95. The Cheating Series Pt 3: The Deconstruction
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
Welcome to our newest podcast series - The Cheating Series. In this 4 part series, I will walk you through the 4 different stages of being cheated on and how to navigate this very hurtful and personal event.
In Part 3 of The Cheating Series, we’re talking about “The Deconstruction”.
In this stage, it is going to feel like this act of cheating has consumed you. You are going to try to figure out every single part of it to try and make sense of it. This is why, this week, I will give you a way to organize this deconstruction.
Check out this week’s episode to hear how I coach my clients through all the ways the cheating has impacted their lives.
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to work with me during this season of your life, then I invite you to book a call for us to connect and chat.
During this call, you will share what is going on in your life, what you have tried so far, and I will share how I can help. I can't wait to meet you, chica.
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos, como estan? Welcome back to Relationships You Understand with me, your host, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, speaker, and podcast host of this DOE podcast. And today we're going to continue our series on cheating, the cheating series, part three. Three. So if you have not listened to the previous two episodes, we talked about the discovery was part one and part two was the decision, and now we're onto the deconstruction.
So today I'm going to quickly walk you through what your mind, emotions, and. your Uh, just like your personal being is going to deconstruct Based on the information that you have. Okay So again in part one, I talked about the discovery and I walk you through How to handle the discovery and then in part two I walk you through the decision And what questions you need to ask yourself in order to make this decision about you know What next steps you want to do in your relationship due to discovering the cheating and now i'm going to walk you through the deconstruction Now.
The deconstruction is basically the stage of, um, discovering that your partner cheated on you in which you are going to go through mind waves and mind roller coasters back and forth up and down. I mean, it is going to feel like. This cheating has over consumed you you are going to try to figure every single part of it out So let me walk you through the three ways.
You are going to deconstruct this cheating And this is the way that I want you to actually deconstruct the cheating and I want you to categorize it this way So if you have something to write with I want you to start writing this down okay, or you can listen to this podcast episode live here or follow me on spotify or You Apple iTunes, wherever you listen to your podcast, make sure you subscribe to it.
Okay, so these are the three different categories that you are going to deconstruct the cheating in. It's impact, trust, and communication, and how to live, um, a new life. Okay, and I'm going to walk you through that. So when I talk about impact, This cheating is going to cause the three E's of impact. It is going to be an emotional impact.
It is going to be an environmental impact, and it is going to be an experience impact, and what I mean by that is that it is going to be an emotional impact and create that sort of up and down emotions all the time, all the day. And what I want you to realize during this emotional impact state is that it's happening.
Right and not that I want you to necessarily quickly come to terms with the fact that you know The cheating is making you feel a certain way But I want you to understand that this is the circumstance that you can't control You can't go back in time and make your partner not cheat on you. You can only move forward And so as this is emotionally impacting you I really want you to start thinking about okay This is emotionally impacting me this way.
I would sort of like for it to You Emotionally impact me in this direction. Okay, the second e is it's going to Environment it's going to impact your environment and especially for those of us that have children when our partner steps out on us it creates an environmental impact where The mood in the house changes, the environment changes.
You may ask your partner to leave the household. You may say that you want to leave the household. It just feels different. When you cook dinner in your kitchen, the environment feels different. When you watch television. The mood feels different when you are in your bedroom the environment feels different Your partner cheating on you is going to shift and impact your environment you understand So not only I want you to remember this.
Okay that part of the deconstruction. This is deconstructing Your mind, this is deconstructing your emotions. This is deconstructing your life. And these are the three categories. It is going to deconstruct the impact of your life. So the impact of your life emotionally, the impact of your life environmentally, and the impact of your experience.
Now, what I mean by experience is that you have told yourself a specific story or up to this point, excuse me, up to this point, you and your spouse have had a specific story about your relationship. And it's not just like how y'all met, but like, these are the things that we've been through. These are the things that we've accomplished.
I'm so proud of us. And I can't wait to grow old with you. When cheating starts or gets discovered in a relationship, That experience, that story is now impacted and changed forevermore. Like it becomes a new experience. It impacts the fantasy of the experience you had. It impacts the current experience that you had.
It impacts the story overall. You understand? Okay, so that's part, that's the impact. That's the deconstruction of the, of the impact of those three E's that are going to happen. Okay, ride with me here. It's a lot. The second thing that's going to happen is you are going to feel a nudge in the three areas, these three areas of what I call trust and communication.
Okay, these are the three C's. Okay, you are then once all this impact has happened, right? And it's hitting you day by day. You are going to become Accustomed to it Impacting your emotions Impacting your environment it impacting your story and you are going to become accustomed Okay, so it's like it's like sort of swimming and you go through this wave and then you're waiting for the next wave So we went through the wave of impact and now we're at the wave of trusted communication Once you reach the wave of trust and communication, you are now trying to figure out if this is going to work.
And most likely, if you do decide to make this work, these are the three C's that you are going to deconstruct and construct and work on. Now, I will also say that many couples do not reach this stage because they don't want to work on rebuilding trust or rebuilding communication. Like, they simply have made up their mind and they don't want to work on it anymore.
And that's sad. That's fair. Okay. It may not have been the first time that this cheating has happened. They may have, you know, just felt like this isn't what they want to be a part of. Right. Believe it or not. Many couples do actually want to try, especially those with kids. And so when you reach the stage of deconstructing the trust and communication, you are going to hit these three areas, these three C's, which I call cornerstone collaboration and communication.
And what I mean by that is that these are the three C's that you are going to need. If you want to build trust and communication, you're going to need a cornerstone, which means your values. Now the biggest value that was broken because of the cheating is obviously trust and loyalty. Right? You are going to have to rebuild your values.
You are going to have to rebuild your values not just around trust and loyalty, but maybe around respect, maybe around love, maybe around affection, maybe your values around money, around time, around all those things. You are going to have to deconstruct your cornerstone, your values. Okay? Number two, you are going to need collaboration.
If y'all want to rebuild your trust, rebuild your communication, you are going to need collaboration, which means on both sides, the person that stepped out on the marriage is going to need a lot of communication with the person that is trying to rebuild the trust. And then the person is trying to rebuild the trust that was stepped out on is going to need their partner to really be open.
to many moments of communication that not all are pretty, right? Some may be a triggering moment. Some may be, you know, um, I don't know if I want to do this anymore or I'm feeling this way or what are you thinking? Do you still want to be with me? Like you're going to have a lot of those conversations. I pointed out in my last episode that the Institute of Infidelity stated that most couples or most people take up to two years to forgive infidelity.
So I want you to understand right now that if you choose to remain with your partner, right, studies show, this is, you can Google this, the Institute of Infidelity, totally exists, okay, states that if you choose to remain with your partner, it will take you up to two years To forgive them. I want you to understand that that's how long y'all may be on this journey for okay So two it's cornerstone It's collaboration and three if y'all are wanting to rebuild trust you are going to need a lot of communication with comprehension.
And this is what I teach a lot of my one on one clients. My one on one, uh, couples is that y'all will run each other in circles trying to communicate saying we need communication. We need to talk about everything. We need safe space. We need to be open. We need to be doing all these things and talking about our feelings.
Ain't nothing going to happen from just talking about your feelings. If nobody understands your feelings. You need comprehension in a healthy, growing, rebuilding relationship. You are going to need more than communication. You are going to need communication with comprehension. Comprehension means It doesn't mean I actually agree with you.
It just means I understand, which is literally so interesting that my comp, my, um, phrase or whatever I say, usually at the end is you understand it's just part of how I talk, but you are going to need comprehension. And that is going to require a lot of curiosity. Without offense, curiosity without offense is very difficult for somebody, for the person that was cheated on.
I just want to point that out. If you're listening and you're the person that stepped outside of your marriage and you're choosing to rebuild that trust with your partner, um, having, needing to be curious without their offense is going to be difficult, but it's possible. Okay. And it's exactly what I work with my clients on.
I have seen. Several clients in which their partners, their husbands, their wives have cheated on them. And we're working together right now and helping them not just rebuild their trust, but rebuild their confidence and rebuilding, finding themselves again, because they're also realizing that they lost themselves in this marriage.
You understand? Okay. The last thing so first we went through the impact that it's going to happen, right? That's one wave It's the emotional impact the environmental impact the experience impact, right? Then the next wave that you're going to go through is the rebuilding of the trust, right? rebuilding of your values and your cornerstone rebuilding of being able to collaborate together and being able to then communicate to comprehend Then once you get over that wave you are then going to reach the very last wave which is the new life This is where most couples Get stuck because they don't know what decision to make at this stage of the deconstruction This is the new life part.
This is where you're trying to decide after all this work after all this regulating my emotions After all of this self coaching, after all of the talking and the therapy and all the other stuff, now it's come to the point where do we do this new life together? Do we do this new life apart? Where we've decided, like, as much as we want to be together, we've grown apart, right?
We no longer actually, this is not working out for us. Or this is where I've seen over 50 percent of the couples I work with and clients I work with remain. They don't remain together. They don't remain apart. They remain in the most dangerous space for your marriage. They remain in the in between. The in between is a combination of one foot in one foot out.
It's a combination of feeling comfortable with your environment and not wanting to rock the boat and change your circumstance, not wanting it to affect your children. It is a combination of feeling like you need more answers and a lot of the time the reason why you're really Struggling in this stage is because you're doing what I call like you're dancing in the dark, right?
where you're trying to weigh your options of the pros and cons and of this relationship of this marriage and of what happened and what I want you to realize is like This this ain't a car purchase Your marriage ain't a car purchase. Your marriage isn't a case to be solved. Your marriage is your marriage.
You understand that's exactly why creating a pros and cons list and relationships really doesn't work. It will never really get you anywhere. We'll never make you feel settled with your decision. You're dancing in the dark at that point. What you need to do is trust yourself in making a decision that aligns with your values.
That aligns with what you want for yourself that aligns with the respect that you want for yourself the loyalty that you want for yourself Can you trust this person again? What work are y'all gonna do together? Like that's what you need to look forward to, you know a lot of the questions that I ask my couples and then I want you to ask yourself before I hop off is You know, this is a very big question.
Okay in your marriage I want you to think back to the best day the best day the best day You I want you to go back there now. If you want to close your eyes, I want you to go back to the best day of your marriage before the cheating, right? I have one, the best day of your marriage. And I want you to ask yourself, even on this best day was my marriage at its best.
Was my marriage at its best or did after that day and maybe a day later or two We went back to the same same old junk
It's deep and this is exactly what I want to do with you in my private one on one coaching program I want to help you be able to make a decision about This life changing event you understand this is exactly what I help my clients get through and overcome Not get over get through You Because cheating is super personal.
I've mentioned here several times that even this topic alone has not been easy for me to talk about because I know how sensitive it is to many of you that have experienced this. But I want you to know that there are so many pieces to post. Discovery of the cheating that you are going to need my support with that is exactly the work that I want to do with you Okay, I want to help you not just figure out if you want to leave or if you want to stay But I want to help you basically figure out the exact strategies It's going to take you to get you back to a hundred because believe it or not this this act of cheating Is really affecting you and I broke it down.
It impacts you emotionally. It impacts you environmentally It impacts you in your experience in your story. It can eat at you and that's not what I want for you Okay, so if you're listening to me right now, I want to help you All right. I primarily live on instagram and tiktok You can go to the link in my bio and book a sales call Or I want you to go to kareenafdaves.
com and book a sales call there And what I want you to understand is that during the sales call, we're going to talk about everything that's happened so far, what you tried and how I can help. At the end of the day, it's your decision, but here's, here's the thing that I want you to understand is that you have been doing a lot of this on your own life, on your own decisions, on your own.
And this isn't one of those things that you do on your own, whether it's me. or your therapist or a very good wise counsel type of friend. This isn't something that you overcome alone and I don't want that for you. I love you so much. Let me pray for you. Okay, father god. I thank you for our lives I thank you for this moment I thank you for the impact that you have had on us and I thank you for your mercy And your love and your compassion and I thank you that no matter how ratchet And lost we get you still love us regardless and um, that's sometimes really hard for me to accept like I don't know how You can love me.
I'll just say, and just love us in the way that you do. It's such an agape form of love. And I really appreciate that. And even if you think we take it for granted, Lord, just know that we don't. And we always come back to you, father. God, I ask that in this very moment, you protect our children as they go back to school tomorrow.
I ask that you protect our households and I ask that you protect our tongues. Father God, I can feel that those that listen to me have a difficult time, uh, with their words, whether they don't have the words or whether the words that they use aren't necessarily the best. It may cut the deepest. And so in this very moment, right now, I pray over their tongues and I pray that we think before we speak.
Father God, I thank you for your mercy. I thank you for your presence and may you continue to bless us and show us how to be the light in this world. I love you so much. In your name we pray. Amen. Okay. Listen, my name's Karina F. Daves. I am a speaker, a relationship expert, and the host of this dope podcast, Relationships You Understand.
And if you really enjoy this podcast, I want you to subscribe to it. I want you to, um, follow it, share with all of your amigos. But most importantly, I want you to even like favorite the episodes that you feel You really resonate that you feel like you need there's this episode. I can't remember the name That like the entire episode is me praying for you if you're interested in that episode Let me know send me a dm and i'll totally send it to you But it is i'm just thinking about it right now And I really do feel like if this is you if you're in this position when your partner's stepped out on you um that episode is Epic because it's really no topic.
It's just praying for you and reminding you that you are a beautiful You So if you want to hear that episode, send me a DM on Instagram at KarinaFDays and I'll send you the link for it. Okay. All right. And don't forget to subscribe to my emails. Um, Don't forget to subscribe to my email that is called relationships.
You understand where I send you daily Relationship gems on how to surrender your partner. Okay. I love you so much and I don't want you to wait to do this work with me Okay, whether it's with me or with anybody else when people say like it's time to do the work It's time to do the work. Okay, if you're curious, I have all types of clients I have male clients that are Divorced that are married That are dating that are trying to date.
I have single clients in their 20s. I have couples I have Um a whole bunch of things I do I have couples that are going through infidelity. I have couples that are going through Money issues. I have couples that are going through trust issues couples that are going through communication issues I have singles that are also going through the same thing So if you've ever wondered like does going through infidelity Will Karina work with me and like my situation?
Of course, there isn't a situation that I haven't encountered at this point. So send me a DM or go to link my buy and book a sales call. Okay. I love you so much. And yeah. Um, again, my name is Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, podcast host of this dope podcast relationships you understand and come back soon for part four of our cheating series.
Okay. I love you. Bye.
