How can I get my Spouse to tell the Truth about Cheating?

In this episode, Tyler and Brannon talks about the subtle signs of betrayal and how to trust your gut when something feels off in your relationship. They explore the importance of emotional honesty, blurred boundaries, and how disconnection—not just infidelity—can signal deeper issues that need attention.

Transcript (Tap to Toggle)
Intro
how do I get my spouse to tell the truth about cheating oh Tyler this sounds like a fun one do
we get We actually get this one quite a bit um we get versions of this like
crazy um but uh before we dive into that
uh I just want to know how your father’s day was dude it was really really nice man we It was pretty low-key i ended up
I I ended up for some reason having to be the dude who spoke in church on Father’s Day so I’ve had to do that
before um and my daughter it’s funny because I
I kind of like I wrestled with it for like a week and a half the topic it was Father’s Day and I said “Well do you want a specific topic?” And they said
“Do whatever you want.” And so I was like “They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into.” Um so I
thought about it and I wrestled with it for quite a while and um and finally I kind of came up with this thing and my
daughter had showed me a scripture that says in as much she was making fun of it because of the language the kids use
these days and it says in as much as you can send send so you know as much as you
can send yeah the kids the kids use the word like send it right send it just send it so I was like just going to send
it i was like all right well I’m gonna I guess in as much as I can send I’m going to send so I they gave me free forum to
Feeling Something’s Off
get on and talk about all the all the masculinity stuff that we talk about in our podcast and kind of shared some
stories from my own past and should have told me i would have driven up threw a little bit of a shout out to to the old
man but uh but then kind of just just went for it i I think I told my whole
congregation that my three drugs of choice were were uh video games Dr pepper and Mountain Dew just like the
old episode we did so um and porn yeah you Dr pepper and Mountain Dew dr pepper
i I told him I used to drink 120 ounces a day you should have done like five of them because you could have added in
Starcraft and Hot Lamp well I I I did not include the Hot Lamp hot lamp’s my
current addiction the other ones have kind of been dealt with by now um but uh but yeah so my poor daughters and my
wife just heard me tell the whole congregation that I used to have a pornography addiction and that’s that’s
all right so I I we had a I went for a drive later that night me and my daughter and I was like you know that
she’s like we were talking about like fear of rejection and I said you know I’m kind of having a little bit of a
vulnerability hangover and I said the good thing is is that I’m going to have a few friends at church now and the rest
of the people probably don’t talk to me anymore and I guess that’s okay yeah and they probably didn’t really talk to you
much in the first place so that’s exact That’s exactly right yeah yeah so now you know who your real friends are so um
well yeah i mean really quick I want to tell you what we did for Father’s Day i had the I had the old man over um and
Jenny actually made a big giant meatloaf and uh mashed potatoes and he I just
want to tell you this he was in heaven oh I bet man he probably had like four plates and just like loaded up the
meatloaf down home American kind of meal like that’s right down dad’s alley it
was awesome sat out on the deck and just watched him eat the meatloaf and it was like perfect Father’s Day it’s perfect
soaking it up with his boy and his grandkids and it was great oh man that’s
awesome yeah all right let’s shift gears Tyler um we’re getting into a question
that we get all the time before Before we go Brandon just one other thing just for our listeners just a reminder that
we love having you on the show whether it’s a written question or coming on in person uh we we realized that we messed
up with our website a while ago and people might have been trying to get on and sign up but there was no availability we’ve got that issue fixed
now yes so therapyros.org we would love to have you come and sign on to come on the show with us any
question you want to bring relationship recovery trauma whatever if you have beef with us yeah that’s fine too um and
Subtle Red Flags
then and then also you can submit a question in writing if you’d like at therapy.org
yeah if you’ve ever thought like go maybe I should maybe I should go on or now’s the time because there’s openings
there’s there’s space and so come on come talk to us we’d love to we’d love to talk to you so
all right Tyler you ready so a common question that we get I mean I think it
just comes it’s kind of the nature of the work that we do Tyler um but uh it’s it’s this question i here’s
a question that we have i have I have suspicions that my partner is cheating i
have asked them and they continue to deny it but there’s evidence everywhere what do I do
it’s that kind of like no man’s land of feeling crazy because it sounds like
there’s probably little pieces of like breadcrumbs everywhere that are leading to trail to that kind of lines up to
saying or doing it or but then when you go and approach your partner you you’re met with that response and something
feels off you know something’s not quite right but you also want to trust your partner and then you feel kind of crazy
that’s what I’m g gathering from the question that’s the pretty typical response typical yeah so you know we we see all
all different um things across a continuum with this sometimes there’s
very little little evidence of cheating going on and yet the partner knows or believes that that is happening
sometimes there’s loads of evidence that cheating is going on and the partner doesn’t want to look at the evidence and
tries to stay in denial and will be like “No.” Well and you almost have to like you have to say “Hey the writing on the
wall is kind of stacking up here.” Yeah and so you’ll see people on all ends of the spectrum and a lot of it comes from
um their trauma and their attachment wounds in in terms of how they’re responding to what their partner is
doing um and so one of the first things to to do Tyler is to stop and take stock
of yourself and to look at this and say “Okay like am I am I healthy am I
operating from a healthy place is this my intuition is this my gut feel is this
coming from a healthy place and what are the facts what is reality i’m not going
to shy away from facts and I’m also not going to fabricate and make up facts what what are the actual facts going on
here and the the only way that you’ll be able to settle on those and see those clearly is if you’ve sorted out your own
stuff first i I think what one part of this that doesn’t get talked about maybe enough
when this question comes up is that part of attachment you know I was talking to I was talking
to a betrayed partner just a couple of days ago and everything about this case
is lining up to say like you know she’s an infidelity total infidelity she’s an
amazing person she’s a total catch like you know and I’m talking to her and all these things are stacking up and it’s
like you can see the second life going on in her partner and I’m like okay
there’s and she’s in that space that you’re talking about of almost like denial and then it went a step further
and she said I said well what’s what is it that’s the most primary thing that’s going on inside of you and she kind of
got emotional and she said I’m just so afraid i’m so afraid of being rejected she’s like “I’m so afraid of like not
being good enough or measuring up.” And and then what that does is it it kind of
brings out her anxious attachment and now she almost willfully and
willingly doesn’t want to look at all the evidence because she’s operating from that place of fear of rejection herself and I’m
sitting here on the outside going like “Dude you deserve so much better than what you’re currently getting right
now.” Yeah like can’t you can’t you just see that and accept that but because she’s in that place of the fear and the
shame and the the worry about being rejected she’s chasing the relationship with the very person who’s very very
likely cheating on her right right um that’s exactly what I’m talking about
Tyler it’s like you know and and maybe she’s not ready to face the reality yet
maybe she doesn’t want to but it’ll probably happen where as things progress
she’ll get to a breaking point where she’s almost forced to face that reality
Trusting Your Gut
and deal with what is right in front of her um maybe right right well one in a
situation like that the unfortunate and hard part about that is is that the way
that she’ll eventually come to facing reality is having to come to an understanding of what it is in her
that’s driving that which is her own fear and shame and then she’s going to have to make peace with her own fear her own shame
and start to learn to accept the truth of her goodness right before she can really start to set the right kinds of
boundaries and have the voice that ultimately she’s going to need to have in that relationship to keep her self-respect right let’s back up a
little bit if you don’t mind um I you know I’m thinking if I’m a partner and
um I have suspicions you know your years of of doing this
Tyler of working with so many couples um and I’m going put you on the spot here a
little bit and and talk about my experience too but like what are some signs that somebody is straying that
somebody is cheating um because you know sometimes like we say there’s there’s
clear evidence sometimes there’s it seems to be clear evidence sometimes
there’s not clear evidence but you feel like something is going on um what are
some indicators that there is some cheating going on yeah I that’s a good
question Brandon and for me there’s basically there’s kind of two layers to that question all right there’s the
there’s the first layer which is the obvious layer which is the actual evidence of the cheating itself right so
that’s going to be hey there’s text messages that seem to be explicit or there’s pictures or there’s a a history
of surfing the social media and h being friends with a whole bunch of like women in bikinis
there’s a voicemail from the best friend of the mistress that is like “Hey I need
you to know that my friend is cheating with your spouse.” Right
all of that stuff like obvious blatant stuff yeah that kind of stuff is uh
that’s like the first layer and that’s the obvious stuff and that’s the part that kind of makes your brain go like okay like I know for a fact that there’s
cheating going on now and I’m going to confront this person and they still might lie to me but I really kind of know now so I’m not going to feel crazy
i’m just going to know that they’re lying so just to get clear Tyler like a bank statement where there’s like
certain shops on there or gifts being bought 1800 numbers or Why would they
buy that like what that makes zero sense um subscriptions to certain things
yeah I here’s here’s I mean here’s as obvious as it gets uh I heard a I’ve
heard this story several times my my partner my my cheating partner you know
my mistress or whatever what i don’t know the the term for the opposite
affair partner my affair partner um sent me a voicemail and while I was
listening to it it connected to the Bluetooth speaker in my home and my my spouse
spouse heard heard the voice message okay how it happens all the time yeah
how much more clear can you get than that right right so okay come back to your layers okay so that’s so that’s the
Emotionally Available
obvious stuff the the second layer set of layers is the stuff that your partner
will do to protect the first layer from being seen mhm so this is where like all
the secondary forms of their own denial comes in there’s going to be stuff like um shifting focus when topics come up
mhm you know like “Hey uh who’s so and so your secretary that keeps texting you at work?” It’s like “Oh well um what
about the kids stuff this tonight we got to get to and run run kids around?” Like they they’ll skirt the issue when it
starts to come up they’ll put the spotlight on other things or what about that guy at work that texts you right
yeah or they’ll do the flipper they’ll they’ll throw it back on you i just had that happen this week where the the the
wife was like looking at it and going like “Something feels off and this and this and this happened.” And then in my office he turned around like but you
think so and so is like hot and it’s like but we never we never yeah defensiveness
blame deflection omission and this isn’t just about the affair stuff this is also
this also starts to become kind of a way of life that you see your partner operating in where they’re they’re using
those tactics around other behaviors too like stupid things like did you go there
for dinner last night um so how are the kids doing today um you know like or or
you see like in their business affairs with other people they’re using the same kinds of layers of basically denial and
dishonesty and that’s the stuff that that a lot of times partners start to feel they can’t put a finger on it per
se but they know something’s off and then it causes the brain to start to spin and go “Hey something’s not quite
right here.” And then there’s the breadcrumbs that start to happen from layer one and those two things start to come together and all they’re looking
for is to go to their partner and say “Hey something feels off.” And their partner could just simply be like “I
totally effed up here’s what’s going on.” Yeah but that almost never happens never happens there’s a shift with um
betrayal or dishonesty that that happens where when you first get in a relationship you’re both working to try
to figure out how much you can open up and share with each other and show each other who you are when that starts to
happen betrayal the partner the the betraying partner
starts to work really hard to not be seen to to to not let you know who they
are and what’s going on with them and there’s a distinct difference in feeling
between those two things with a partner if I’m with a partner who’s trying to work on intimacy and being open and
connected to me versus if I’m working with a partner who’s acting as if they
are but trying really hard not to do that you can feel it you’ll feel that yeah and you know there’s little things
like if I pick up their phone and they get all squirmish and weird and like
because I touched their phone like what what is that all about right if I ask
them just like you were saying Tyler if I ask them a question and they don’t just give me give me a simple answer
um like you so you’ll start to feel those things in your relationship and if
Blurred Boundaries
you’re feeling some of those things it doesn’t necessarily mean that your partner is cheating on you I want to say that like right um because other they
could be doing it for other reasons um but uh uh but if you are feeling some of
those things those are some signs of it those yeah if you start to feel those things and they start to stack up with
other things then you kind of start to have it settle in on yourself and go “Oh like yeah.” You know and uh and that’s
and I think and I think that that’s maybe one of the biggest things that we want to talk about today with this
question is that your gut instinct
does really matter yes right i can I just add Tyler before
we go there because I really want to go there but like there’s al there’s
something else that that I think is important to take a look at and it it’s the things that aren’t like just
explicitly obvious in front of your face but they are so what I mean is like
if your partner has some really blurred lines when it comes to boundaries with
other people you know that they’re flirtat flirtatious
you know they they send text messages that seem like why would you send that to to him or her you know like and so
it’s like you you’re not like getting the information that they are cheating but you are getting the information that
they are you know somebody somebody puts feelers out they they have an energy
that is I’m available i’m available for that and as a partner you can pick up on
that and you can see that um and and coming back to what you just said about
gut feel um those type of things like you won’t let me touch your phone you’re
very friendly with everybody like all sexes and especially with the opposite
sex um you’re you’re defensive when I want to get close to you um I feel
disconnected from you and I feel like you’re trying really hard to stay disconnected what’s going on and this is where your
gut comes in right Tyler that’s all that stuff you’re talking Exactly Brandon i And I maybe to go a step further on that
that stuff like you said sometimes I think the the betraying partner is a
little bit blind themselves to how close they’re walking the edge and to the and all the time and to the energy the
openness of the energy with which they’re putting it off i think I think that’s really important to reiterate what you said is I’m it’s almost like
I’m not really looking for an affair but I’m also not opposed to it if I get the right attention right right so it’s like
Just Friends?
I’m I’m out there and I’m I’m still holding the line in my marriage or my relationship but if if the person at
work decided to start telling me I was awesome and then they wanted to go to lunch with me once in a while I’d be
open to that that would be okay like um and they kind of they a lot of times they actually walk themselves into the
place that even they didn’t fully intend to go but again that bo that that often boils down to an internal process that
they haven’t made peace with yet about seeking their answer in the wrong places of who they are right so I’m in a
relationship my partner is critical and doesn’t tell me they love me all that often and so it feels really good to
have my coworker tell me that I’m amazing and we happen to spend an hour in the car each way on the drive and
their spouse is awful too and they vent about their spouse all the time and we just talk crap on our spouses together
and it feels really validating you know but we’re just friends yeah but it’s just it’s just a friend right yeah or or
you find yourself like another one that happens a lot is is that you know that there’s contact with that person but
there’s not really a lot of discussion about the type of contact with that person it kind of stays under the
surface it kind of stays hidden you know it’s like you’re and if you’re in the position of being on the risk of
being the betrayer you need to know that that if you find yourself sort of
wanting to withhold certain kinds of information or certain discussions or certain kinds of that’s probably a sign
that your boundaries might need to be looked at a little bit absolutely uh yeah for yourself um we
could do a whole episode on that yeah um because I think people do it and they
know they do it but you know they give themselves permission um yeah so I I
want to get to the the the actual question right Tyler so I think what we’ve been going through is like as
you’ve been listening hopefully you’re kind of being like oh like this is me in
my situation or this is just interesting i’m listening but um but the actual
Confronting the Issue
question is how how can you get them to tell the truth um if you’re sensing it
coming back to your gut feel right like it comes down to you have a gut feel you
either have hard evidence maybe you have soft evidence maybe you just have a gut feel
then what do you do like how do you get them to actually tell the truth if they are cheating and this is what people
want to know i know it’s like we need to bust out the hot lamp and the and the heart monitor and
get get back to having teaching everybody how to do like a lie detector test
the hot you know I don’t mean the hot lamp in
terms of my addiction i mean in terms of like I got you when you say hot lamp on this show Charlie it means one thing it
means it’s reference to my addiction i went straight to fried burritos man no
that’s I’m going to bribe my partner into telling the truth with a corn dog
no I’m talking I’m talking about putting the press on putting the heat on you know um a lot of times what doesn’t
really work is you go and you chase and you chase and you chase and you press and you press and you press and then you
feel crazy and more crazy and more crazy right that that doesn’t work if if they’re not willing to break to to like
get honest right and it doesn’t also work if they’re not cheating and you’re pressing the issue and you you know
they’re cheating but they’re actually not and then that that causes an issue too right and um and so what you have to
go off is your gut and one of the best ways to actually help and this is this has been our experience my experience
Brandon you can speak to this is if I go and I take my gut feeling and the
breadcrumbs that I currently have and I may not even use the breadcrumbs right off the bat but I go and I say “Hey this
is what’s going on for me i’m feeling a little bit crazy this is what I’m finding
what’s going on for you are you cheating are you having an affair are you doing this are you doing that?”
um you’re going to partially in fact in a lot of ways make your next decision
based off of the energy and the response that your partner gives even if they
don’t come straight forward and say “I’m having an affair.” if they do if they do any of those
tactics of skirting the issue or denying or flipping it back on you or getting
defensive um or shutting down or you know ignoring you those things are going to give you a
gut feeling and you should follow the gut feeling from those things and and
I’m kind of hearing you say follow the gut feeling to a place of being direct and honest and with them is that what
Asking Directly
you’re saying yeah so it might even turn into like well here’s what I’m seeing and here’s how I’m feeling and until I
can get myself planted again emotionally I’m going to go I’m going to be doing this this and this in our relationship
okay um because I need to protect my heart whatever is coming up and then maybe your partner isn’t having an
affair and they’re like “Hey I swear I’m not having an affair i don’t know what’s going on.” like the energy with which
they come back to you is still going to kind of give to you the space that they’re in in terms of being able to be
connecting or not with you being empathetic or not right right it’s kind of like when we do disclosures and it’s
like we’re we’re more gauging kind of where their heart is at and their willingness to open up versus like
everything that’s being said um so but which which by the way Brandon is the
whole reason we’re in the relationship in the first place isn’t to chase down the cheating or not the cheating isn’t
the actual problem right it’s all of those other secondary things that are leading to the disconnection
that is causing the causing your kind of like antenna to be to notice that something’s wrong anyway so that’s the
stuff that needs to be addressed in the relationship anyway right the cheating ma the cheating matters but what you’re
saying Tyler is what kind of relationship do you have anyways if you’re having this major disconnect in
these intimacy issues and these connection issues that needs to be addressed regardless no matter what
right yeah um a couple things Tyler i’m I’m thinking about somebody with hard
evidence um I think there’s some strategic things they can do um if you
have hard evidence so one thing you can do is you can go to
your partner and say “Hey I know something is going on and I want to give you a chance to tell me what it is first
because I can show you that something’s going on but I’m inviting you to get honest with me.” Now why would I do it
Using Hard Evidence
that way Tyler i think there’s two reasons to do it that way uh the first one is to give your partner a chance to
actually demonstrate and practice honesty um which which if they are honest with
what you already know then that in some ways actually even though it’s devastating and hurts it’s a sign that
they’re working towards being trustworthy it’s better right it’s it’s it’s better than and if they’re
dishonest then that also gives you the more information yes as to like where they’re actually at in their own process
of wanting to wanting to change or or address their issues yep both those
reasons and there’s a third thing of if you you might find out more um than than
the evidence that you have if you if you open it up and they get honest and it’s like “Oh now I’m getting more
information about what’s actually going on here.” Um but you don’t want to bait them in into that if it’s if you just
have a gut feel you know and you go to them and you say “I know you’re cheating tell me you know you can either tell me
about it or not but you don’t know that.” Then then you’re you know getting yourself in a That’s like That’s like
playing a hand of poker and you have a two and a seven and you’re and you’re going all in and you’re going all in
yeah you’re going all in exactly and you you don’t have a hand to go all in with at that point right like if you got a
pair of jacks and you’re then you can step in and you can really play that hand of like okay it’s time to like to
get honest i have information i’m inviting you to tell me what’s going on
um so the other thing and this this goes handinhand with that and you were just saying this with hard evidence be you
It’s Not Just Cheating
can be direct and even to the point of showing the hard evidence look here it
is i know about it this is it right um
so you don’t have to skirt around the issue too much um go after it whatever
they do squirm own it uh blame you back whatever they
do it’s good to face the reality of what’s going on with them um so hard
that hard evidence is a lot easier to get your spouse to admit they’re cheating if you have the hard evidence
i’ve seen it though Tyler where the the spouse has had very clear evidence very
very and and the cheating partner still like and and they look they look like
total fools i They do they just fool foolish um it’s like playing hide-and-seek with
a three-year-old and they put their hands in front of their face and think they’re hidden yeah yeah it’s crazy
because they’re so conditioned to denying it and hiding from it and pretending like it’s not there they stay
right there even when like they’re cooked um so that happens sometimes oh dude i I remember like we had this uh we
had this lady in drug court several years ago she was doing so good it was a four-phased program she got to level
four she was in level four which meant like three more months she gets totally off of probation she’s totally clean she
has a relapse but and and she comes back dirty on a p test and so we’re like “Oh shoot.” So we send it away again and
have it retested so we had it double tested we knew she was dirty she comes into my group and I’m like “Hey uh is
there anything we need to talk about today?” And uh everyone’s like “No no no no.” And and I kind of like go directly
to her and I’m like “Hey we need to you know we got some hot numbers on your on
your labs like is there anything that you like to tell us no I’m I don’t know
like that’s got to be a false test that’s got to be I’m like she doesn’t know we’ve sent it away to like have it confirmed you know i’m like well um
court court is tomorrow and uh I know the judge i know how the
judge operates like um you can either come clean you’ll probably get like a
Final Thoughts
small sanction like 7 days in work release and then you’ll come right back out level four you’ll be graduating in 3
months but if you don’t come clean that judge is going to send you away for 5 years on your prison sentence jeez
Louise and uh and she’s like “Nope nope nope.” And then she went after a group and talked to a bunch of the other like
participants and it’s this jailhouse mentality and all of them got together and it’s like you never admit it deny
deny deny deny deny deny deny she goes to court the next day and the judge is
like hammering her just like please just like tell me the truth and she’s like nope nope nope boom she’s gone for five
years to prison and all she had to do is say yeah I messed up well you know Tyler
we we laugh at this um and but it’s not funny but um the the thing about it is
here’s the beauty of it as the partner when you have that evidence it doesn’t
matter now and now this is where you’ve got to trust yourself you got to come back to
trusting yourself knowing what is and actually knowing that you can have boundaries and you can step into the
hard and deal with this even if they’re unwilling to um so okay so that that’s
Outro
like the the hard evidence the obvious stuff um the the other stuff the the
attachment issues the disconnection um so Tyler you’re are you saying if I have
a gut feel like let’s say I just feel like something’s off I’m seeing a few
signs nothing I haven’t gotten anything is it smart of me to turn into
investigator to try to gather information and figure
out what’s going on like if you know if I let’s say go to the parking lot and
watch them come to their car after work to see who they’re going to the car with um should I you know watch their phone
and everywhere they go like what is that smart of me what what do you think i think it’s I mean sometimes you if you
you kind of have the gut to go do that then you go do it and you find out and something about the brain knowing does
give some level of peace and order but most of the time it’s uh just asking
yourself is it going to produce for you what you’re looking for it to produce if you go sit out in the parking lot and
then nothing happens is that actually going to change that you uh feel better and you can trust him again if you you
know go check the history every single day and then do you get done and be like “Oh good they’re being honest with me.”
Or do you get done and be like “Oh they’re probably hiding it at a different different way.” I I I had a a
client once um her husband went out of town on a business trip she bought a a flight and
and got in disguise and got sat next to him on the flight and then knew the
hotel he was in and actually snuck in somehow got in his hotel room and hid in
the hotel room all night long just just to see what happened and she
busted him um now now here’s the thing um I actually
think Tyler I think we do we got to be a little bit careful because we work so much on staying out of the fear cycle
where it’s like hey you know this type of stuff isn’t helping you um sometimes
it does sometimes your gut feel says “Hey I got to go find something.” And I
you know I’ve heard stories of like you know uh someone praying and feeling like
“I got to go check the computer history right now.” and they go check it and they find everything and they see
everything and it’s like that’s actually a good thing it’s a good thing that they followed their gut and they did that but
when you’re spinning in fear and and those things aren’t productive and it’s kind of like well if I already know that
I’ve been cheated on or I am being cheated on and I’m still following them around
at that point then I am just spinning in my anxiety and my fear i think it’s the energy with which you pursue it that
matters Brandon like that’s what you’re talking about the fear cycle is going to be one of just like pure chaos anxiety
fear like unsteadiness and the gut feeling is kind of like where the mind and the heart overlap and go h like like
that’s kind of what happened to me years ago is my wife had that gut like hey go home and get on the computer boom it was
right there like instant right um but that that’s more of like a almost like a
spiritual experience of like it almost has a in a weird way it has its own form of peace in it even though it’s still
devastating to you right right um but but what that what that means is in that
piece like that you can do some of that investigation work and it’s okay yes if
it’s if it’s a gut thing that’s saying to do that just and you have to be honest with yourself about that if you’re chasing it from a place of the
fear and the shame and all of that then it’s probably going to I don’t I don’t know that it’s going to yield the
results for you that could just be you have enough evidence in just following your gut to go through with your
boundaries anyway right right now now the trick is is here’s what not to do is
I think my partner is relapsed let’s say and I’m going to go play 20 questions
with them they’re still I think lying to me and then I go and set my boundary and say you know I’m going to sleep in the
other room until you tell me you relapsed yeah i mean that that doesn’t work because maybe they actually haven’t
really relapsed but what you can do is don’t attach your boundary to the admission of the relapse attach your
boundary to your own emotional grounding to your own principles in terms of
what’s it going to take for me to get grounded to get a clear mind to then be able to make the decisions that I need to make and that’s where I’m going to
set my boundaries and and the byproduct is is that it has an effect on your partner and they have a chance to have
whatever space or time or whatever to think things through and decide whether or not they want to actually get honest or not if if there is something to say
yep i was working with a a a guy years ago and
his uh he wasn’t cheating his wife came to him and said “I know you’re cheating
if if you admit it to me then there’s hope for us if you don’t we’re going to get divorced
and so he came into a session and he’s like “Bro what what am I like what am I going to do?” Like I And uh I mean what
I told him is you you stay honest whatever it is whatever you’ve done be
honest be open you can be you can be like connected to how she’s feeling but
don’t don’t you dare lie okay don’t don’t make up that you cheated so that your marriage has a chance to save your
marriage yeah um and and what’s what’s interesting is so he stayed honest and
she ended up not divorcing him um yeah you know so but you can see major
problems there right Tyler well yeah either way like either way and but
that’s the point is is that honesty on the betrayer side of things is always the best policy even if it comes with
consequence right um but we can’t control that we can control you know if
I go to my my kids and I I might approach them about something they’re being dishonest about and I kind of know but I don’t have the full evidence
i’m going to do the best I can to try to help have a discussion about that have a discussion about the implications of
what dishonesty brings in relationships this that and the other at the end of the day I’m then going to have to set my
boundaries based off of the information that I have it sucks Tyler sometimes
like my my uh son we had this nice leather couch and he carved his sister’s
name in the couch with a knife and so he framed her I show up and there’s her
name and I just grill her just to the point where she’s crying like I don’t
know i wasn’t me i don’t know i’m like and and I’m like and I start to believe
her finally and I’m like and then my son the next day I asked him like yeah it was me like oh you know but but my poor
daughter you know poor kid yeah but so you know I think
it’s important to be you know instead of going and attacking and saying this is
what you’re doing I know it go and talk about you this is what I’m feeling and
this is what I have to do about it i don’t feel safe i don’t feel connected this is what I suspect i do feel unsafe
because I see you flirting with people that’s a reality i do feel unsafe because every time I touch your phone it
gets really uncomfortable so you can give those type of evidences even if you
don’t have that hard evidence of cheating and if you lay that out and you say th here’s here’s where I’m at and
this is what I need to do as a result whether or not you admit to me that you’re cheating or not right like
this is where I’m at and this is how I need to move forward right yeah and I think Brandon coming all the way back
around to the question that was you know you can have those discussions be straightforward be honest with your own
feelings be willing to show whatever if you do have that level one kind of evidence be willing to bring that out
into the light after you have that conversation but at the end of the day part of the this is the frustrating part
I think for some people but it’s the truth is that you don’t actually always need to have the hard evidence to still
make your choices based off of what your heart and your gut need and nine times out of ten if it like if
it walks like a duck and if it talks like a duck usually it’s a duck but it’s
that’s only nine times out of 10 sometimes it’s not and so so what I’m
saying is like like if you really feel something then you don’t want to make
assumptions but you can be honest with yourself that you’re feeling that thing sure right and then you can act
accordingly so yeah yeah and I think I think even there there’s been times like you know
and I think this is common for a lot of couples in our in our own process where something did feel off and I and like my
wife would come to me and say hey you relapsed haven’t you and I would be like no I haven’t relapsed yeah right like I
but she but then what she learned to say is you relapsed haven’t you and I say no I haven’t what’s going on and she’ll be
like I’m feeling this and this and this something something’s wrong something’s off and then she would go I don’t know
but I’m going to take some time and it might be a couple hours it might be a night it might be a day or two and in
that process during that I would then go away and have a chance to go what would
possibly be triggering that for her um and I would do a self assessment first
of am I being dishonest in some other way and sometimes I’d catch myself going like “Oh yeah I’ve been kind of hiding
this little stupid thing over here like this hot lamp that I the the hot lamp that I’ve been throwing in the bottom of
the trash after I get home every night.” Or like you know or or yeah oh yeah I forgot to tell her that I spent $50 on
fantasy football or something and um so then I’d go back to her and say “I think maybe this is part of what you’re
picking up on.” And what that did is it helped me learn to get more honest again but it also then helped to validate her
gut feeling and then there were other times when I’d do that assessment I’d be like I don’t know like I just I don’t
know why that’s going off for her but at least I did the work to then go back and say “Hey I’m not I’m not sure what’s
happening for you i’m sad that you’re in a rough spot right now i’ve been thinking about it and I haven’t come up
with anything that might be triggering that so if you see something let me know.” Yeah yeah right um Yeah but in in
that scenario you’re talking about you sound like an open partner who’s trying to connect and trying to figure it out
versus somebody who’s trying to hide something and Yeah or coming back to her
and being like “Whoop sucks to be you i hope you get over your trauma past.” Right right right right so this isn’t
easy this is this is a hard one and I I would um say it’s helpful like really
helpful to have some good healthy people in your corner um on all ends of it so
I’ve seen I’ve seen support systems really help somebody confront some things that they were too scared to
confront i’ve seen support systems show up for people when they’re spinning and the facts don’t add up that there is
cheating going on and they’re able to ground that person and help them get back to reality and deal with their own
anxiety um support systems often times are the last thing that people want to
do when it comes to figuring out whether your partner is cheating or not because you tell yourself that this is just
between me and my partner and I would I would urge you to actually consider
having a couple people they’re like your support systems to help you with your
relationship i have a couple people that I can talk to that I can open up to that will give me advice about how to deal
with my marriage and things that I need to do um you know so I rely on healthy
people have them in your corner bounce things off of them so that you can get clear as to what reality is
yeah I totally agree with you Brandon and and I know that when you’re in the business that you’re in listening to
this podcast wondering if your partner has been cheating it’s such a dark crazy
place to be i just want to validate that that I know that sometimes you just feel crazy and one of the only things that
you really have left to cling on to is trying to make sure that where your mind and your heart overlap you follow that
instinct every time um regardless of whether or not you get the truth that is the thing that you can nurture and
people lose touch with that and when they lose touch with that part of themselves it makes the climb out even
harder so follow through on follow through on your gut feeling whenever you get that
place where your heart and your mind overlap absolutely you guys if this is helpful please share
it please come on our show we’d love to have you as a guest um and until next
time keep on keeping

How can I get my Spouse to tell the Truth about Cheating?

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