Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. Everybody is having a wonderful day. I hope that the sun is shining. I hope that the birds are singing and that the wind is at your back. I have with me today an incredible show with an incredible guest. I think you're all going to enjoy it. So today we have the rare opportunity to dive into the complex, often hidden world of infidelity and healing with one of the most respected voices in the field. Dr. Talal H. Alassim, an award-winning marriage counselor and the author of Infidelity, The Best Worst Thing That Could Happen to Your Marriage. Dr. Alassim has dedicated his career to exploring the deep undercurrents that lead to affairs and their long-lasting impact. What makes his approach revolutionary is not just his expertise in diagnosing the root causes, but his creation of the systematic affair recovery therapy, SART, a groundbreaking method that has helped countless couples navigate the devastating aftermath of betrayal. Dr. Al-Saleem doesn't offer false hope. His work is about raw honesty, guiding couples to difficult truths so they can heal in ways that are meaningful and authentic. whether the path leads to reconciliation or a fresh start. His powerful research encapsulates encapsulated in works like Unfaithful and Unrepentant Affairs Beyond the Hope of Repair goes beyond conventional therapy and forces us to confront the deeper, sometimes irreparable wounds that affairs can cause. Whether you're a clinician or someone touched by the trauma of infidelity, Thank you for being here today. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for the invitation. Yeah. What an interesting time we live in. And before we got started on the show, I was telling you just what an incredible topic this is. Like this particular topic of infidelity touches so many people from partners in a marriage to partners in a relationship to children. And how did you end up in this position? Is this something that affected you when you were growing up or what was it that kind of brought you to this world? great question I always you know when I do my training the first thing that I do is I ask the therapist to kind of just show me a show of hands of how many people here have been impacted by infidelity directly or indirectly I think unfortunately infidelity is one of these things that we all have either experience in our relationship or in the relationship of others that folks that we care about family members parents siblings and things along those lines What brought me to the field in general and infidelity in particular is really my passion about this topic and my skill set in working with couples. So way back in the day when I was a younger clinician many moons ago, I promised myself to try to get a well-rounded clinical experience. I wanted to work with as many populations and as many different levels of cares because I wanted to learn more about myself as a clinician, my strength, my weaknesses, and which population I was going to be working with. And with each place that you work with and with each population, you get the wonderful opportunity to get a new training method to add to your clinical tool. But so at the end of that journey, I realized that I'm really passionate about working with couples, which is funny because most couples don't like working with couples because it's challenging, but, but I love the speed. and the passion and the impact that you make. Because when you help a couple get unstuck, not only are you helping them, you're helping the future generations as well and what kind of models that they're going to show to their kids. So when I had my private practice working exclusively with couples, I realized that the majority of my couples, at least over fifty percent, of them are not just coming for a tune up, they're coming in because of a crisis. And most of the time, this crisis is related to current affair that was discovered or an affair that was discovered many years ago, and they haven't been able to recover from it. So, uh, when I started looking at this, uh, clinical toolbox that I accumulated throughout the years to figure out which treatment methods that I can use for my clients. I realized that none of these methods are actually useful for healing infidelity. Most of them are generalized method. They were just made for a guarded variety relationship issues. So I found myself boring intervention from this model and that model of doing this patchwork of intervention, but still wasn't effective. So I, as they say, need is the mother of invention. I had this vantage point of working with couples primarily for dealing with infidelity. So I started jotting down my observation and began to see where people actually get stuck. And that created the pathway for the systematic affair recovery therapy model that I have created, tailor-made for infidelity, specifically for folks who are trying to recover from affairs. And the rest is history. And, you know, as you know, infidelity is really a fascinating field. There's so much unknown. And I really like to kind of discover things that can help people improve their life. Yeah, well, I'm glad you did, and I'm really curious. I got a bunch of questions lined up, and the first one that kind of comes to mind is, as you've been in this field for so long, is there different trends in different socioeconomic backgrounds and different groups and different age groups, or is there some sort of Ariadne thread that runs through all of them, or what are some trends that you've seen? Does it affect different groups differently, or is it kind of something that's the same throughout? Yeah. Sure, that's a great question. So before we answer that, we have to take a look at etiology and our misconceptions about what causes infidelity. If you ask the average person what causes infidelity, most people think that infidelity happened because of a relationship deficit or that people are not happy with their partner. Now, granted, one of the leading causes of infidelity is relationship dissatisfaction, but that's not the only etiological reason that causes infidelity. all have seen the couples where we you know look at their story and we don't get it scratch our head we say okay they seem to have the perfect partner their partners meeting all their needs they're compatible yet the person is unfaithful sometimes infidelity has nothing to do with the relationship it has to do with an individual issue that the faithful partner is dealing with such as mental health issues that has not been treated or diagnosed a classic example of that would be folks with personality disorder somebody who's narcissistic somebody with antisocial personality disorder people who struggle with addictions of any kind. But a third ideological reason that causes infidelity is exactly what you talked about, the environmental factors. So believe it or not, things associated to our socioeconomic status, place of residence, the type of job we have could actually increase or decrease our chances of engaging in infidelity. When I started delving into infidelity and the causes of it, I wanted to take a multidisciplinary approach. I didn't want to look at it just from the psychological lens. I tried to look at it from cross-cultural anthropological lens, as well as from evolutionary biology lens, as well as from a sociological perspective. And when you look at the causes of infidelity from a sociological perspective, we have to emphasize the roles of socioeconomics. So we'll use, for example, things like power dynamics. uh in all relationships as much as we like to think that they are egalitarian and both partners have equal rights and responsibility that is not always the case sometimes you have relationship with power disparity where you have one person who have more power than their other partner why is this the case sometimes this belief system let's say you live in a culture where simply being a male gives you automatically more power so when you have a power disparity in the relationship um They create what they call a top dog and underdog dynamic. The top dog is the person with more power. That person is going to give themselves more rights in their relationship simply because they can. They're also going to be somebody who is less likely to be vulnerable because that's going to be challenging their power position in the relationship. The person who is the underdog is going to be somebody who is often feeling that they're not good enough, that their contribution does not matter. And if you look at it from that angle, both of them can have good motivation to engage in affairs because of the disparity in the power dynamic. If we take a look at place of residence, research shows that people who live in smaller cities and smaller communities have less prevalence rates of infidelity. why is this the case well when you live in a small city there's less access for opportunities that will cause you to be anonymous right smaller communities everybody knows everyone so if you're going to be unfaithful your chances of being discovered is going to be higher if you compare it to bigger cities you have a higher level of anonymity so there are so many environmental factors that causes infidelity that we often don't think about and we often ignore when it comes to treatment and that's why uh oftentimes using generalized methods doesn't really prevent relapse yeah it's it is it's a very complex question to think about all the factors that could lead to it and I would imagine that it's a case-by-case event you know sometimes when I look at twitter or x or if you just look at the bombardment of media that hits kids and adults every day. We know that advertisers use sex and fear to sell. It's like we're bombarded by housewives and Andrew Tate and all the Saudi sheiks with their harems. How big of a role is culture playing to be infidelity on some level? It seems like it's calling us. Major, major, major role. My third book that I'm working on is called Deconstructing Infidelity, The Causes of the Myth. And in that book, I dedicate a full part about the environmental factors and what happens in pop culture and around us and to what extent that influence what we do in our relationships. But unfortunately, something in this way, cultural norms and the type of cultural norms that we get exposed to does shape our view about relationship and the value of fidelity. So if you're exposed to cultural norms, sees infidelity as something that's a positive thing or something that's not frowned upon. Or again, we'll use the example of toxic masculinity. If you're in a culture where being unfaithful seen as a cool thing because you're the guy who sleep with all these women, most likely you're going to engage in those behaviors because your cultural norms does not discourage you from doing that. And sometimes those cultural norms are in the micro level and the micro level of your family of origin. So when I work with my clients, before we even talk about the infidelity, I gather a lot of information about their family of origin, their past relationship, because sometimes the seeds of infidelity were planted long time ago. If you look at the macro level of culture, unfortunately right now, any, any place you look, right. Even an advertisement for a cheeseburger, right. Is going to be selling you, you know, things are not related to things related to sex and sexuality, but it's also common when you see it in almost every TV show that you watch, there's always going to be something about infidelity. And, uh, oftentimes people associate. Infidelity with power and influence because, uh, In a sense, there is some of that aspect to it, right? If somebody is cavalier about those behaviors, they must think that they can do it, get away with it, and are okay with the consequences of that behavior. So yeah, cultural norm significantly impact that. Another aspect of this is development of technology, right? We used to live in a day and age where it maybe was a little bit more challenging for people to engage in fidelity, right? Nowadays, it's at your fingertips. There are many apps that are designed specifically for people to hide their behavior or websites that are designed for people who want to engage in affairs, not just any kind of relationship. All of these factors increases folks' ability to not fight their impulses as much. Yeah, it's really well said. I've read in a few articles that have brought up this idea of monogamy. And sometimes, you know, you can find some really well written articles that say things like, is monogamy something made up by humans? Like, is monogamy something that we should be doing? You know, what's your what's your take on that idea? Like, is this something that's natural? Is it non unnatural? Or what do you think? As long as you know, you gave me a good opportunity to stand on my soapbox. So So here's what I feel about it. I think it's great that we are thinking about relationship in different ways, that there is no one model that we can say is the most successful models, because that would be ridiculous. What I have a problem with is the things to swing in the opposite direction, where we're seeing that pornography is not attainable and it's impossible to achieve. I believe monogamy is not for everyone. Some people can do it and happy and satisfied with it. And for some people that's, that's not the right fit for them. So I don't think, uh, I'm not in the camp where I think that we're not wired for monogamy and I can debunk the evolutionary biology perspective, right? Because people who use this, they usually go for evolutionary model. and they use the idea of uh you know uh the different reproductive strategies so it goes something like this uh females have limited number of eggs males have a limited number of sperms therefore dictate what kind of mating strategies that they have because of that you know the males would opt for uh more interactions more frequency and females would uh tend to lean toward quality of interaction because of the long gestation period and also uh you know wanting to be more selective about their mates I think that that work if we're living in a you know caveman society maybe you can make that argument if we're you know simple primate we are way way advanced beyond that uh men and women are you know interacting differently our idea of what it means to be male and female is changing so we cannot use such archaic arguments And I think sometimes people use that as a cop-out, right? Wouldn't it be nice if you read a book that says, oh, some therapist says monogamy is unattainable, so it's okay for me to cheat, right? So that's a problem that I have with that is that sometimes this knowledge is being abused. Yeah, it reminds me of the R versus K strategy to like the rat versus the wolf, where, you know, some particular if people would go on an evolutionary model, some reproductive strategies are to have as many kids as possible. And other strategies are I'm going to have one or two kids and raise them up to be the best possible at some point in time. I feel like it comes to education. And I know when I got married, I had friends that sat down with professionals and talked about what a relationship is, what love is, what faithfulness is. And a lot of people don't have that. I didn't have it growing up. But when I look back at that and I look at their marriages and I'm like, oh, that was a really cool strategy. It was a really cool tool to sit down with a third party and say, hey, what are we getting into here? What does it mean to be married? I think it comes to education on some level. What do you think about that? I think you're spot on. So if we look at the causes of infidelity under the relationship factors, a common one I see with couples is the lack of relationship maturity. Relationship maturity is what you described, is having the skill set and the knowledge to know if you're ready for a relationship, to know how to start a relationship and how to maintain it and grow and adapt with it. So how do people get relationship maturity? There's two main sources. One is what's being modeled to you and your family of origin. And I would say majority of people, unfortunately, are not lucky in that department. Most people, they don't have a good model in their household that tend to be the minority. The second source of gaining relationship maturity is the type of adult relationship people are engaged in prior to the current relationship that they're coming to see you for. So if you have somebody who grew up in a household where infidelity was a commonplace or maybe communication or conflict resolution was not modeled, right, they're already going to be starting a relationship with a disadvantage. Or somebody might have been in a few relationship that were awful and bad and taught them some bad lessons. They can carry some of these bad lessons to their new relationship. So you're spot on about the lack of education. I think something as simple as what is infidelity, that is so basic. If you ask most people, what does that mean? A lot of people are going to struggle and come up with a congruent answer that works for everybody. Yeah. I feel like we're kind of touching on generational patterns you know when you look at a family that may come from a broken home do you see patterns there is it easier for a child that comes from a set of divorced parents to follow in those same patterns that's a great question I've seen I've seen family origin actually have impact in both directions right so if you say if you come from a broken home you know uh that doesn't mean you know more that everybody who is coming from that place is going to be doomed in terms of their success and failure in a relationship is certainly going to play an impact on how they saw conflict being handled in that household. But also I've seen households where the adult clients report, oh, my child was great. Okay, tell me how great was your childhood? Well, my parents never fought. at all, right? So it could err on the other side of, I think it's good that, you know, a healthy couple, you should not be exposing your kids to your drama, right? If you're having conflict, have it behind closed doors, but that doesn't mean you show them a fake version of a relationship, right? Because a healthy relationship is not a perfect relationship. Conflict is normal part of life, right? And sometimes people err on that side of, you know, it seems like everything looks good on paper, right? The parents are happy and right cute and all that stuff but you have kids who grow up with no skill set or that they're frustrated when they're you know god forbid their partner have a different opinion and for them it's like they had a completely different set of reality of what relationships look like so it can go both ways yeah there there's I labeled this particular podcast uh the nature of trust and it the the for me that I've been dying to ask you is that you know trust once broken can be incredibly difficult to repair is trust something that can ever fully be restored or does infidelity permanently alter the very definition of trust in a relationship great question let's see I I think I think based on how we define trust so trust within the context of infidelity recovery is How do I know this won't happen again? That's the million dollar question that the betrayed have and sometimes unfaithful. And to me, it's cause and effect. Infidelity doesn't happen in a vacuum. If you take the time and effort to really do an autopsy of the affair, you will be able to come up with all the reason why it happened. So the only way for people to rebuild trust after discovering infidelity is by being able to understand the type of infidelity that took place, the reason why it happened, and seeing concrete evidence of those reasons being resolved. Right. Anything short of that is wishful thinking. That's anything short of that is like, you know, not the real kind of forgiveness, not the real kind of rebuilding trust. So if you see the unfaithful and the betrayed, redeem themselves from the shortcomings that have led to the infidelity, right? Then you can say we can rebuild trust. Now, is it going to be the same, right? That's again, so sometimes couples feel like, okay, we can never have the same relationship that we had prior to this, you know, have we have not known about the affair, you know, our life would be completely different. But we have to take a look at this is that the relationship that people had prior to the affair, chances are wasn't the healthiest relationship, right? Because even if that fair happened because of individual issues, unfaithful is dealing with versus a relationship deficit that wasn't a hundred percent relationship. Having that fair happen actually allow people to take a look at these things that they ignored or they think they didn't know existed. So you can make an argument that if they do the work, they will end up with a better, healthier relationship than they had before, because now they're building a relationship on truth, on transparency. and a full disclosure about what they're up against. So I think you can actually make the relationship even better than it was prior to the discovery of the affair. Now that's not going to be the case for everyone because sometimes the infidelity is a signal that this relationship shouldn't have been there in the first place, which bring up my other soapbox about what should be the purpose of couples counseling. I don't think the purpose of couples counseling is to repair a relationship. Am I an advocate for people repairing their relationship? Of course I am. I mean, who doesn't want people to repair their relationship? But we have to accept that not all relationships should survive. Some relationships shouldn't have started in the first place. The purpose of couples counseling in general and the purpose of infidelity recovery in particular is to help people get unstuck. And you do that by giving them the information that they need to make that choice. And I also don't think it's the therapist's job to choose for them, right? It's not my relationship. My job is to give you the information that you need to make an informed decision about which direction that you're going to go. And if you're going to go rebuilding the relationship, then my job is to give you the tools to not only identify the factors that led to infidelity, but concrete ways of how to make sure that you don't find yourself in that situation again. Wow. That particular insight is something you almost never hear, is this idea that infidelity could lead to an evolution of growth that you might not have ever had unless you faced that particular instance. That's mind-blowing to me. It also brings up a lot of complexity, and it makes me think about how difficult it is to have this sort of Issue of trust, like, you know what, this person cheated on me, but I have my kids. I'm going to stay together because I think it's the right thing to do. But in reality, you're just ignoring the gaping hole in your relationship and refusing to see it on something. It's really complex, right? It is. And that's when, you know. Even when I get my. consultation calls the clients and ask them about what are they hoping to accomplish, right? There are a lot of people who say, well, you know, we're calling you because we want to repair the relationship. I say, that's fine. That's nice. I'm not going to give them the way of that. If that is going to be in your guys' trajectory, we will get there, right? I'm not going to, you know, go against it or for it, but you have to enter that process with both options that this could actually work and this could actually could mean that we go our separate ways. And really trauma is the catalyst for change, right? And the change and the growth can be for the relationship and it being better or for people to individually heal because not everybody is going to be able and willing to do what it takes to rebuild trust. It's just as simple as that. and I think you know there's a part of us where you know even I think clinicians are guilty of this where you think that you know your success rate is by you know how many people repair the relationship that that's that's a false that's a false metric and also that's uh ignoring the fact that you know sometimes counseling can be that catalyst also to tell people that hey this there's a big compatibility issue that's not going to go away or if you're going to stay just for the sake of the kids Uh, and the way I sell this for my client about the kids piece is that, you know, your job as a parent is to showcase what healthy relationship for your kids so that they can be successful adults. So if you're in this dead devoid of trust marriage, what kind of message that you're sending for them? Yeah. They don't have to have split schedules, but like you're not really preparing them to. to have a healthy relationship in adulthood. That cannot be a reason that can be a secondary reason, but that cannot be a primary reason for building the relationship. And that's one of the milestones that I actually help my clients go through is to assess their motivation. If you want to rebuild, why do you want to rebuild? And then here's, it's even more tricky. A lot of, a lot of times people think that this is, uh, the decision that the betrayed, you know, have to think about, should I stay? Should I leave? Well, no, both people have to ask themselves that question. And sometimes the one who's on the fence is the unfaithful, not the betrayed, which create a whole different dynamics in the therapy environment. Do you see the relationship model as like a three-piece model? Like you have the husband, the wife, and then the relationship? And if so, is the relationship greater than the individuals? I truly believe that relationships that we form with our significant other takes a life of its own. It becomes its own organism. And I always have the analogy if it's a plant that the two of you created together, how you treat it, how you water it, how you nurture it is going to either help it grow uh or not so so I I see them like interlinked I see I see the relationship as the crowning achievement of the contribution of both people think of it as that this is this is the child of this relationship what kind of child do you have and what does that say about the effort that you're putting in your readiness to have this child in the world does that make sense Oh, it makes perfect sense. It's a beautiful way to describe it, and I'm going to write it down so that I can start thinking about it in that way. Thank you for that. I don't think you can talk about betrayal without talking about forgiveness, and there's a really big psychology around forgiveness. I've spoken to people, and I've been impacted by infidelity where something happens in a relationship. and the person will never forgive them, or the person wants to go out and then cheat, and then they'll forgive them. But maybe you could speak to this idea of forgiveness in the idea of infidelity. Sure. I guess to start off, what does forgiveness mean to you? If I asked you to define forgiveness, what would you say? Forgiveness for me is the idea that you understand the reason why a transgression was made, and you can have enough empathy to understand why that was made. You won't forget it, but you can say, listen, if I was in that situation, I'm not sure what I would have done. I can understand why they did that. And forgiveness for me would be to have empathy, to understand it, and then realize that I am no longer going to harbor angry feelings because those angry feelings only hurt me. Excellent. You have like all the main components of that aspect. And the reason I ask, because I want to do a juxtaposition, you know, when oftentimes when people think of forgiveness and from the betrayed and unfaithful perspective, A lot of things that I have to detangle is similar to what you said. One, forgiveness doesn't, if I forgive you, it does not mean that I'm actually going to be in the relationship with you. I could forgive you and still not want to be in a relationship with you. That's one. Forgiveness doesn't also mean forgetting because you can never forget something as awful as infidelity happened to you. The best that you can hope for is that that memory will become a distant thing in your rear view mirror, right? As you're driving, you know, the further you drive in your road of recovery, the further it's going to be away, the less negative impact it's going to have on your life. But also forgiveness is something that you cannot just wave a magic wand and say you are forgiven. It's I see it as an act of redemption and not in the spiritual sense, even though I'm using spiritual language, because that's the closest word that kind of convey that aspect for me in order for somebody to earn forgiveness for themselves, from themselves and from their partner, because there's also two components, right? You have to demonstrate that you have resolved the shortcomings that led you to be in this situation. right if if you're not able to do that then in my book you have not you know redeemed yourself from the shortcomings so it is tied to what you do after you find out that oh thanks and uh consistently with your action that you became a different individual a better individual other than that So to me, that's a metric for forgiveness. And it's something that you have to earn from your partner if you're the unfaithful. But also, that's something that you have to be willing to give to yourself at some point of time. Yeah, it's really well said, the idea of redemption and earning it. Sometimes when I think about infidelity, especially in a world today that's just, you know, we spoke about the media or sometimes we can see on some level there's like this porn addiction out there. Like porn is everywhere. Do you see that like maybe porn or is there infidelity? Is there a difference between infidelity and emotional betrayal? Yeah. So I guess, first of all, we'll have to start with defining infidelity, right? And please remind me to bring up the porn if I forget about that part. So the first puzzle that I had to solve when I went on this journey of trying to understand infidelity is to come up with an operational definition for infidelity that works for all my clients who come from different backgrounds, different religious group, different cultural belief system, and different type of relationships. And when I began looking at the literature, I realized that even researchers cannot agree on what is the operational definition of infidelity. And that's crazy to me because everything that we think and we know about infidelity, we have to redo again, right? Because the data is viewed based on how you define it, right? So here's my definition of infidelity that I came up with. And, and the context that will provide to explain that definition. I really believe that all relationships should operate as a business partnerships, meaning that we need to know what kind of partnership is this? How many partners we have in this relationship? Is it one? Is it two? Is it twenty? Uh, what are the emotional and, uh, physical needs that we're expecting our partners to fulfill? And to what extent the fulfillment of those needs is exclusive to the partners that we have in this relationship contract. So the moment a person in the relationship outsource the fulfillment of any of those needs, big or small, to somebody else outside of this relationship contract without consent, I am breaching my contract of exclusivity. And that breach of contract exclusivity, big or small, becomes the threshold for infidelity. And this is really crucial for couples and clinicians to be on the same page on because trust and belief, when your client's showing up to your office, they need a ruling. Is what happened infidelity or something else? And your job, you have to weigh in to say, is this infidelity or not? Because if it's infidelity and you called it something else, they said that, oh, this is just inappropriate for behavior, then you minimize the big problem, right? And you can make the argument for the opposite direction. So defining infidelity in that sense means that infidelity is just simply sexual acts that you conduct in person. It's also emotional needs that you and your partner have expected to have exclusivity in that department. And it's a lot difficult for people to wrap their mind about emotional exclusivity because we are used to having other people fulfill our emotional needs, right? Like, you know, you have friends, you have family members, they fulfill some of our emotional needs. So the parameters of exclusivity is going to be a lot harder to pinpoint in that aspect. And the reason what I found with that definition being helpful is that one, it gives me a moral buffer between me and my client. So they're asking Talal to weigh in, is this infidelity or not? And Talal says, yes, it is. It's not because this is Talal belief system. This is not because Talal personal view on what's right or wrong. This is based on your unique relationship contract as a couple. And this is a good way to nail down faithful on that aspect and have them actually be able to admit that what they did infidelity, because most of the time people either explicitly or implicitly know what was supposed to be exclusive for them. And it makes it easier to actually help a couple begin to understand what kind of problem that we are working on. Now, if we take this, you know, take a look at when you asked me about pornography. So Porn addiction can lead to infidelity in two main ways. There are others, but I'm gonna share the main ways that I have seen through research as well as through more of my work with clients. So the first way is the sexual script that we operate on. If you look at the majority of the pornography material that's being made, it does not portray monogamous exclusive sex. Oftentimes it's group sex, pizza delivery guy, all these things, right? It's, it's a lot of infidelity narrative too, which means that as the viewer, you begin to be interacting with these sexual scripts. You can begin to have these fantasies, right? So it does impact your view about sexuality, what you find exciting because you're bombarded by sexual situations that are not, uh, replicating, you know, uh, real life or monogamy or exclusivity. If you take a look at the other factor is the compare and contrast. So everything that happens in the porn world is not real world. Everything's airbrushed attributes that people have. They're not what you see often in real life. So when people interact with this material, they begin to compare and contrast their attributes, their partner attributes, as well as the quality of the sexual interaction with what they see in the porn and what people forget that this is not real, that this is this is a fantasy, right? And oftentimes people become dissatisfied with themselves or with their partner because of what they're viewing. And that might cause them to seek similar interaction that they see in the porn outside of the relationship, or want to be with somebody who looks like the people that they see in the pornography. Not only that, but also sometimes people utilize masturbation and pornography as the main way for fulfilling sexual needs. It is not supposed to be the main way for fulfilling sexual needs. It's supposed to be a secondary, right? When your partner is not available. But if you have a partner who is ready and willing and you don't have sex with them and you'd rather watch pornography, that tells me there's something, you know, that meets with this relationship. Why are you not utilizing the outlet that the primary outlet is supposed to be for the relationship and you're going for the secondary outlet? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's interesting to see that as a symptom of the sickness that is plaguing us on some level. It's great. We got a comment that comes in from the great Hank Foley, and he says, correlate active religious practice of various types with the co-occurrence of infidelity. My own observation has been that the more fundamental the belief set amongst Christians, perhaps paradoxically, the more likely infidelity will occur at any time during the marriage. Does the square W... Does that square with your experience? Also, I'm sure you've dealt with couples for whom the only infidelity is typically that of the male. Let me see. Let me see in terms of what what does this mean? So I guess. I'm figuring out what's the best way to interpret this before I give my answer. Is it really more along the lines of being prepared that this is something that's going to happen in your relationship makes it easier for it not to happen? I think so. Okay. So I guess one way I can answer this from talking about the impact of spirituality and religiosity, maybe that will help address this piece. Yeah. Research shows that People who have spiritual belief systems that discourage infidelity or frown upon infidelity tend to have lower prevalence rates of infidelity because part of their moral compass, it is really important for them and there is a buy-in that I should not be doing this. There is some aspect to that. Flip side of this too, oftentimes a lot of these spiritual belief systems tend to have a very rigid view on sexuality and sexual exploration. So it can create a different problem by creating unrealistic expectations. So a classic example that I see often enough with folks who grew up in a belief system with a very strong moral compass, with maybe an emphasis on discouraging sexual exploration prior to getting married. I've seen a lot of people where the lack of exploration was a major cause for infidelity because they didn't figure out who they are. Maybe they didn't discover an orientation that they should have been aware of and they didn't get to explore that. And now they escalated their commitment to somebody. They got married, have kids, and later on they're struggling with this thing they did not explore. So I can see it backfiring in that aspect. But bringing it back to the questions about the pornography and leading to, you know, that's a leading cause for males to come in treatment. I think pornography, watching pornography itself can also be the threshold of infidelity in some relationships. Now, I personally, as a clinician, I don't have a moral view about pornography for or against. There are a lot of research that shows specific type of pornography viewing with certain parameters can actually be a healthy tool for couples when it comes to intimacy. But that's not for everybody. I would say the majority of people, the pornography viewing is really more in the negative aspect versus the positive aspect. So sometimes, let's say if you have a couple where the relationship contracts, There was an expectation of exclusivity as the partner. I'm not okay with you getting arousal and sexual satisfaction from somebody else, even if that somebody else is a video or a magazine, right? If that's my relationship contract and I'm watching pornography, then I'm already breaching that threshold if this was the type of relationship exclusivity that I signed up for. But also when people start dysfunction, right? Let's say that pornography was a form of infidelity. And I know that this was, you know, if I know that this was a form of infidelity in my marriage and I did it anyway, eventually this function is going to increase. So nobody wakes up one morning to say, I'm going to jump at the deep end of infidelity, the deep end pull of infidelity. A lot of times they start with poor boundaries, blurring those boundaries, and it escalates, right? Because whatever we started to fulfill the need is not going to be enough and we need to amp it up. So it becomes a slippery slope. You know, there is no such thing as a small act of infidelity or big act of infidelity. Eventually, it will get bigger and bigger and bigger. It's not going to go away on its own. And if it does, it's not for the right reason. It's because something happened, you know, fizzled out because maybe somebody had to move or go to a different location. Do you think, in your opinion, and... Does the number of sexual partners you have before getting into a relationship affect infidelity? Is there a higher rate of people who have more partners before marriage or have less partners before marriage? Or is that just anecdotal? I think it plays a part, but not always there is because numbers of partners doesn't mean that the person had adequate experience. What I look for is adequate, healthy experience. And I don't think that's something you can quantify by number because could have somebody who have multiple sex partners and the theme of those relationship that they were never fulfilled right maybe they're the other partners were getting the fulfillment now you have a person who just now learned that you know they're the best thing that they can offer to the world is their body when in reality that's you know you could argue they have a number of experiences but the number of experiences did not really teach them who they are and what they should look for. I think really the quality of those previous experiences versus the quantity is what I would invest in. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What about, I have written down here, the infidelity as a death and a rebirth. You have helped many couples navigate the wreckage left behind by affairs. Do you see infidelity as a kind of death and rebirth of a relationship? And for couples that successfully rebuild after an affair, is the new relationship ever truly the same or does it become something else entirely? It is absolutely a death and rebirth for the relationship. And I would say even it's a death and rebirth for the individual too, because a lot of times, believe it or not, the unfaithful partner is shocked and appalled about what they were capable of, right? Because a lot of times we have this assumption that people who are unfaithful or cheating, they're just, you know, immoral people. They don't have moral compass. That is not the case. Now, granted, those people exist, but that's not the majority of unfaithful partners. A lot of these folks are good, decent human beings, right? You caught them in a very awful, awful, awful horrendous chapter in their life. That chapter does not mean that they're lacking morals. But being able to again, if people decide to rebuild for the right reason and they actually address the individual relational and environmental factors that led to infidelity, it's going to give them a better relationship than they ever had before. And there are many couples where if you see the videos from them in the early phase of treatment, in the middle and the late phase, you see that transition and for, for both of them, the betrayed and unfaithful to report that, you know, I didn't, I couldn't, I can't believe that, you know, we ended up with a better relationship than we had before, because it seemed like an outlandish thing that, you know, something as awful infidelity could lead to something greater. But I always give the analogy of, um, heart attacks, right? So most of us know that you need to eat well and exercise to get better. Right. But not everybody's going to actually take the time and effort to do that. Unless somebody can get a scary diagnosis. Hey, you have a heart attack. You're going to die if you don't eat and eat well and exercise. Now, some people still double down to say, you know what? I live this way. I may as well just going to go. Right. But the majority of people, this would be like, okay, this is a serious wake up call. If I really want to live, I need to eat better. I need to exercise. The same thing with infidelity. I would say most people, they usually know there's something broken in the relationship or there is something individually within them that they haven't fixed, but they don't take care of it. Whether it's they don't have the time, they don't have the resources, or maybe they think it's not severe enough for it to deal with it. When infidelity happened, it is like a heart attack for the relationship. Now is the time for you to actually decide, are you going to do your best or are you going to continue the same thing that you're doing? So if you get this golden opportunity, like, look, here's what's broken. Here's how you need to fix it. And you rise up to the occasion. You're going to be the best version of yourself in that relationship. So to me, that's the silver lining of infidelity. But also let's say that you actually opt for not being in the relationship. Now you're free from this burden that you've been tied to all these years. And now you actually have the time to live the healthy life and maybe find the healthy relationship that you deserve instead of just continuing to do the same thing. Yeah, it makes sense. It's interesting that we say faithful or faithless, you know, and I can't help and Hank brings up another good point here about the idea of like fundamentalist or even tight religious structures seem to sometimes, you know, prohibit sex. Like if we look back at, you know, we can see it in literature or we can see it in some sort of cults sometimes or fundamentalist Christians or different Jews or Muslims or Sikhs, they have like these different containers of religion. How do you think that these rigid containers play a part in infidelity or do they? Hmm. So let me let me take a look at it from I'll answer it from one aspect that was actually important for me. And maybe this will help me with that other one. One thing that you will notice, because this one I did my research with the the cross-cultural aspect and would do other religions and societies, how they handle an infidelity. And I would say the majority of societies, right, they have some religious taboo or discouragement of infidelity to the point of severe, severe punishment. Yeah, right. Uh, and, and to me, that's an indication of what that infidelity, it's a problem that doesn't just impact the people in the committed relationship. It impact them and impact their kids, impact their family and society. It's it's the, the, the devastating impact when infidelity is discovered, it ruins so many different lives, even, even in the most classic, easy let's, you know, just, uh, you know, uh, a husband and a wife from both sides, they both cheated on their partner and now think about their families and friends and this rebel impact that just impact everybody else. So, so I think there's one aspect of that in terms of why there's some religious taboos against infidelity, I think, because people. intrinsically new, some betrayal can cause a rip in society. Not even if you're thinking about, you know, lineage lines and inheritance and all that. So I think there is a utility aspect from that part. But I think also the crimes that happens, the crimes of passion that happens. Heck, there are some countries where even murder motivated by, you know, discovery affair where you get a lighter sentences. I mean, it's that's it's a society went to that level to discourage people from engaging in it. Now, I do think, you know, the spiritual belief system can be a container for a positive aspect of teaching the value of being honest with yourself, the value of integrity, the value of treat others of how you want to be treated, where it can discourage people. But I feel like it all has to do with your relationship with your belief system. If it's a belief system that you have an internal buy-in and it does not conflict with who you are, then it can be a positive thing and can be a protective factor against infidelity. But if it's a belief system that's been thrusted upon you. And I think most people, um, there are a lot of people where you're just born into the faith, right? Where you just do it because this is what your family done versus that you chose that faith. I think that makes a difference. Because I think if fidelity in a relationship is a value for you, if it's an intrinsic value, then you're going to comply regardless of who's watching and who's not watching. But if you're just doing it because that's what you're supposed to do, your compliance is going to be sketchy, right? Your compliance is going to be. Not only that, but let's say that your religious belief system goes against who you are as an individual. Let's say that you're a person who is not heterosexual, right? You identify as bi or homosexual, and you're part of belief system where that's a no-go. And you end up being in a heterosexual relationship, and despite your best effort, you're not going to be fulfilled, and your partner is not going to be fulfilled. In those situations, people have to really choose what's congruent with who they are versus what being told who they should be. Yeah. It's such an interesting concept to think about our relationship to sex. It's this incredible emotional driver that has to do with power and desire and encouragement and lust. Is this something that... Do you think the human condition will ever outgrow? Is this something that is in us for the long haul? Do you ever forecast a time? Sometimes when you read books, you'll see Brave New World where they write about changing the attitude towards sex or free love in the sixties and seventies. Do you think we're moving towards a more different model of sex in the human condition? I'm trying to figure out if I should answer this as a pessimist or an optimist. I'll go with genuine because for me, you know, authentic is always a win. I don't, you know, and maybe this is occupational hazard where you maybe, you know, change your perspective about the world and humanity. I'll take ownership of that, you know, capacity for change. I do think people are capable of change. I think what I worry about is our ego as humans that will get in the way of making those change. I think in order for us to transcend our human limitations, we have to be willing to take a real hard look about who we are and what we can and cannot do right now. If we're able to accept that, then it will pave a pathway for us to actually be better. But I think most of the times, there's a big gap between our biological evolution and cultural evolution. If you ask me, that's what I put my money on. Despite how intelligent we think we are and how we have tamed the planet and all of these things, we still have a lot of wired in primate traits that we struggle with. And sometimes the disconnect is between our biological nature and our cultural intellectual evolution. I think there's a gap between the two that we haven't been able to reconcile yet. But I think if we're able to accept that everybody's capable of doing something as awful as infidelity, right? Uh, maybe you'll temper, you know, maybe you'll temper some of that hubris, right. About that, you know, just because things are going great and you have things functional in different aspects, that does not mean you're in you to it. Right. Maybe that you will force us to not be on autopilot, our relationship and our exploration of ourself, because I really feel in order for people not to be in this situation. First of all, you have to be consistently learning about who you are and the changes that goes within you, right? If you're aware of those changes and how you evolve as a person, and if you realize that the way you're evolving might not be congruent with the relationship that you're in and the parameters of exclusivity, you can have that conversation with your partner, right? Hey, look, I used to be this and now I'm that, right? What do we do about this? Can we still be together? Can we still be in this relationship contract? Is there room for us to grow in the same direction? The answer is yes. Great. We can continue and grow and adapt. The answer is no, at least we can separate versus, you know, trying to cross those lines of fidelity, end up with heartaches and hurt for everyone. Yeah, I heard an interesting quote yesterday that said sexual energy is creative energy. And I'm wondering to get your thoughts on that. It seems to me that when we start looking at the creative process, it's a lot of that same energy. Do you think that maybe we'd be a more creative society if we had less sex? I think it really has to do with our individual relationship. What does sex mean to us? Right. I think it really goes to the narrative that we told about to ourself. What is the role of sex? What value does it bring to me? What cost does it take out of our life? I think at least on the biological level, we can say there is a, you know, a lot biological imperative aspect related to procreation that kind of drive the machine. There's the excitement arousals and all these things. But I think also, you know, we're a stage in our human evolution where we put all these non-physical, biological things about sex. Now we see it as a sign of desire. We see it as a sign of wealth. We see it as a sign of power. And it's interesting because I feel like all of these things that we assign to sex, they're subjective and they change. Right. I mean, even, even something like if you look in different cultures where, you know, the, you know, in order for you to be the priest or the priestess, you have to be somebody who's, you know, never had sex. So as a purity thing. So it's, so I think that, not saying this thing doesn't have validity I think these things are the values we assign to sex is a reflection of what's what type of humans we have living in that world at that time it's a snapshot of how we see our place in the world but I think it's ever-changing which maybe that actually painted pathway for hope about you know can we can we see it differently I think depends on what stories we tell ourselves about what sex and what it's supposed to be You know, I mean, you could also make an argument. You can do a dystopian sci-fi future where sex seems like, oh, people, I think a lot of movies actually played with that and say, oh, all the primates have actual sex. We don't do that anymore. We don't do, you know, intellectual telepathy. Yeah. Hank brings up a good point. And I'm curious, as someone who has written multiple books on it and has a deep insight about it, is the incidence of infidelity different in the United States than it is throughout the rest of the world? I would say... that. So here's the thing. When you look at the literature, you're going to find some data that is not data that's good enough from my perspective because of how they're operating, what operation definition that they're using. And we also have to keep in mind that also the cross-cultural is limited because in some cultures you can't even admit that you have infidelity. It's shameful. So that's going to skew that. I can tell you for a fact based on the the relationship between the cultural norms and infidelity, of course, is going to be played a different factor because the United States' own unique, and you can make that argument about every country, but I think maybe you can say maybe United States tend to have the advantage of influencing bigger part of the world. There are a lot of people who want to emulate the American way and influenced by it. So I think you might see some of that trickle effect in those other cultures. But I think the beliefs and the way people live and what's expected socially acceptable or not is going to play a factor. I'll give you something similar to that occupation. Like I said, you're familiar with a website called Ashley Madison? Yeah. Okay. So for the viewers who don't know what Ashley Madison is, it's a website for people who want to have affairs. I think in two thousand and fourteen, there was a data breach to the website. that gave the researchers like a golden opportunity to regard what type of people actually end up having affairs. Right. And they when they were looking when they're analyzing the data, they found that there are certain type of jobs where infidelity seems to be more prevalent. And those jobs, people in the military, people who are first responders, people who are in sales. Why would I bring this up? Because they are some occupational environment where cheating is not frowned upon. We're actually seeing that this is what everybody does. I work with people from different walks of life. A common thing that I see with CEOs and executives, a lot of times when I say like, why did you think it was okay to do this? He said, well, it's a perk. This is what you get when you get to that level. Everybody who's a captain of industry has a mistress. That's just the norm. If you look at this from a global society, if you live in a culture where almost everybody that you know cheated or cheated on you see it on tv everywhere guess what social messaging that you're going to get that this is probably not a big deal like this is something that's a common place it's just like a you know a guarded variety so I do think to some extent that makes it easier for people to not think so much about the consequences or they think well if it gets discovered you know our neighbor cheated or our best friend so and so cheated and they seem to be okay so I do think sometimes we play a factor in normalizing those kind of behaviors and minimizing the fear about consequences yeah it's a great point it's just can it ever be like preemptive do you think that the people are you able to preempt it on some level like maybe people were having feelings about it and they come to you or do you see that as a strategy on some level What would you explain in a different way when you say preemptive, meaning like, you know, that they would actually try to seek help before they cross those lines? Yeah, exactly. You know, I have yet to receive a call where somebody says, hey, I'm struggling with infidelity, right? Oftentimes, the closest that I get to that is a call to say, hey, I've been cheating on my partner, right? It's bugging me, right? I want to work on it, but I don't want to tell my partner. And that brings up another thing about the infidelity recovery. You cannot do infidelity recovery successfully with one person. It just does not work. right you so and then my conversation with that person if you really want to heal right you're you're going to have to be willing to tell your partner why do I have to tell them you know this is going to hurt them you know I can take this to the grave logistically I truly believe whether this is uh you know a divine intervention or just way of the world looks I don't know how that part works but one thing that I have learned is that the truth always come to the surface like karmically and it comes out in very weird bizarre ways common example years ago you and I never thought that there will be a world where this uh and me and dna testing that wasn't even something on that I at least when I was growing up I didn't think that we're gonna have the technology where we're just gonna do this right so I would say at least three times a year or maybe four times a year, I get a call from somebody who says, you know, guess what? We've been married for twenty, thirty years. And one of our kids did a DNA test and found out that this person is not my kid. So so like you have all this relationship where people thought, you know, I could take this to my grave, not knowing that one day there will be technology where one of their kids for Christmas trying to find out their roots and now they destroy the whole family. Right. So Truth always find a way to the surface. So if you really want to repair the relationship or be better, it start by owning up to that. Or, you know, I mean, just the whole idea of STIs, right? You know, and the risk that you can give to someone. So I think really, you know, it's and it's unfortunate to uh to see all the missed opportunities that people had because when we do the autopsy for the affair and why this happened it is tragic to see like I could have done this I could have done that here's all this different exit on the freeway that I missed and really that's why my advice to people if if you're not happy with yourself you're not happy with your relationship what you need to do is pause and figure out hey what are we doing and is this can is this something can be fixed if you do that you're going to be more successful in having a chance to maintain what you have assuming it's maintainable But I'd rather that the relationship end versus end after cheating. That's more devastating. Yeah, it is. Dr. Talal, I walked you right up to this hour right here. How are you doing on time? I am good. We can go as much as you need. Okay. Infidelity as a mirror of the self. Like you kind of touched on that a little bit. Like the idea that maybe this infidelity that's happening may not be a direct reflection of the inadequacies of the relationship. Maybe it's a direct reflection of the inadequacies you feel about yourself. Maybe you can dig into that a little bit. Absolutely. So we'll use the type of unfaithful who, let's say, where this happened because of the narcissistic personality disorder. Yeah. so why would a narcissist uh what is the correlation between narcissism and infidelity uh somebody who's a narcissist they're going to be needing constant attention uh and they might be somebody who have a partner who's giving them attention that they need at home but it's never going to be enough from one person they need it from multiple sources so it doesn't matter what relationship they're in it doesn't matter how great uh their partner is treating them it It's not a one person's job. They're going to be seeking that no matter what relationship that they're in. And I mean, that's a reflection of that person's symptoms and their need to actually address it. What makes it more challenging? Do you hear about the term egocentronic, egotistonic? No, I don't know those. okay so so there's two two types of mental healthy uh symptoms two categories if we're looking at it probably egocentronic and egocentronic meaning what one of them means that you know some mental health condition people are aware that there's something wrong that they need to fix right they know that there's something is broken and there's the other one where like no they're a okay they have no clinical distress their problems that the world is not on the same page There are certain types of personality disorders, such as narcissistic personality disorders and antisocial personality disorder. They're the type of mental health issues where the person is A-OK with who they are. They have no clinical distress whatsoever. Their problem is that the world is not going on that same page, right? So if you're a narcissist, it's going to be a struggle for you to actually want to change that because you're happy with who you are. You're not happy that other people are not playing the roles that you expect them to play, which makes it challenging and resistant for treatment. But or sometimes, give an example. And that's what I love so much about my discoveries in those fields. We all know that trauma or sexual trauma can impact somebody in a negative way. But this was one of my you know, light bulb moments to see how how often sexual trauma expose, you know, when somebody's supposed to do it as a child to what's that huge correlation of infidelity and adult relationship. And if you think about it, it makes sense. And on the stories often that I hear the gist of it, something along the lines of somebody got sexually abused as a child. They never got the proper treatment. Or maybe when they tried to disclose, they didn't get the support. They were blamed by the parents. Right. that change how they change their view of sexuality. Right. They might end up being more promiscuous because that's one of the negative trajectory of sexual abuse was not being treated well. So now this person grew up with an idea that all they offer to the world is their body. Right. But I'm only good for that because historically this is what I have been used for. So classic example that I see often and often again, you have, uh, you know, uh, an unfaithful, uh, female partner who let's say that she's experiencing an emotional deficit in her relationship. Their sex life is great from the physical aspect, but there is no emotional intimacy. Right. So she might not be interested in having the fear for the sex part. She might be have interested in having an affair with somebody who says you're good enough. I like you. Yeah. Right. They're interested in an emotional aspect. But the other person who you're engaging in your affair, they have their own motivation. They might they might not want the emotional aspect. They might want you just for the sex part. Right. So in order for me to get that emotional feedback that I need from you, that's lack of my relationship. I have to give you what you want, even though I'm not interested in the sex part. So now I have to cross the emotional and the sexual lens of fidelity just to get this emotional need being fulfilled for me. So something as sexual trauma that has happened in the past could set the stage for infidelity in the current relationship or amplify some of the relationship deficit that could cause infidelity. So really, when you look at the individual factors, and that's why spending a lot of times in the story of the affair, the type of reason happened is instrumental for people to decide, do we want to work on the relationship or not? Because from the betrayed perspective, they might say, okay, you know, if this happened because of an individual issue, this has nothing to do with me. This say you problem, maybe it's less, uh, soft blow to the, to the ego. We'll get you the help you need. Maybe this won't happen again for other betrayed partners to say, well, I have no control whether or not you're going to fix that issue. If this was a relationship deficit, maybe I'll have more wiggle room because I can do my part to be happy, you know, to, to make you happy for your needs. So it's interesting how that also is based on people worldview. That's what's fixable and what's not fixable. Yeah. Is between someone who cheats one time and someone who cheats multiple times, is one relationship more repairable versus the other? So there is this myth that once a cheater, always a cheater. Right, right. Yeah. And, and I'm going to say those people exist. So I'm not saying those people don't exist, but they're not, uh, the, the majority, I would say that Bill was a cheater, always a cheater, oftentimes tend to be the folks with personality disorders because their resistance to change, uh, the specific details of the infidelity, uh, and the unique circumstances does play a factor, but there is no hard and roll, you know, that you can apply to everybody. Right. It's unique for that each couple. Right. And I would say the common theme is what almost every betrayed wish the story was different. Right. And it's interesting because I have the vantage point to see all the different stories from different levels of infidelity. I've seen people struggle when there was just a one night stand influenced by alcohol versus somebody who repeatedly slept with, you know, twenty or thirty people multiple times. I think at the end of the day, it is subjective. Now granted the frequency of the numbers, right. Uh, it's going to affect how the, the trade conceptualize the possibility for hope, because if you've been cheating for the last five years, at least, you know, three or four times a month, and you tell me all of a sudden, I'm gonna give that up. I'm gonna struggle with like, how are you gonna give up this habit that you had for five years? Yeah. Right. So it does play that impact and play an impact in terms of. The potential risk and consequences that they bring to home, right? Did they get somebody pregnant? Did they bring an STI? Are they going to lose their business because they slept with somebody at work that they're not supposed to? So I think those can be a factor in terms of the impact, the negative impact that's being brought to the relationship and how the betrayed conceptualize the chances for healing. But as a clinician, I think you cannot say just because it happened this many times that this person is doomed for failure. Now, also we have to factor in did this person, because somebody might say, okay, well, you're a cheater. You cheated on your past three relationships, right? Well, cheating in every relationship is going to be different for different reasons. Now, sometimes there is a common theme, but also we have to look at it within that context. Yeah, it's interesting to think about the ideas of patterns. And one of the patterns that I see sometimes in people that I speak with or sometimes articles that I've read is like language patterns. And I'm wondering, as someone who has been in this field for so long, are you able to begin to see signs in couples' language patterns, the words they use, the phrases they use, the intent they have in their language? Can you see it in those language patterns when you see people? What is it that I see in the language patterns? What specifically you're asking? Yes. Well, what is specifically you ask me if I see reflected in the couple's language pattern? So like, let's say a couple comes and are there patterns in their language between each other that usually signify the reasons for the cheating? You know, before they even admit to it. Like, let's say you see a couple that may be seeking help. Can you see like, oh, I can kind of understand the untold language that's happening here by the different words they use or body language. Predicting before that knowledge being discovered. Excellent. Yeah. Yes, with lots of caveats, right? Because I don't want people to say, well, I see this, then my partner's cheating on me. That's my disclaimer. Because you see that, it does not mean your partner's cheating on you. Right. So the signs that I worry about, about is this person going to cheat or not? Right. And also even like in a measurement of how do I know my relationship healthy as to why? Right. How do I know that I'm in the same zone and treating my partner in a respectful way so I don't have to worry about obstacles in my life? So really, the first thing that you look at is the type of intimacy people have in the relationship. And when I say intimacy, I'm not just saying sex. So I see there's three types of intimacy. There is emotional intimacy. There is physical, non-sexual intimacy. And there is physical, sexual intimacy. Right. So that's the trifecta. when when there are signs that the intimacy is lacking and intimacy is lacking for a long time that's a big concern because we all have needs for being connected we all have the needs for us to feel intimate in our relationship men are women I mean this is outside of how we socialize that this is you know you know guys don't need that no everybody needs that or else why we're in a relationship so when When I see that intimacy is lacking, when I see that people build separate lives, right? Like, you know, it's almost like the only thing that ties us is co-parents, but everything else, I have my friend, you have your friend, I have my activity, your activity, and we hardly spend time with one another. That's a red flag, right? When I see people fight for this right of transparency and... hide hide the uh hide behind the autonomy and uh privacy so so here's how to conceptualize this and it's not the popular view but I'm not here to make friends I I I think when you're in a healthy relationship if you feel that there is a part of you that for your eyes only right and that you don't you don't want your partner to see that's a problem because that either means that you're doing something that goes against what we're expecting this relationship, or you don't trust your partner to be vulnerable with that information. Both of these are devastating for a relationship, right? So I feel like, you know, if I don't have anything to hide, you want to see my phone, you want to see my emails, have at it, go nuts. I'm not doing anything I'm not supposed to. But I expect at a minimum, right? I give the analogy that we live in this big house and we have all these rooms with doors. The doors are closed. I'm not going to put a lock on them. If you want to see what's in this room, ask me, hey, can I see what this room and I will open the door for you and you can go see whatever you want. To me, that's a healthy level of navigating this transparency. So that's what I'm saying. When you have somebody who is very protective of that transparency, it's like, no, you can't see my phone. My phone is always in my pocket, right? I'm getting angry, right? That's I have that question. Like, what's going on? Are you talking negatively about me? Are you talking to somebody else that you're not supposed to? So these are some of the signs that I look for in terms of language. That one oftentimes people who have those traits, I mean, you see them either. They have a destructive pattern of communication where it's always you know, conflicting, like nitpicking, you know, just fighting about things that they shouldn't fight about. Right. Or that they're just cold and just kind of detached. Right. Kind of aloof. It's not always going to be people who are in their language explosive. Sometimes they can just be very detached and aloof. No, no explosions. So these are the things that I look for. But again, those things can all just be also signs of other relationship problems that needs to be addressed, not always infidel. Yeah, we've covered a lot about the particular individuals in the relationship, about the partners. But there's a whole other aspect when I think about children that come from parents who have cheated on each other. There's like a lot of long-term guilt or anger or unprocessed emotions sometimes, and that can carry on through a lifetime. Maybe sometimes keeping grandkids from grandparents on some level. Maybe you could unpack that a little bit. That's a pretty big one, right? Sure. So actually, one of the courses that I teach on my platform is Children, the Invisible Victims of Affairs, because I would say that's the most ignored facet in research as well as in clinical application, because most therapists, they're just focusing on the couple or the individual and nobody's thinking about the kids. And when I say kids, I'm not just only saying children. I'm also saying adult kids are being impacted. So here's how we have to wrap my mind around it. There is two different kind of negative impact when kids are being exposed to parental infidelity there's the short term and there's the long term short-term impact uh you're gonna have the kids being triangulated right they're going to be in the middle of this and the kids are not all going to be siding with the same parent right yeah so which means that you might have also disruption in the sibling system right you might have You know, one kid who side with the, the betrayed and one kid side with the unfaithful. And now these kids are going to be finding each other because why do you sign, why do you side with the bad guy? Right. Uh, they going to be triangulated. They going oftentimes being the middle person. You tell them, I said this, you tell them, I said that oftentimes, uh, because the parents are preoccupied with the impact of the trauma. So they brought the ball on a lot of things. So you might find the kids being parentified. They having to take care of their other siblings. They have to cook some meals or have to take care of, you know, what are we going to do? Who's going to pay the bill because mom or dad are depressed and drinking and haven't slept all night, right? So they end up being parentified. It might impact whatever is going on for them at that time because, I mean, as you remember, growing up in the best circumstances is not an easy process. There's a lot of confusion trying to figure out growing up on its own. Now you have to do that within the context of what goes around you. The long term impact is that it affects how people view relationships, right? Because if you have your parents on a pedestal, they could do no wrong. And those people are guilty of doing something as awful. Why would I have that expectation of myself, right? My parents are cheaters. Then what would make me not a cheater, right? These are the people who are supposed to be better than me, supposed to be the adults. Uh, so it might either shape me to be somebody who doesn't have value for fidelity because. You know, everybody does it, or it might cause me to be very rigid because I saw the devastation that I've had in my family of origin. So now I'm not going to trust people, which ironically could cause people to cheat on me in the future. Right. Because if I enter a relationship, protecting my heart, always thinking that people don't cheat on me, even though there is no reason for them to do so. And this is my baggage. guess what's going to happen that relationship going to be unhappy and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so uh and that's what I'm saying like when I when I work with my couples before we talk about that fidelity spend a lot of time on family of origin and I'm always finding some factors that started there at a minimum is that lacking relationship maturity and not having healthy model a lot of times it's you know exposure to parental infidelity. And that's what really shaped their view about fidelity in their adult relationships. So it's something that we all have to be mindful of is that when we're making those decisions, we're impacting everybody. We're not just impacting our partners. And even the ones who actually end up splitting, right? Then now they have to co-parent With the lack of trust, like co-parenting is hard in the best circumstances. Now you're going to have to do it with this layer of mistrust. Yeah. And it seems like there's a betrayal factor if indeed the parents get remarried. Like now you have this new person into the game. Hey, you're not my dad. You're not my mom. You know, and like you have to compete for love from one of your parents who's now giving their affection to a stranger on some level. Yep. And, and, and that, again, that impacts, you know, the parents ability, are they going to be able to have healthy relationship? What are the kids? They going to feel abandoned and betrayed by the fact that this happened and now we have to be paying for that consequences. Yeah. It's, it's unfortunate. It's, uh, but, but also, like I said, sometimes it, it can, there can be a silver lining, right. It is by showcasing that relationships are hard and you don't quit right away. And that's why I always say in the spring of the other piece of I always discourage people from sharing and oversharing the discovery of infidelity. And sometimes I give this phone calls before people actually made that mistake. But a lot of times people already told so many people. And the problem that I have with this is what? whatever decision people have to make about the future of their relationship is going to be the most important decision in their life and that decision cannot be motivated by external influences because you know a lot of people say well I want to tell my family and friends because I need to vent well that's what a therapist is for that's not for your family and friends in this situation well why is that why can't I vent to my friends and family because you go in to solicit their bias, right? And everybody have their own bias and that bias might force you to stay in a relationship that you should leave or force you to leave a relationship that you should stay in. Not only that, but let's say that you decide to rebuild the relationship, what's gonna happen to this perception that these people end up with? Whatever process that you went through as a couple to decide that we're gonna rebuild on the relationship, those people are not privy to. They're just gonna be stuck with, hey, this person's a cheater, this person is X, Y, and Z, and now you have to worry about repairing that, right? And then you're going to be adding more triggers for yourself and complicating your recovery journey. Yeah, that's an aspect. I would say most people that I know that have been in that situation, that's the first person they go to is their family and friends. Yeah. It's interesting. So the new book that you have out jam packed with full of incredible information, was there something in particular in this book that, that was really calling to you that you really wanted the message to get out? Like, I guess if people read this book, what message does this book send to people? What do you want people to learn when they pick up your new book and read it? Uh, so, so, I have two books. So I have infidelity, the best person that could happen to your marriage. And in this book, what readers should expect is the milestones of recovery that people need to go through in order for them to better understand the what and the why assess the damage and figure out what's the best way to heal. So it, it's, it was designed to, uh, break down the systematic affair recovery therapy model for the average reader. Now it's not a replacement for therapy. Think of it as, you know, giving them the information about how recovery works. The second book is Unfaithful and Unrepentant, Affairs Beyond the Hope of Affair. It's this one here. So this book was written for the therapists and the betrayed partners who felt that despite their best effort, repairing their relationship was the right thing to do. But despite the effort, they're still stuck. So this is not because the therapist is not doing a good job. This is not because the betrayed is not doing a good job. This is because there are specific type of unfaithful partners. makes it near impossible to heal by rebuilding their relationship so this book did you know describe the nine archetypes on unfaithful partners that pretty much sabotage every aspects of the uh healing journey and the clients and the betrayed ability to actually navigate those milestones of recovery so it's really more of a cautionary tale right like if you're wondering should I rebuild should I rebuild and if you see that there is this pieces uh uh of traits that your unfaithful partners bring to the table this is a good indication of what you're up against and why that might make healing the relationship by rebuilding is not a good idea so it's really more of here here's when infidelity here's when repairing the relationship is not attainable if you want to know what that looks like that's the book for you to read It's interesting. Last week, I was speaking with Dr. Abby Moreno, who is an FBI profiler. On some level, I can't help but hear this idea of when we were talking, she says, George, I really have to get into the minds of some of these people to figure out their motivations and stuff like that. I would imagine the same is for you when you're writing these books. How do you deal with that? It seems like it could be very intense and difficult at times. It is, but it's very rewarding for me. And I think, you know, for me seeing patterns is I've always kind of been a, um, a broad lens kind of guy. So I really always like to do a wide zoom in human behavior and, and really being able to, I feel like I've been fortunate enough to see, to work with many cases of infidelity more than the average clinician or any clinician that I know. And the more people that you work with, you see the variety, but also you begin to start seeing the overarching themes, right? But also you have to temper it with, at least for me, because if I make the mistake that I know everything and I'm always going to, you might have a, you might pigeonhole your clients and just preconceived notions. I am always prepared to find something new or different about this infidelity case that I'm working on. And sometimes I see some of the same patterns, sometimes a new factor is a lot that I didn't think of that just, you know, add more to my understanding of etiology. But also here's that. So that's part of it from a, you know, that's the selfish part as a professional, as a growth for me. But what's useful for the client is that oftentimes the betrayed and the unfaithful, they really genuinely want to know why this happened. Right. And here's the crazy part about the infidelity. Infidelity in itself is an irrational behavior. So no matter how much time you spend on it, you will never find a logical reason why infidelity happened. Right. Such reason does not exist. The best that you can find is the circumstances and the sequence of events that led to the infidelity. So part of your job is actually help the unfaithful partner unpack their thinking process because when the unfaithful betrayed doing this at home that betrayed us and why did you do this well I don't know I was selfish I'm a bad person well that's nice that's that might be true but like give me more details right that doesn't give me anything right because there is no pill that you can take just for selfishness so part part of the the autopsy for the relationship sometimes it does feel like interrogation and a lot of therapists are gun shy about this right because we're all trained for therapeutic neutrality I feel like what you're doing in fidelity recovery, there's not much room for it. There is a person who betrayed and there is a person who got betrayed. You cannot sugarcoat that. Like therapeutic neutrality in that aspect does not change it. You can do more damage in that aspect. That doesn't mean your job is to make the unfaithful feel bad and rub their nose in it. Your job is to actually shield them. from the natural consequences they should experience. So I'm a okay with, you know, uh, orchestrating the circumstances I've sent to, to make sure that the, to discover does non-faithful have the appropriate feelings or not, because if non-faithful understand the damage that they have caused and they don't feel guilty or bad about it, no remorse, that's a problem, right? Why, why would you wanna rebuild with somebody who doesn't get the damage or gets the damage and they're okay with it? So part of also my job is to listen to the story and play devil's advocate and and challenge what's being said to see if it's logical or illogical, because oftentimes there are some evidence, there are texts, there's emails, there's pictures. So you compare the story of the infidelity right with what was discovered with all this context that you have gathered prior to tackling the story because remember before I talk about that fidelity I I get your history of family of origin I get the history of the past relationship that you're in successes and failure I get the history of your current relationship how did we start and how we got here once I look at this infidelity story you can actually see all these pieces and how much of them fit in this past history that you have curated and uh It goes back to being able to challenge the unfaithful of really, what were you thinking? Because a lot of times, why was it thinking? No, you were thinking. It just happened too fast and nobody asked you the questions to actually outline your reasoning behind it. But there is always a motivation. There's always a thought and feeling associated with this action. And that can be extremely useful for the couples because now you give them the clarity. You help them understand, this is how we got here. Now, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to fix it? Is it fixable? And if you're going to fix it, guess what? We're going to have a new relationship contract that is ironclad because now everybody know what what all the factors that have influenced us to act poorly in the past. And we can be mindful of not repeating those mistakes. Yeah, it's It brings up another question. You said that in the beginning, you do some research and you ask both couples, what is your family history like? Do you ever see maybe one person is subconsciously seeking someone who will sabotage them? Sometimes with alcoholics or abuse, there's the enabler. They'll hide the keys. They won't tell anybody, but they don't really do anything about it. They've seen the signs. They know what's happening, but on some level, they're enabling them. Do you see that in infidelity too? Is maybe someone subconsciously seeking someone who will cheat on them? Are they enabling them by being quiet? Or how do you, does that make sense? Sure. Some aspects of it. I don't think somebody would purposely say, you know what, I'm going to go with this person because I know they will hurt me and all of these things and it won't happen. Right. Because, you know. That doesn't matter how much dysfunction a person have on the individual level. Nobody, unless you're a masochist and that's in a pathological sense and that you want somebody to treat you that way. Right. But, but I think the closest thing would be is really more along the lines of it goes with, so part of relationship maturity, the way I describe it, it also has to do with knowing, are you ready to be in a relationship? What kind of relationship do you think you deserve? Right. So so if you know, I think one version of this, if that, you know, if your family of origin and childhood experiences helped you be somebody with low self-worth and self-esteem, you might think that this is the best you can do. Right. Like this is, you know, yeah, I know I want better, but this is the best I can do. You know, they're not all bad. Yeah, they cheat on me every once in a while. But look, all the other things that they are treating me. So I can see some aspect of it in that situation. I can see sabotage in terms of, I don't think that I'm good enough for you, but you're not letting me off the hook. Maybe I can blow up my relationship that way. I've seen that happen. Because this is a bell that you cannot unring. So I've seen some aspect of it manifest that way. Uh, Hank says, do you have, or do you ever recommend that some of your people attend the twelve step sex addiction groups? So part of what I recommend for people, once we do the autopsy of the reason why it happened, if there's an individual factor that requires specialty services, I strongly recommend them to do that. Whether it's a substance abuse treatment, whether it's sex addiction treatment, But I'm always very mindful with the sex addiction because here is the thing. I don't know if you probably already know this. So the DSM-V is the manual that clinicians use to diagnose mental health conditions. So in our clinician Bible, so to speak, sex addiction is not a diagnosis. So even clinician cannot agree if sex addiction should be an actual pathological condition. Why is that? Because we're finding out that like the range of sexual human sexual behavior and expression, it's, it's wide. We cannot say this is too much or too little. So it's, it's hard for even clinician to concretely say it's, it's a diagnostic condition, but put that on the back burner. I have seen people struggle with that, even though it does not exist in the DSM five people that, you know, struggling with hypersexuality in a negative way does exist. So even if we don't wanna call it addiction, right, here's my problem. Sometimes. the unfaithful and the betrayed give each other an easy way out, right? Because if you say, you know what, I can't help it, I'm an addict, maybe that will soften up the blow that, you know what, get you the help you need. It's addiction, it's a disease. There, there, it's not too bad of a thing. Now, granted, any kind of mental health condition should have, I mean, we should take that in consideration, but I also, as a firm believer, if I know I have a problem, it is my responsibility to go seek help So me having a problem does not negate my responsibility to address it, be aware of it and communicate about it. So what I have seen are times where people just finding these labels to soften up the blow when it doesn't actually fit because addiction, right? have a very specific way manifest. Sometimes it's not addiction and people just saying addiction because it makes it easier for, it makes it easier to swallow. And I feel like sometimes that distract people from doing the real work because what's gonna happen if you're not really a sex addict, you're gonna go to one of these programs, you're gonna sit there, you're gonna just check a box, right? And fast forward and you're gonna say, you know what? These people are not like me. Well, they're not like you because you're not an addict, right? And then the treatment fizzle out and we're, and we're treating something. That's not the real reason, but we thought it was a real reason because it makes everybody feels better about it. Does that make sense? Yeah. You're treating the symptom instead of the actual disease or the actual root cause of why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. Or sometimes you're, you're actually putting the wrong label that this is not really your dysfunction just because you had a sex of just because you had a sexual affair that does not make you a sexual sex addict. Right. And what people say also, like when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail too, right? So also how we're doing our assessment too, right? Because I mean, look at ourselves. I mean, even therapy is a business, right? And not all businesses are going to be focused on doing the right thing versus the wrong thing. So I'm an advocate for doing specialty services as long as people are actually doing a thorough assessment and this is something that people that they need, right? Versus that this is just something they hang on to just to make the story somewhat palatable and convince their partner to let them off the hook. Would you be, what do you think about like in a perfect world, I know there's no such thing, but would it be possible? And if it was possible, might it make a difference to have relationship maturity as a class for kids, maybe in middle school or something like that? If I was king of the world, that would be the first thing that I would do. Because it blows my mind, right? That something as important as relationship, one of the most impactful thing in our life, one of the causes of a lot of our distress is something that we don't put any formal training or I mean it's amazing because because I think a lot of these issues would have been prevented and I think you know when I think about like well why does this happen because maybe we think that we have an actual uh outlet for that through spirituality right you know faith and all these things and and I and I think that helps in a little bit but it doesn't really give you that concrete thing and also Not everybody is going to be able to have access to that or the right access to that. But what I envision, like even, you know, even if the fund is there to do that, I would imagine there would be some kind of debate about do you teach sex education or not? We will be running in that potential wall. Yeah, I think that it would go a long way if people just change sex education to relationship education. Because you're right, not a whole lot of people have the stability or have a mentor or have a support group that can say, look, this might be happening in your life. Here are some things that you can apply to your life to make sure they don't happen again. Here's a way you might be feeling. Here's a way you could feel about it. Like providing those options for someone who is beginning to mature as an adult And getting to see relationships with a new lens can be life-changing. It can be that which they need to break that cycle on some level, I think. Well, sure. Because think about where you learn about your relationship. Like I said, your home, your family and friends, what you see on TV, what you hear in songs about relationship. And I can tell you the majority of these outlets, they're not the solid outlets to have a healthy relationship supposed to work. Just think about any love song. The majority of love songs, they're bad relationship lessons. Yeah, that's a great point to think about. And then we're back. You know, when I think about culture, I always think of the first four letters that make up culture. It's a cult on some level, and it's just bombarding you with these horrible ideas of like, depending on which, not all music, but a lot of music is just about heartache. And I can understand it's a place where you can create, but when you're playing that all the time and you're surrounded by it, it's sort of paving a path for you, a path to destruction on some level. Well, sure. It shapes how you see the shapes, how you see the world, your place in it. And that's really huge. If you could leave us with a few nuggets of advice or encouragement for people that maybe are finding themselves inadequate in a relationship or beginning to have questions about a relationship. Maybe you could just leave us with some really upbeat ideas about relationships, the purpose of them, and how you find your way to be uplifted when you talk about all of this. Perfect. So I'll leave you and the folks listening with the tool. Nice. I really encourage people to encourage my clients to have a business meeting for the relationship. Because remember, we said healthy relationships should operate like a business partnership. And if you are in a successful enterprise, what are you going to have? You don't have meetings. What is the purpose of those meetings? Well, those meetings are your therapy session without the therapist present. Once a week, carve out a time for yourself to actually figure out where we are. The purpose of that meeting is really to say, here's what's working. Thank you so much for doing this. I like that. Keep doing more of this. And here's the things that I have concern about. Can we talk about what happened? Can we talk how this impact me? Can we talk about resolutions? Because I really think if people get in the habit of on regular basis, they're evaluating where they are. They're going to be really quick at identifying deficit and fixing them before they go south. More importantly, if consistently you're telling your partners the things that you appreciate and like, and they're authentic and genuine and not lip service, wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't you want to go back to that company, right? Where everybody says, hey, you know what? Once a week, thank you so much for doing all of this. I'm impressed with that, right? So I cannot emphasize that value of that. Now, business meeting is not a date night. That's separate. Date night is fun, right? We're talking about this logistic. And also, I think it's important for couples to have a metric of what they expect from their partner. Like in regular life, you have a job description, right? You know, if you're doing a good job as a boyfriend, husband and wife, right? So you need the same thing. And how do you do that? By taking the time to tell your partner, here's the needs that I expect you to meet. And do I agree on meeting those needs? And are those needs healthy and realistic and compatible? Because really, Like one of the main reasons, like if you ask me, why do people come to couples counseling in general, not infidelity? People are unhappy because they have expectations not being met. Simple as that, right? And there's a reason why those expectations are not being met. Sometimes it's just the fact that people never talked about them. Sometimes people don't even know what those needs are, right? Because if I, as an individual, don't know what makes me happy in the relationship, I could be with the best partner ever, but they don't know what I don't know. So I think being able to get into that habit of not being on autopilot and consistently evaluating where you're at and how you're growing and changing is going to be the best safeguard that you would have against infidelity. And it's going to be the best way for you to make sure that you're happy and fulfilled and your partner is happy and fulfilled. So that's really what I encourage. My wish for the world is for people to actually go in that direction of not being on autopilot and their individual growth and their growth as a couple. That's great advice and it's a great tool and I'm thankful for your time today. I feel like we got to cover a lot of really interesting topics and areas that may not normally get a lot of light shed on them and for anybody within the sound of my voice, if you're listening to this live or if you're hearing the podcast for the first time tomorrow, a year from now or two years from now, go down to the show notes, click on the links and check out Dr. Talal's books. They're packed with really good information that's practical and they can help you and I would also encourage you to reach out to him if you're curious about anything that we had in this show and That'll all be down in the show notes out there. And Dr. Toa, hang on briefly afterwards. But to everybody who spent time with us today, I want to say thank you for your time. And I hope you enjoy your day. And that's all we got, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.