trying to get them to do this or that,
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but it's the sort of I'll be okay if you do X, Y, Z. So if you give me more sex, I'll be okay.
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Or if you don't keep on on and on and about that problem, I'll be okay. You're trying to get your
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partner to behave in a particular way. The next one, and this is one that is less likely to happen
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from men than from women. This is called unbridled self-expression. So what do I mean by that?
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I had a female client who said to me, but I should be able to tell my husband how I feel.
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And of course she should be able to, but not at any time in the same way that it's like men saying,
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well, you know, we're married. I have the right to have sexual intercourse. You know,
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women think they have the right to unload their feelings, but you have to ask for sex.
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You have to check that your partner is in the right mood. You have to woo them to get them into
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the right mood. And with unbridled self-expression, you're just dumping your feelings. You're not
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saying, can we talk? Is this a good time? It's just bleh. Obviously we've got the opposite one,
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which is the one that men tend to do a lot, which is called shutting down. And this might be
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leaving the room. It might be mentally switching off. It might be stonewalling,
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but you are shutting down the communication. This is a really horrible one, but people retaliate.
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You know, you did this and therefore I'm going to do that. One I see a lot is judging. And then you
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analyse your partner and tell them what they're doing wrong. And I promise you telling your partner
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what they're doing wrong is not going to get them to say, oh yes, you're right. They tend to get
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defensive. And then you go on the attack and you can see we're back into I'm right and you're wrong.
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And the final one of the seven deadly sins is making assumptions. You know, my wife doesn't
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want to have sex with me because she doesn't love me anymore. Well, it might be that you're asking for
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it in all the wrong way that's turning her off. It's not that she doesn't want to, it's just you're
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making it incredibly difficult for her to say yes. But that's an assumption. I'm always getting my
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clients to, I say, stop making assumptions, turn that into a question. And I'd much rather it was an
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open, curious question like, why don't we make love anymore? But if it has to be, do you still fancy
00:23:24.180
me? That's much better than the problem is you don't fancy me. And where do these poor communication
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habits come from? Is it just from childhoods? Like this is where you grew up communicating like
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this? You just bring it to your relationship, your marriage? Well, I think we've got several
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problems. First and foremost, most of our parents were not particularly good at communicating. You
00:23:45.600
know, I came from a family where nothing was ever spoken about. What a surprise I became a marital
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therapist. Other people have parents that argue like cat and dog, or even worse, they argued like
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cat and dog, and then one of them left. So there was actually, they never saw good communication.
00:24:05.060
We're not taught how to do it at school either. So, you know, how are we going to get it? Is it going
00:24:10.320
to be beamed down from space to us? No, yeah. Well, you have to, you have to, it's hard. You have to
00:24:15.500
learn how to do it. And it's, it's like any other skill. I mean, it is really hard. You know,
00:24:20.340
somebody tells you that they're upset. And we live in a culture that says, you know,
00:24:25.000
if your partner tells you they're upset, it's your job to put it right. But no, you know,
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you're not responsible for rescuing your partner. What you are responsible for, and if you can just
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do this, your life will be transformed, is you've just got to listen to them. It's as simple as that.
00:24:44.200
You can reflect back. So you're saying you're unhappy because the children are impossible,
00:24:51.560
for example. Tell me more. I mean, tell me more are the three most loving words in the English
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language, because it's very easy to, to say, I love you. But when your partner is unhappy,
00:25:06.660
and you're saying, tell me more about it, that's a really difficult thing to do.
00:25:10.940
Yeah. Ask them curious questions. You know, why do you think our children are so difficult at the
00:25:16.980
moment? What is it? What's going on, do you think? You don't have to come up with a solution.
00:25:23.740
But unfortunately, and I think men are particularly prone to do this, if their wives tell them about a
00:25:29.440
problem, they immediately feel responsible. And they either try and cut the problem down to size
00:25:35.440
and minimize it. And I promise you that will not be very popular. Or they will just throw their
00:25:42.420
hands up and think, oh, I can't do anything, and they'll shut down. But all you have to do is listen.
00:25:49.300
Yeah, I think that's why, as you said, like a lot of people, the problems that can lead to an affair,
00:25:53.700
they're multifaceted. But at the root of it, it's probably like people just want to feel appreciated
00:25:57.860
and noticed. And they're not getting that in their marriage. And so they go somewhere else,
00:26:02.360
I think they're going to get it there. And I think I was surprised the number of instances where,
00:26:06.140
you know, yeah, a man left because he felt like he wasn't getting the sex he wanted in the marriage.
00:26:10.880
But what he talked about was like, well, I just feel like I get so much attention from the other
00:26:16.060
woman. People just want to feel appreciated and noticed. Yeah. And I mean, one of the incredibly sad
00:26:24.300
things is often how much attention is going to the children and how little attention people give to
00:26:33.820
their partner. They become, you know, co-parents rather than lovers. And that is a recipe for
00:26:42.780
disaster. Okay, so there's a problem. People can't talk about the problem and that the problem just
00:26:49.420
festers. And then along comes the temptation. What are the typical temptations that you've seen in
00:26:54.960
your practice? Well, we've covered quite a few of them. You know, somebody tells you you're wonderful.
00:27:00.920
And if at home, you're either being ignored or you're being told that you're messy and inconsiderate
00:27:06.460
and everything else like that, sort of all your desire just sparks up. If you feel that your life is
00:27:14.960
a complete and utter mess, I mean, the hardest thing to solve is your own problem. Somebody else's
00:27:19.700
problem is a piece of cake. So, you know, there's somebody who's crying at work and the easiest thing
00:27:25.080
to do is to listen to them and feel empowered. And that is incredibly tempting. I mean, the alcohol is
00:27:32.720
another temptation, you know, have alcohol and your judgment goes out of the window. Another thing that's
00:27:39.300
been thrown into the mix over the last 35 years is the amount of street drugs, you know, social drugs
00:27:46.820
that are used, cocaine and various other things. A lot of my clients have problems because they're
00:27:53.280
going out, they're drinking a huge amount, they're taking cocaine as well, they're coming home at four
00:27:59.560
o'clock in the morning, they forget my golden rule, nothing good happens after three o'clock in the
00:28:04.440
morning, go home. Temptation is all around when you get into that situation. And how have smartphones
00:28:11.580
changed the game? Oh, well, number one, you know, you've got a thousand one dating apps, there are
00:28:18.440
millions of women waiting to meet you. You know, they sometimes don't even wait for you to contact
00:28:23.760
them. You know, there's women from Russia contacting you to tell you how wonderful you are. I mean, that
00:28:29.600
smartphones, on one level, they've revolutionized the help and support after infidelity, it's much
00:28:36.060
easier to get hold of support and information that, you know, we're powering up in the marital
00:28:41.760
therapy world. But the cheating world is being super powered as well. Like what is the role? I mean,
00:28:49.240
I guess one thing that's happened in the past 10 years is like these like, like only fans, right? Where
00:28:55.100
it's like, you know, you can sign up and like follow these people because they, they talk to you,
00:29:01.080
but then they do like provocative things. Has that been an issue you've seen in your clients?
00:29:06.340
I haven't had people with just fans, but there, I get a lot of people who've been to massage parlors
00:29:13.760
and their partners have found out and there's a, what's called a happy ending and the prostitution,
00:29:20.460
that's very big as well. It's gone from being 35 years ago. If somebody came to me and they were
00:29:27.080
seeing prostitutes, you know, I would be quite surprised. Now, you know, I just take a deep breath.
00:29:33.080
So I would say that generally infidelity is getting more toxic.
00:29:38.440
Well, another interesting thing you pointed about the smartphones is that it makes having an affair
00:29:42.580
easier, right? Because there's, you can access temptations. It's all around you 24 seven,
00:29:47.160
but then it also makes it easier to discover the affair because you leave behind an electronic paper
00:29:53.960
trail. Yeah. And your wife at the moment might be not at all tech savvy, but I promise you that the
00:30:02.660
FBI has got nothing on a wife who thinks their partner has had an affair. She will find every last
00:30:10.980
message. She will read every last message. When she's in a dark place, she will reread those,
00:30:18.340
those words that you casually said, you know, you're the most wonderful person in the world
00:30:22.880
because you thought, well, this might help me facilitate a bit of nookie. That is going to be
00:30:29.380
brought back as evidence in the cold, hard light of day. I promise you, you will be discovered.
00:30:36.060
Your credit card is leaving messages. Your phone, they know where you are every step of the way.
00:30:44.260
Everything will be found out. It is impossible to have an affair without being found out. I have
00:30:50.100
people who are discovered 20 years later through various means, and it's just as devastating if it
00:30:58.180
happened 20 years ago than if it happened 20 minutes ago. You will be found out.
00:31:02.900
Okay. So when it comes to affair, this formula, again, it's problem plus poor communication plus
00:31:08.180
temptation equals affair. So that can like, what I like about that formula, it gives you different
00:31:12.880
ways you can tackle the issue or to prevent an affair in the first place. One, if there's a
00:31:17.940
problem, you got to learn how to talk about it, right? And focus on improving your communication.
00:31:23.140
And I think this is really important for men. You've actually got to recognize and own up to it.
00:31:28.060
We live in a world where we're lone wolves. We've got to solve it ourselves. And you don't,
00:31:35.740
you know, you can ask for help. You know, if you're feeling that quiet desperation,
00:31:41.480
look inside and try and find out what it's about. And if you're not used to looking inside,
00:31:47.800
get some training on how to look inside. You will find a thousand and, you know, and if therapy isn't for
00:31:53.960
you, there'll be a thousand and one podcasts that will actually get you thinking about your
00:32:00.360
relationship. And as you hear other people talking about their stuff, it will suddenly make you begin
00:32:05.860
to think about, hmm, yes, that sounds familiar and will give you a path to start going down.
00:32:12.760
And then the other part of the temptation part, if you are going through a rough patch
00:32:15.960
in your relationship, like be aware of that, maybe reduce temptations in your life.
00:32:22.620
Yes. I mean, look at your alcohol consumption, for example. You know, if you're in a dark place,
00:32:28.960
don't go down to slippery places because, you know, you will slide straight into a brick wall.
00:32:36.240
I'm curious. So we've been talking about when marriages go wrong. Let's talk about best
00:32:40.720
practices in healthy marriages. Like what are the, what you've seen in your experience that help keep
00:32:46.380
the temptation of infidelity at bay? Like what do healthy marriages look like?
00:32:50.180
Well, if you're in a healthy marriage, rather than saying my problems are you need to do this,
00:32:57.020
that, and the other, the sort of you, you, you, I can, you can almost imagine me pointing my finger.
00:33:03.420
You ask this question, and this is the most beautiful question. You're probably going to hear
00:33:08.000
today. What can I do differently? Because ultimately the only person we can change is ourself.
00:33:15.420
So what could I do differently is a really interesting question because generally,
00:33:21.940
if I ask people in unhealthy marriages, what they could do differently, they sort of are shocked and
00:33:27.620
they shut up. If I asked them, what could your partner do differently? You know, I have to shut
00:33:32.600
them up because they're going to go on for the next 40 minutes. We've, we've got a huge list of what
00:33:38.220
our partner could do differently. A very small one of what we could do differently. And then this is
00:33:44.940
probably the core of good communication. And I have a saying, and if most of my clients end up being
00:33:53.640
drilled on this one, so I'll give this one to you for free. I can ask, you can say no, and we can
00:34:00.340
communicate. And the problem is a lot of people were never trained to actually ask. They will hint
00:34:08.000
or they will hope, you know, if I do lots of nice things to you, you will somehow guess what it is I
00:34:13.000
want. But to say, can we have an early night tonight and it's just going to be you and I,
00:34:20.080
and we're going to have a bath and we're going to relax and we're going to have time together.
00:34:23.880
That can be really hard to ask for because we're terrified of getting a no. So can you ask,
00:34:33.000
can you say no? And this is quite surprising. A lot of people find it really difficult to say no
00:34:41.340
to their partner. If they want something, you sort of feel you've got to give it to them.
00:34:47.000
And, you know, it's lovely to say yes to your partner, but if you're saying yes,
00:34:50.820
and it's actually costing you every time. I had a couple where the wife wanted to go
00:34:57.380
to her sister's every Christmas Eve and the husband wanted to stay home and just have a
00:35:05.760
Christmas Eve together, particularly as they would be seeing his sister-in-law and all her family the
00:35:11.680
next day on Christmas Day as well, when they'd be coming to their house. And every year it hurt him
00:35:19.740
a little bit more, but he couldn't actually say no. Guess when this all came out? After it had the
00:35:25.600
affair. So can you say no? And can you negotiate? Couples don't know how to negotiate often. You know,
00:35:35.520
they're actually trying to fight all the time for who is right and who is wrong. Can you negotiate?
00:35:41.160
Can you do a trade? Can you find a compromise? Once again, these are skills we don't know,
00:35:47.260
but if you're in a well-functioning marriage, you can ask, your partner can say no, and then you can
00:35:53.100
negotiate. So back to my first request of, can we have a night where we're going to have a nice early
00:35:58.860
night and a bath and spend time together? You know, you can say, actually, no, I'm really tired, but
00:36:04.140
let's put it in the diary and do it tomorrow. And we've got a good piece of communication.
00:36:10.300
So it sounds like just learn how to be an adult, basically. Like engage with each other as an
00:36:16.720
adult. Because I think oftentimes people kind of are in kid mode when they, instead of wanting to
00:36:20.320
ask what they want, they just kind of expect people to know what they want. Sort of like a parent
00:36:27.460
Yeah. One of the things that people have discovered post-COVID, and they've actually seen their partner,
00:36:33.300
you know, in Zoom meetings, they've actually seen, they're really nice to people at work.
00:36:39.300
They're just horrible. They bring their worst person back home. Because somebody loves us,
00:36:45.420
they've got to put up with all of our, you know, bad behavior and our poor communication,
00:36:49.880
and we're tired and we don't put so much effort into it. So yeah, you've got to show up with your
00:36:55.840
best part of you. Of course, not all the time, but you know, if your partner gets the worst of you,
00:37:02.080
it's not going to make for a good marriage in the long term.
00:37:06.240
Well, Andrew, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work?
00:37:10.860
Right. I have a podcast, which is called The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall,
00:37:16.040
which is all about trying to understand what makes life meaningful. And for a lot of people,
00:37:20.700
that's relationships. And so we cover relationships a huge amount, but you know, we also cover work and
00:37:28.580
friendship and all sorts of other things. But often the skills for one area are transferable to
00:37:33.960
another area. I have a website, which is www.andrewgmarshall.com, where you'll find
00:37:40.940
details of my books. And on this one, we've got, why did I cheat? This is for people who've been
00:37:47.460
unfaithful. How can I ever trust you again? This is if your partner has cheated. If you've got a really
00:37:54.820
serious long-term problem, I can't get over my partner's affair. There's another book that you'll
00:38:01.200
find interesting. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. I'm also on Twitter and Facebook. And
00:38:10.680
I have a Substack account. That one's called The Meaningful Life. And join that and you get a
00:38:16.820
fortnightly newsletter. All right. Well, Andrew G. Marshall, thanks for his time. It's been a pleasure.
00:38:24.820
My guest name is Andrew G. Marshall. He's a marriage therapist who's written several books
00:38:28.360
about marriage and relationships and infidelity, including the book, Why Did I Cheat? They're all
00:38:32.660
available on amazon.com. You can find more information about his work at his website,
00:38:36.180
andrewgmarshall.com. Also check out his podcast, The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall.
00:38:40.780
And check out our show notes at aom.is slash infidelityformula,
00:38:44.280
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:38:51.420
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast. Make sure to check out our website at
00:38:58.280
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00:39:02.160
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00:39:30.140
I'm Brett McKay. Remind you on the List They Win Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.