The Betrayed Clinical Psychologist: Things I Know Now I Wish I Knew Then

The Betrayed Clinical Psychologist: Things I Know Now I Wish I Knew Then

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, everybody, we're back for some more cheating stories. And
today I have something that has a little bit of
a twist to it. What if you have a partner
who's cheating or maybe you're the one, and we're talking
about sex addiction here. So more than just a desire
to find something outside of your marriage, there is a

(00:21):
need that is never actually fully met and that's going
on in your relationship with one of you. So what
happens then? You know? This is more than hey, I
don't love you, Hey, I'm not happy. I need more.
This is oh my gosh, I have something that I
need and I can never get enough of it. Certainly

(00:42):
I can't get it all from one person. Really, what
does happen? Then? Let's take an example from a woman
who is actually a therapist helps victims of different traumas
and things like this, and being cheated on. Finding yourself
in a situation that is very overwhelming that you can't

(01:03):
handle know nothing about that also can be traumatizing in
certain ways. And this therapist, this woman PhD, she actually
was cheated on herself. And I'm using her as an
example because she was in this situation and she discovered
this not awesome truth about two months after she married

(01:25):
her man, and then, of course she calls a friend
to find out what she should do. What's going on.
All our friends are telling her, well, he's a con artist.
You know, you probably don't want to hear this, but
it's the truth. He's conning you and just getting everything
that he wants. Well, this person, even though she was

(01:46):
very educated, knew all about this stuff, she didn't want
to hear the truth when she called her friend. She
had just learned of this horrible betrayal earlier that morning,
and the reality was just too knew it was a
raw and bleeding wound, and she wasn't quite ready to hear.

(02:06):
You know, hey, this is just a fact, and you
better listen to this. It was a little too blunt,
little too real. However, later she will say that her
friend was right and that she should have listened, but
she just couldn't. At the time, she didn't want to
hear it, and she naively underestimated the severity of the

(02:28):
entire situation. She was an optimist, and you know, hey,
let's work this out. Let's give love a real chance.
Things can get better. It's us now. Later, years later,
here she is with people posing the same question to her,
So what should she do? Will they be ready to

(02:50):
hear what she could not. This clinical psychologist, and let's
call her Michelle, she thinks back to when all of
this happened for her and think about what she would
tell her younger self now in this situation. She would
say that, Hey, you're about to meet a new kind
of narcissism, a kind you have never met before, and

(03:13):
now you are not prepared for it. Sure, there's someone
there that knows how to make you feel like the
most special person in the whole world. They're going to
shower you with flowers and sweet text messages and all
that romantic nonsense. And in your big desire and hunger

(03:34):
to be loved, you're failing to see that it's all
way too much, way too fast. Right now, take a
step back here. Michelle is a clinical psychologist. Okay, she's
had years of treating narcissistic behavior and personality disorders. Now.

(03:55):
The one thing that she forgot is that these individuals
reluctantly seek treatment under the threat of maybe losing a
job or relationship. Counseling becomes a last option for people
like this instead of their first choice, and as a
result of this, she had met a subtype of a

(04:17):
disease that had a wide range of presentations. She had
never met a covert narcissist before until she met the
man she loved and married. Something new. So I want
to tell you this. I wanted to tell you this
because this is something new for everyone, no matter how

(04:38):
while you're trained. You know, it's like the things we
see on TV. This will never happen to us. Oh
but it can. And for this woman here's how it worked.
Remember she had years of studying, she's a clinical psychologist,
but she had no idea that her soon to be
husband was battling a very severe addiction. The year that

(05:01):
they dated and then one's married. I mean, it wasn't
quite as easy for him to conceal these affairs and
his sexting that he couldn't stop. And then, like a
house of cards, it all came tumbling down when one
of the women, in a fit of rage over his
lack of availability, what a surprise, contacts her clinical psychologist,

(05:27):
our Michelle. She gets contacted by the affair partner because finally,
now it's time for them to contact the wife. They're
finally mad enough that they need to tell. When Michelle's
act said he wanted help, Michelle believed him. Right she
faces it, she confronts him, she believes him. However, even

(05:52):
she did not know. The recovery rate for this kind
of addiction was very dismal, at a low five percent
five percent, five percent. Some speculate that that low figure
may be an overly inflated number, even claiming it lacks
solid research to support its validity. That means, okay, the

(06:16):
fewer than one out of twenty addicts in this get
better now? Was Michelle ready and prepared to lose time
and sleep some over health a sense of safety in
the hopes that her guy would be one of the
lucky ones, one of those in the five or less percent. Well,

(06:42):
it would take her two more years to know that
her ex x now never really fully truly committed to
any kind of recovery, although he claimed over and over
that he did. Somehow, this guy so convincing to even himself,
he finds a way to pass two polygraphs while acting

(07:04):
out The deceptions and addictive behaviors grew only more wild
and more bold, until he finally slipped up and got
caught and I mean, if you're in one of these
situations where you're wondering if this is the situation you
are actually in, let me tell you more of what

(07:25):
this woman has to say. Because Michelle, I mean, this
guy felt like her soulmate. She married him. She's a
smart woman. She felt solid in her choice. But there
were all kinds of warning signs, just little warnings that
something was wrong, but in her rush to get married,
she missed them. Now before meeting this guy, she'd never

(07:49):
felt such intense love. This guy was amazing, and she thought,
for sure, this is us, this is our energy, and
this is my soulmate. Because when we meet the person
and we kind of get those signs that this is
just crazy good, we want to believe it. Right, So
there is no other way we can feel that energy

(08:10):
unless we're with that person. And also, mind you, neither
of us are going to feel that energy unless we
are together. It's us two, two of us creating this
amazing electric energy. That was the only option for her
to believe, because why would she want or why would

(08:32):
she just in general think of anything else. Of course,
it's them. This is how relationships come together, This is
how people connect. This is how you find your soulmate. However,
this guy, sure, he had a lot of electric energy
and it was great for her, but he was not
in love with her. He was not falling in love

(08:55):
with her. He was already in love with himself. And
he was really great at how well he was doing
everything and making this whole event be. He was working,
so he feels good as well. But now once the
newness wears off, because we all wait for that, right,

(09:15):
once that kind of fades away, this electric awesome man
becomes passive, aggressive, and hypercritical. Even Michelle had thought this,
she had felt this, and she'd even tell you this today,
that at that time she'd never met anyone as practiced

(09:35):
at deception and comfortable with repeated acts of betrayal. This
guy was prone to chronic discontentment and boredom. He didn't
believe he had rules, that rules just didn't apply to him,
and that he was entitled to pursue whatever made him happy,

(09:55):
regardless of the cost. And there it is the situation
that happens over and over again. Michelle, the clinical psychologist,
all happy in what she had become, mistakenly falls prey
to the idealized adoration and overlooked this guy's complete lack

(10:16):
of empathy. You know, she'd tell herself, this will just
improve once he gets to know me better. Oh, he
just must have missed that he's so great, And she
just keeps telling herself this over and over again, making
excuses for him every time these signs that should be
warnings or showing themselves. Only that didn't happen. He never

(10:38):
got better, She never felt better. He only grew colder
and actually just got crueler as his addiction grew. When
he was actually asked why he loved Michelle, he would say,
it's because she makes him happy. But why in the
world would someone like Michelle, who really is digging for

(10:59):
better answers than that in her own work, why would
she accept this sort of Pollyannish answer, Because it's the
same answer for her as it is for anyone all
of us. Guys, you fall in that situation, you just
are not going to want to believe it, and because
your love is strong, you're going to believe it will

(11:19):
pull you through and can. But you can't do it
without that partner who can't even see you. You are
filling their need whenever they need it, whenever you're there
and they're there. But other than that, they really do
feel free to fill that need wherever and whenever. It
is to whether the normal ups and downs marriage needs

(11:41):
to be built on a stronger foundation than just your
feelings of happiness. Marriage takes work, guys, often requiring compromise
and self sacrifice. I know you all know that, but
that is a separate thing from addictive behavior. All addictions

(12:02):
have a worsening cycle of behavior that happens as the
cravings and acting out increase. The form of sexual involvement worsens. Now,
did Michelle want to take the chance of more horrific
discoveries of grotesque and severe perversions because the more that

(12:24):
he discovers, the more she will be subjected to. There's
an increased risk for the non violating partner to sexually
transmitted diseases and sex addicts their addicts. At the end
of the day, right like a lot of addicts, there
can be higher rates of suicide and issues there. It

(12:45):
also can the addiction can transfer to other addictions, so
this whole thing could grow and on the extreme, some
of these people can move on to become sexual offenders.
Extreme but either way this can be a dangerous situation
for the non offending partner. Now for this woman, just

(13:07):
one person in all of the situations out there, she
really believed, she really believed that love could conquer all. However,
what she learned is that she's powerless to save another person.
This was an issue with that person, it's not an
issue between them. So each of them just really had

(13:30):
to go work on themselves. She had to face the
fact that to find love, she first had to look
at herself. Even though she thought she was fine, but
it took her leaving one marriage to get better, one
of the biggest acts of courage and love. She'll tell
you she's ever taken on her own behalf and she's

(13:52):
thankful for that. And now she's a little bit better
equipped if someone comes into her office to talk about this.
If someone came into her office now that she's experienced this,
she might not go that, hey, love might be able
to conquer all. Route Instead, she might be blunt say

(14:16):
something like, please abbort this relationship right now before you
become more confused, suffer even worse betrayals, and become increasingly
dependent on this completely unreliable and abusive person. If you
are in this kind of situation. Maybe you should take

(14:38):
that advice right now. Marriages are a love between two people,
lives created together. Addictions a lot of the time are
suffered alone, and especially one like this that needs a partner,
right And if they don't have you, they're going to
find anyone and it's only going to grow until handled.

(15:01):
So something for you to think about. Cheating continues. I'll
continue to tell the stories. Thank you for listening today,
and I will catch you guys next time.