Give a Cheater Some Love
WARNING: This week’s broadcast delves into sensitive material. It contains controversial content, but is applicable to all of us in some way, shape or form. Names will not be used to protect the innocent.
In this week’s update, we will be talking about cheaters and what motivates them.
Now…think back to a time in your life when you cheated.
Are you sure you have never cheated?
Really?
Have you ever cheated?
I’m not just talking about cheating on a boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse. I’m talking about any kind of cheating. Have you ever cheated on a diet? What about at a board game? Did you ever do one less rep at the gym than you were supposed to do? Didya cheat in school?
OK. Now that we’ve established we have all cheated at some point in our past, ask yourself why you cheated. Get down to the reason behind you needing to sneak those few potato chips, that drink or the reason for scribbling those notes down on your palm before your 11th grade history exam.
If you really look at this at the most basic emotional level, it will be clear that you cheated for one reason and one reason only.
You cheated out of fear.
You were afraid of what would happen if you went without something. You were afraid of failure. You were afraid you might not make it. You were afraid of being inferior. You were afraid of not being loved.
When cheating is done in the context of a relationship, if the cheat-ee (the person being cheated on) finds out, a new downward spiral of dysfunction begins for the relationship and for the individuals in that relationship. Not only is the cheater experiencing fear (which led to the cheating), but the cheat-ee begins to experience fear at a different level, too. The cheat-ee often begins to think things like this: Am I good enough? Why doesn’t s/he want me? Will I die alone?
In many cases, it takes years for a cheat-ee to recover from a painful relationship. If you’ve been through this, you know how hard it is to pick yourself up after someone’s kicked you to the curb. Sometimes you go to bed at night wishing you won’t have to wake up again. You are consumed by grief. You wonder when the pain will end. You feel worthless. You are lonely. You might want to die.
You can turn this around. You will need time to heal, but you can give your heart a jump-start by choosing when and how you are going to start repairing the damage. You can get yourself up, running and back in the race.
In this week’s Hernandez Family Law blog, we tell you how to get started. In How To Get Back at a Cheater, our resident life coach, James Hoffmaster, gives his advice for returning to the old-school YOU. Take a look and leave us a comment here with your ideas for the cheat-ees needing a little love.
And about those cheaters? Don’t be a hater.
Cheaters aren’t bad people. Just like cheat-ees, they are afraid. More than anything, they, too, want to be loved. (<—-To Tweet this click here!)
Open your heart and give a cheater some love. That is what he or she needs the most. (<—-Click here to Tweet this, too!)
Sending you wishes for a week in which you swindle fear of its power!
All my best,
Wendy