Ep: S2– The Sheater: Why You Needed to Feel Chosen

For many women, betrayal is not only about attraction or connection. It is about what happens internally when someone makes you feel seen, desired, important, or emotionally chosen in a way that feels intensely alive.

In this episode of Women Cheat Too, Judith Nisenson explores why the need to feel chosen becomes so emotionally powerful within the Sheater framework. She explains how externally anchored identity causes validation, attention, and emotional focus from others to feel stabilizing, defining, and even identity-forming.

Judith also breaks down how the feeling of being chosen often activates underdeveloped or disconnected parts of the self, creating emotional vulnerability to betrayal patterns. She explains why many women mistakenly believe the other person is the source of the feeling, when in reality they are activating something deeper that already existed internally.

If you’ve struggled to understand why attention or emotional connection outside your relationship felt so powerful, this episode will help you understand the deeper identity patterns underneath the need to feel chosen and how to build emotional grounding from within instead of depending on external validation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Women Cheat 2, the podcast where women who've cheated come to ask the hard questions, face the truth, and begin rebuilding from the inside out. Hosted by Judith Nissenson, a certified betrayal trauma coach, this show offers compassion without excuses and accountability without shame.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hi, I'm Judith Nissenson, a certified betrayal trauma coach, and this is Women Cheat Too. Today we're continuing a conversation that I introduced recently around the concept of the sheeter. And if you listened to that episode, you already know this is not just a word or an idea. It's a way of understanding something deeper that's been operating underneath your life and your choices for a long time. What we're doing now is expanding that understanding. Because once you start to see the pattern, you can't unsee it. And more importantly, you can finally start to change it in a real way instead of staying stuck in confusion or shame. Today I want to focus on one of the most powerful and often misunderstood pieces of this pattern, and that is the need to feel chosen. If you really slow down and look at your story, not just the events, but the emotional experience you were having while everything was unfolding, there's often a thread that runs through it that doesn't get talked about enough. It's not just that there was a connection, it's that something about that interaction made you feel seen in a way that landed differently. It made you feel wanted in a way that felt personal. It made you feel like you mattered in a way that felt immediate and alive. And when that happens, it doesn't stay surface level. It goes deeper because it begins to attach itself to your sense of self. Now, if we connect this back to the sheeter concept, this starts to make a lot more sense. When your identity is externally anchored, when your sense of self is shaped by roles, feedback, and how you're perceived by others, being chosen becomes more than just a moment. It becomes stabilizing, it becomes reinforcing, it becomes something that fills in a gap that may have been there long before this person ever showed up. And that's the part most women don't realize at the time. Because in the moment, it feels like the connection is a source of the feeling. It feels like the other person is what's creating that experience inside of you. But what's actually happening is that something internal is being activated, something that has not been fully developed or fully grounded or fully understood. Let me explain that more clearly. If you spent most of your life being who you need to be for other people, then your sense of identity is built on how you are received. You don't experience yourself as valuable from the inside. You experience yourself as valuable based on how others respond to you. And when someone comes into your life and responds to you in a way that feels more focused, more direct, more intentional, it hits differently. It doesn't just feel good. It feels defining. It feels like this is who I am right now. And that's a powerful shift. Because now you're not just interacting with another person. You're stepping into a version of yourself that feels more clear, more certain, more alive. And that version of you may feel very different from the version of you that exists in your primary relationship, especially that relationship has become routine, predictable, or emotionally disconnected. And I want to pause here because this is where a lot of women get confused. They look at that difference and assume it means something about the relationship. They assume it means something about compatibility or fulfillment. But what it often means is this this is a part of you that has not been fully expressed or fully integrated in your life. And this interaction is activating it. So what begins to happen is this you start to associate that feeling of being chosen with that person. You start to believe that they are the reason you feel this way. But the truth is, they are not creating something new. They are activating something that was already missing or underdeveloped inside of you. And this is where the danger comes in. Because when you don't understand that, you start chasing the feeling instead of understanding the source. You start leaning into environments where you feel more chosen, more seen, more alive without recognizing that you're actually trying to stabilize your identity through external validation. And that is a pattern. It's not random, it's not accidental, it's structured. Now, let's take this one step further because this is where it becomes even more important. When your identity depends on being chosen, it is also unstable. It depends on someone continuing to choose you. It depends on that attention continuing, that validation continuing, that feeling continuing. And that creates a subtle but powerful cycle. You begin to rely on that external feedback to maintain your sense of self. And when that feedback increases, you feel more grounded. When it decreases, you feel more uncertain. So naturally, you start to move toward the environments and interactions that reinforce that feeling. Even if you're not consciously aware of it, even if you don't intend for it to go anywhere. And this is why something that wasn't that serious can become something much bigger over time. Because it's not just about the interaction, it's about what it's doing internally. Now let's bring this back to your partner because this is where the disconnect begins to get painful and confusing. Your partner may still be choosing you, they may still be showing up, still committed, still present. But if that has become familiar, if that has become expected, it doesn't activate the same emotional response. It doesn't hit in the same way. And that's not because your partner is lacking, it's because your system has adapted. So the newness, the novelty, the focused attention from someone else feels more intense, more meaningful, more real. And that's where the story starts to shift in your mind. You start to tell yourself that this connection is different, that it means something, that it represents something important. But what it really represents, it's part of you that has not been fully developed or grounded. And that's the shift that has to happen in your healing. Because if you stay focused on the person, you miss the pattern. If you stay focused on the connection, you miss the structure. And if you don't understand the structure, you will continue to be vulnerable to the same dynamic, even if the people or circumstances change. So the work here is not about shutting down your desire to feel wanted. That's human. That's normal. That's part of being in a relationship. The work is about changing your relationship to that feeling. Instead of needing it to define you, you allow it to complement you. Instead of depending on it to feel stable, you build stability internally. Instead of chasing it, you recognize it. And when you recognize it, you can pause instead of react. Now, let's bring this into something practical because this is where it starts to become actionable. When you notice yourself feeling pulled towards someone or something because of how it makes you feel, I want you to pause and ask yourself a different question. Not why do I like this? But what part of me is being activated right now? And then go one step further. What has been missing that this has given me? Because that's where the real answer is. Is it the part of you that wants to feel seen? Is it the part of you that wants to feel desired? Is it the part of you that wants to feel chosen in a way that feels new or different? And once you can identify that, you can start to work with it instead of being driven by it. Because that part of you is not the problem. It's information. It's showing you where you are still externally anchored. It's showing you where your identity is still dependent on something outside of you. And that's where your growth is. So before we wrap up today, I want you to sit with this in a real and honest way. Where in your story did being chosen feel like more than just attention? Where did it start to feel like identity? And what would it look like to build a version of yourself that does not depend on the feeling to stay grounded? Because that is where everything begins to change. So, let's take a breath and recap where we've been. The shader often has an externally anchored identity, which makes the experience of being chosen feel deeply stabilizing and defining. What feels like connection is often an activation of something internal that has not been fully developed. When that feeling becomes something you depend on, it creates vulnerability to betrayal patterns. The work is not to remove the desire to feel wanted, but to build an internal identity that is not dependent on. I'm here for you, and you don't have to do this alone. Thanks for listening, and remember, your pain matters.