When your friend cheats, it puts you in a ‘loyalty bind.’ It puts you in a place where you’re torn in different directions. This bind is intensified by the nature and demands of your friendship.
When a Friend Cheats <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad you’re here with me today. I want to thank you for tuning in because today’s topic is an important one.
Not just for cheaters, but for anyone who has been touched by the topic of cheating. That question that we’re going to be dealing with today is what to do when a friend cheats.
The Loyalty Bind
When a friend cheats it puts you in a loyalty bind. You feel torn between do I do what’s right, or do I maintain the friendship. This is a tough place to be.
It puts you in a place where you’re torn in different directions. This bind that you’re in is often intensified by the demands and the nature of your friendship.
Depending on what your relationship with the cheater is, whether you have to work with them or you are their employee, whether you’re their employer, these can all put different types of spins on the whole dynamic that you’re dealing with. It can be intensified depending on what type of relationship that you have with them.
Lose-Lose Situations
When you discover an affair you often feel like you’re facing a lose-lose situation. Reality is, you are. Because you’re going to lose one way or the other.
There is no winning way, or a way out of this, without conflict, without upsetting someone. And if you’re one of those people that tends to like to keep everyone happy, everybody in a good mood, there’s no way you’re going to get out of this using that type of strategy.
You’re stuck, because if you confront the cheater you feel like you lose, and if you say nothing you lose morally. When you’re faced with such choices, what do you do?
It’s literally a no-win, or if you want to go ahead and use the term that I used earlier, it’s a lose-lose proposition.
The solution I want to present today is what I call the CRA approach. If you want to go ahead and call it the CRAP approach, feel free. Essentially you’re trying to avoid the crap.
Crap is typically something that’s unwanted and unpleasant. When an affair situation comes along it’s typically unwanted, it’s typically unpleasant, and it’s not something that you look forward to dealing with.
Confront the Cheating Behavior
The C part
- Confront the cheating behavior. With this, when the cheater comes around, you’re going to need to confront what’s going on. Focus on the behavior, not the person.
In one of my previous podcasts I talked about separating the cheater from the affair. This is along those lines, because you’re going to want to confront the cheating behavior rather than say that they’re a liar or do any kind of personal attack on them.
If they feel like you’re attacking their person they’re going to take it more personally. They may still get upset that you’re confronting their cheating behavior, but by going ahead and confronting the behavior rather than the person, it keeps your profile lower in the situation. There’s less of a target for them to shoot at, so to speak.
Refuse Condoning or Approving the Cheating
2. Refuse condoning or approving the cheating. The cheater, many times, will put you in situations where they literally test you. Where they try to find out if you’re going to support them and condone what they are doing.
They’re looking for that approval from their friends and associates. It’s going to be important that you refuse condoning it or approving what’s going on, even in a backhanded way.
They’re going to want your approval. And they’ll try to scheme or even ensnare you. Whether it be conversation or in a circumstance, a lot of times this is where they use secrets and loyalty in such a way that you feel like you are really stuck. That there’s no way that you’re going to be able to get out of it. That’s why you want to refuse condoning it in any way that you can.
You don’t have to go around attacking them all the time. You do not have to go around condemning them all the time. But you do have to take a stand and refuse to condone what they’re doing.
Avoid Traps
3. Avoid traps by refusing secrets or keeping secrets. Secrets, when they start telling you those secrets, become their ways of maintaining control. I know one of the things that I have enjoyed reading in the past are spy novels, and one of the ways that people gain leverage over other people in espionage situations that you find with spies, is through the use of secrets.
They will threaten to expose you or let you in on a secret as a way to keep you in their own little inner circle. Cheaters do this as well, to try to keep you plugged in to what they’re doing.
I encourage you, if you’re in a situation where a friend cheats, it may not necessarily be a family member, but when this friend cheats, to confront the cheating behavior, refuse condoning or approving the cheating behavior. And then avoid by refusing the secrets or keeping secrets.
These are ways to get out of the crappy situation, and I use crap because this is the CRA approach. This is not the easiest situation to get out of, but believe me, having them offended because you confronted the cheating is much better than you being caught in a situation where you’re torn in your loyalties, or you may find yourself having to give testimony in a courtroom or some kind of hearing, it’s not worth it.
Getting them upset on the front end by going ahead and confronting, that is a less painful alternative. Not a painless, but a less painful one.
There is no easy way out
There is no easy way out. The cheater has already messed up the situation where there’s no easy way out.
If you don’t know where to start with your friend, recommend the video, “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery”. It guides them through those early stages of recovery along with what they need to assume responsibility for.
Best Regards,
Jeff
