No sex or marriage question is too embarrassing because it’s time to ask EmpowHer’s sexuality expert, Dr. Marty Klein, anything. Asking your questions is EmpowHer’s Founder and Chairman Michelle King Robson.
Michelle King Robson:
Dr. Klein, a woman asks, “I just found out my husband has been cheating on me. How do I ever trust him again?”
Dr. Marty Klein:
Well, first of all, I want to know how you found out and are you 100% certain? Or is this something that someone told you happened, or is this something that you suspect, or is this something that you did some investigation and you think you found out? So I always say unless you have the evidence right in front of your eyes, preferably coming out of the other person’s mouth, it can be very difficult to know that your partner has cheated.
Okay, so let’s assume that. How can you ever trust him again? I am not sure how people do that. People do that in a lot of different ways. I’ll tell you what I tell my patients. So saying “I am sorry; I’ll never do it again,” doesn’t work. Saying ”I am sorry; I’ll try harder,” that doesn’t work. What I want to know is, or what I would want to know if I were in your position is, “Why should I think that you are going to behave differently next time you are in the same situation?” And trying harder isn’t what’s going to do it.
The only reason that you should trust somebody is if they can explain to you why they think they are not going to do it again, and that typically means what changes they are going to go through, or they have already gone through so that they can reasonably be depended upon to respond differently to the same situation.
Now that change program may involve religion, it may involve therapy, it may involve LSD, it may involve a vision question in the desert, it may involve a near-death experience, it can involve a lot of different things. But the question is, “Okay, if you find yourself in the same situation a year or two from now, what will be different about you then so that you will be responding differently to that than you did the last time when you responded by cheating on me?” And if a person has a good answer to that question, then I think it’s reasonable to trust them. When the answer is, “I will never do it again; I am sorry,” or ”I’ll never do it again; I am going to try harder next time,” that’s just not good enough.
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