Happily Even After Betrayal with Life Coach Jen

191: Why Did They Cheat?

• Jennifer Townsend • Season 4 • Episode 191

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What if the most-asked question after betrayal is the one that keeps you stuck? We tackle the urge to demand “Why did they cheat?” and show how that chase can fuel anxiety, rumination, and self-blame. Instead, we walk through a trauma-informed path that restores safety without needing every detail, every date, or every explanation.

We unpack what actually drives infidelity—emotional immaturity, shame, conflict avoidance, addiction, identity crises, weak boundaries, fantasy, and entitlement—and why it’s rarely about finding someone “better.” You’ll hear how the affair’s dopamine-fueled escape masks deeper avoidance and why waiting for a perfect confession often becomes a second injury. We talk candidly about shame’s grip, the half-truths and timeline rewrites it produces, and how to stop letting incomplete stories define your healing.

From there, we shift the focus to what you can control: boundaries that protect your peace, nervous-system regulation that calms the body, and meaning-making that turns this rupture into a turning point. You’ll learn practical questions that replace “why” with agency: What do I need to feel safe? What am I rebuilding? Which values guide my next step? We emphasize that closure is an inside job and that your worth is not on trial—the betrayer’s choices reflect their coping, not your value.

If you’re tired of circling the same question and ready to reclaim your story, this conversation offers tools, language, and hope to move forward with clarity and strength. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find this resource. Your healing is possible, even without their why.

Please follow me on instagram and facebook @happilyevenaftercoach and if you want to see what coaching is all about I offer a free 45 min. clarity call via zoom.

Email me: hello@lifecoachjen.com for any comments or questions.

Thanks for listening, please like and review as well as share with your family and friends.

My website is www.lifecoachjen.com



SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to my podcast, Happily Even After. I'm Life Coach Jen. I'm passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I read the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It's the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes, and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal, but create a healthy future. Today we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today's podcast. The thing I love about the internet is you can ask it questions like, hey Google, what is the most asked question when someone finds out their spouse is having an affair? And the answer to that is, why did they cheat? And if you have experienced betrayal, you probably agree with this. You might have asked other questions, but the why, our brain wants to understand the why. And so that's what I'm going to talk about on the podcast today. Why did they cheat? And this is questions our brain goes over and over. Like, why did my spouse cheat? Why did they throw away our life? Why wasn't I enough? Why risk everything? Every betrayed partner asks this. And I asked it, my clients ask it. I have a lot of clients that are really fixated on getting to the bottom of why. And I think it just makes our brain feel like it has something to work on to figure out. Our brains like to problem solve. And so if it can figure out the why, then it will never happen again. That's what we, you know, are thinking, right? And I think sometimes our spouse doesn't even know, or they're not willing to even give us an answer. And oftentimes our spouse may say something, but then we're like, that can't be it, right? That's not probably true, or that's not the right answer. So our brain still resists when we are told a why. Because the question itself is coming from pain and fear and trauma. And so it's probably not, it's just not the best question to ask. And I just want you to know that this is, you know, our brain is doing its job. So that's why we want to know. But I'm going to share some real reasons why people have affairs and why they're usually really unable to completely answer your question. And most importantly, what you can do if you never get the truth, the closure, or the explanation you deserve. That is my story. I got bits and pieces dribbled throughout the years and decades, but never really all the answers and all the questions and dates that are wrong or misleading or right. And so I could have driven myself crazy, which I did for a moment, but ultimately I just had to decide I knew enough. The why wasn't helping me. The knowing the why was not helping me, it was really hurting me and keeping me stuck. And so, anyway, so I'm gonna hopefully help you avoid this problem that I had and kind of explain our brain and why we're asking why. So, why this question feels so urgent to us? After betrayal, your brain goes into survival mode. It is trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. The thing is, we think everyone else would consider their kids, their spouse. What if they got caught? Right? Like my, I would never have an affair because that's not inside of me. That's not in alignment with who I am. I'm a very loyal, honest person, right? I mean, I can't say I'm 100% honest because I'm not superhuman. I'm not a robot, I'm human. But in general, it's just not in my nature to be that person. And so it's really complicated for those of us that have been betrayed to understand why they would someone do that? Why would they risk everything for this random person at work or at the diner or at the bar or at on the internet on Facebook, they knew 50 years ago, right? Why? And so it's just confusing our brain. Your nervous system is thinking if I can understand the why, I can protect myself from ever being hurt again. This is the biggest one, in my opinion. We think if we understand, if we know it, we can fix everything to change ourselves and the other person, and they're never gonna cheat on us again. And then we'll be safe. The question, why did they cheat, is not really about them. It's about your safety, right? We're trying to make ourselves feel safe. And so we think if we know why, then we can feel safe. But the real thing is we have to figure out how we can feel safe regardless of what they're gonna tell us or not tell us. When you don't have an answer, your brain fills in the gaps. And I can totally relate. We go to worst-case scenario, we make up stories, right? And we think things like, well, if I had been prettier, if I had cooked more, if we had more sex, if I was easier or nicer to live with. But many betrayal trauma experts say the betrayed partner is not the cause of the affair, which I 100%, a million percent agree, amen. It wasn't about you. It was about them. There may have been challenges and issues in your marriage, but the affair is about the person who chose secrecy, avoidance, and betrayal as their coping strategy. Esther Perrell, I love her, she's written a lot of amazing books. She says, an affair tells you something about the person who had it, not the person who discovered it. Oprah, in her recent discussion on betrayal and gray divorce, which I'm gonna talk about in a few weeks, said people often leave marriages because of an inner disconnection long before they ever leave physically. So it's possible like you were disconnecting in your marriage, and then your spouse might have an affair, right? Because they feel disconnected. But it wasn't your fault, like it wasn't your decision for them to go have an affair. Affairs are rarely about finding someone better. Amen. Absolutely, right? Because, first of all, someone that is willing to also knowingly have an affair says a lot about that person, right? Who is willing to break up a family. Um, it says something about their integrity of who they are. And if they're willing to do it now, what makes them not gonna do it again, right? So affairs are almost always about the betrayer avoiding something inside of themselves. And so something inside of themselves is missing, an emotion they're trying not to feel or to feel. And so it's complicated, right? So here are some of the real reasons that people have affairs. Number one, emotional immaturity or avoidance. They don't know how to handle stress, shame, guilt, conflict, or emotional needs. So they use it as an escape. I would say pornography fits in this well. A lot of people and women, men, they feel betrayed when their spouse is looking at pornography over connecting with them, but it's because they don't know how to feel and process their emotions. And so learning that skill is so powerful and really will bless your life. Another one is unmet emotional needs. And that's not about you, that's about them, right? They're trying to fill a void inside themselves, not a void that you created, they created it. Addiction or compulsive behavior. So people that have porn addictions or sex addictions or chronic validation seeking is a perfect place that someone might have an affair, is a reason. Right? People having an identity crisis. People cheat to feel young, desirable, powerful, admired, or alive again. This is especially common in midlife and gray divorce ages, right? And so these are some reasons, right? And the thing is, you're gonna be asking your partner, well, why? It might be several of these. And maybe they're not even in tune enough to even answer it. But I want your brain to know, like, okay, these are some possible reasons. And your spouse might fit a lot of these. Lack of boundaries and opportunity. Many people think boundaries are control, right? That equals control. So you don't have any boundaries in your marriage. But boundaries are personal guardrails that prevent us from drifting into danger. So if you've never talked about it or discussed boundaries, right, they might be like, well, it's no big deal that I am talking to this woman at work. I she really needs me. She is going through a really tough time, and I seem to give her good answers, right? Well, one thing leads to another leads to another. And then you're off destroying your marriage and having an affair. So I think boundaries are very important, something to talk about early on in your marriage before an affair or possibly something might happen, especially if your spouse has to travel for work or you work around a lot of people with the opposite sex. I think affairs happen a lot in where you work because those are people you're with a lot. People that are thinking and creating a fantasy in their mind. The affair often becomes a world without real life stress. There aren't dishes, there aren't bills, they're not crying kids. You don't have any responsibility. So it's this huge dopamine hit as well as an escape. Like why people like to play video games or watch binge watch shows on Netflix. It's because it's an escape. An affair is like that, but a million times more intense. And this huge dopamine hit. It's like a drug. And that's why I call affairs a lot a fantasy because it's not reality. Entitlement. I recently had someone call me that wanted to work with me. And we are not working together, but they felt entitled to have an affair. It was like they believe that they deserve what they want and their consequences don't matter, right? Who cares if their wife is upset about it? And so I think this is very like dangerous behavior, right? That they're entitled to have whatever they want. Broken communication or conflict avoidance. Instead of saying I'm unhappy, they avoid the discomfort and seek connection from someone else. And this happens a lot too. And I think it's so interesting because they just made their problems a million times worse and the pain a million times worse. Two more trauma patterns from childhood, right? People reenact abandonment, neglect, or dysfunction. People are like, well, do I have to go back in my past? I mean, sometimes, yes, that could be helpful to figure out the why if that person's willing to reconcile. However, you might just know it like, oh, they really out of trauma-filled childhood, right? At least gives you some background of maybe why, right? This is just to calm your brain down. Deep shame. So shame is one of the biggest drivers of betrayal. Shame also prevents people from ever giving you the real explanation afterward. If we are stuck in shame, it can really destroy you. It is a miserable place to live. So shame hides. And so really learning to become more shame resilient will bless your life, your kids. But shame, yes, can for sure keep us stuck and unable to move on or move through it. The betrayer rarely tells the whole truth, right? Because of shame is a huge call. But they're like, well, I didn't want to hurt you. It's like, you should have thought that before you went off with Mary, Mary Joe over there, right? Uh, you know, you should have, or Henry, you should have thought about that before you had the affair. But oftentimes it's like almost painful for them to admit what they did. And so shame is a huge part of this. They're trying to protect their image because a lot of us, a lot of people that have affairs, that's really not who they are. Like it's very out of alignment. Probably there are some people that's not out of alignment with, but in the majority of humans that I've met, it's not in their character necessarily. It's not in their value wheel. They value monogamy, yet they did something that's very outside of their values. They don't want to have the conflict, right? People think, well, it's just gonna lead to a fight. Now, of course, when you just discover your nervous system is so shocked. People do crazy things, right? People throw things and yell and scream and don't show up their best selves. But once you can calm down, you can have really connecting, beautiful conversations if you're both willing to sit there in the discomfort. And that's of course why people might go get a third person involved, meaning a marriage therapist or counselor. I always suggest don't go to your ecclesiastical leader, your bishop, your minister, because they are not qualified for marriage counseling, right? They're your spiritual leader, not your marriage therapist. So find someone that, if if this is one. And also, this isn't a marital problem. This is an individual problem. So I think at this moment, I don't really recommend marriage counseling therapy, but a lot of couples assume, they just think like, we've got to fix our marriage, right? But really, it's about healing you and healing them. A lot of people, you know, they haven't done their own healing, like maybe from childhood wounds or childhood trauma. And so now they've totally blown up their marriage. And so they don't want to, it's really hard to think, well, if I would have done this, maybe I could have prevented it. So it, it just they don't want to admit to what happened maybe in their childhood. They want to pretend, well, this isn't about me and my childhood, it's about our marriage, right? They, there's a disconnect there. They aren't in tune with who they are and themselves. They get defensive. They're stuck in cognitive dissonance, which means their reality and what's real are completely disconnected, right? Their body and their mind are disconnected from each other. And they just want to move on. They want to avoid responsibility. They don't want to tell you everything. They just are like, can't we just move on? You know enough, right? But it's really not for them to tell you when you know enough. It's for you to decide when you can, you know, either get information for them or just decide on your own, like, okay, I know enough. Oftentimes, you know, if your marriage after this happens and it does end up in divorce, they just want you to never talk about it again. And I get that, right? When when you are divorced. And for me, like I'm, I mean, I would still, if my former spouse came to me and said, okay, I'm ready to tell you everything, I would welcome it. I would say, yes, please, right? I don't know if I would trust it. I guess I would listen, but I would at least allow, or if he decided to like write me a letter or something and just tell me, okay, this is actually the whole truth. I would still really appreciate that, but I don't need it. And there's a difference, right? Sometimes, oftentimes you get partial answers, vague, inconsistent, or entirely they entirely rewrite what really happened. This happened all the time for me. And it's almost worse, it makes it worse than helpful. So just remember when for me, I always just tell my clients, closure is an inside job. That's part of your healing process, is to give yourself closure. And if you sit around and wait, it's gonna be forever, probably, right? You're not gonna get it. And so we can wish for it, like what I was just doing a second ago. But if it doesn't happen, I'm gonna be okay. Like I already knew enough, I already know enough. I'm already, I already get it. I already can see my former spouse in a lot of these reasons why people cheat. And so I already can understand it and I'm okay with that. So if you never get the truth, right, like me, you're just gonna have to accept what you have, right? And then make your decision based on what information you do have. And it tells a lot about someone that when you're sitting there crying, devastated, you know, begging for answers, and they're like, No, that says a lot about that person. And do you want to be married to that person? Do you want to be in a relationship? Relationship with that person. And so I always tell my clients, like, they're going to let you know what you need to do by their actions, by their words, by their behavior. You don't have to, you can ask them something, how they react. Are they getting defensive? Or are you requesting, you know, hey, can I look at your phone? I just have this uneasy feeling. And if they refuse and just demand, like, I have a right to privacy, right? It's like, no, you lost that when you were cheating on me. And so there has to be some rules and guidelines, but really pay attention because that's going to help you make your answer, whether you're going to stay married or get divorced. I want you to separate their choices from your worth. No, you didn't cause the affair. You didn't create the conditions for secrecy. You didn't make someone betray their own values. Their behavior is a reflection of what their ability for coping with, right? Their emotions, can they regulate? How emotionally mature are they? If they have boundaries or integrity, their unsolved trauma. So it is about them, not if you're lovable or not. Not if you were a good spouse. You need to grieve the version of the story you will never get. I think this is really important, right? Grief is a huge part of betrayal. And just even acknowledging like you deserved clarity. You deserved answers and you didn't get them. And that's okay. You're going to be okay. The conversation that you wanted, you didn't get. Like we have to grieve that. And grief isn't a weakness, it's accepting your reality. And that's important to do to move on. You need to create your meaning from the experience. What did you make it mean about you? What did you make it mean about them? What did you make it mean about your marriage? And you get to make that up. You get to decide. It doesn't have to define you. You can say, you know, this taught you how to be emotionally safe. It taught you to regulate your nervous system. It taught you that you can't ignore your intuition, that you can trust yourself. It helped you rebuild who you were. This was a turning point for you. So I just think when you make meaning of something really challenging and hard, it can be a really big turning point. And it can empower you to know that you aren't left to just, you know, wither away because they refuse to tell you why. You get to create whatever meaning you want out of what they did and what you did and what they said. Focus on what you can control. You can't control. Remember, you can't control if they're honest or not. You can't control if they have shame. You can't control what they say, what their words are, the whys of what they're saying, why they have the affair, their version of the events. But what you can control is if you're choosing to heal, if you're choosing to have boundaries, if you're choosing what you want to do in your future, if you're choosing who you are. So this is where your power lies, is in your choices, in what you can control. And so instead of asking, why did they cheat? Maybe ask, what do I need to feel safe? Right? What do I need to feel safe in my body so I can make better choices? How am I going to feel safer? What do I want my life to look like moving forward? Right. Not what they want, right? They want you to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen or whatever else they might want. That's not what you have to want. You get to want whatever you want. What version of you are you rebuilding? The past version or this new, more empowered, healed version of you? What is this experience asking you to learn, right? What have you learned from this? And I know it's like no one wanted to learn from this, but you are learning. And so you get to decide what that looks like. Healing doesn't come from understanding their behavior. Healing comes from understanding yourself. And that's very important. So I hope today from this question that we wish we could have answered, that you can understand you may never get the truth. You may never hear the real why. You can still rebuild. You can still create your happily even after. The work is not in solving their mystery. The work is in reclaiming your life. If you are listening to this and thinking, I still don't have answers. My spouse refuses to talk about it. We're divorced, but I'm stuck replaying the story. I can't move forward because I don't understand what happened. This is exactly the type of work I do as a coach. I help you move through your stuckness. Okay. So if this resonates with you, if you are stuck on the why, reach out. I would love to help and support you through this because the best gift you can give yourself is to heal. And it's totally possible without knowing exactly why they did it. Anyways, I hope this helps. Have a beautiful day, and I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachgen with onen.com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.