Like the Emperor in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, cheaters live in a world of delusions and lies. Today you are going to hear about part of the cheaters delusion often ignored.
They have many delusions. Delusions about the future, about their finances, their invulnerabilities, their power, etc. The delusion often ignored is their reputation. Once they’re caught, their reputation is gone. No matter how much they tell themselves, and you, about how ‘good’ they are or their intentions, the reality is that their reputation is…. gone.
The Cheater’s Delusions <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you are with me for today’s show. In today’s show we’re going to be dealing with “A cheater’s Delusion”.
Sounds mysterious, doesn’t it? Well, like the emperor in the story The Emperor’s New Clothes, cheaters often live in a world of delusions and lies. They believe things that just aren’t so. Today you’re going to hear about a part of the cheater’s delusion that’s often ignored.
The cheaters have many delusions. Now, there’s a big difference between delusions and hallucinations. The delusions deal more with some unrealistic thinking about some aspect of their lives.
Now, with cheaters, many times they will have this delusional thinking about their future or about their finances, their in-vulnerabilities and power, etc.
They may think that they and their lover can take off to some Caribbean island or that they’ve got the finances to buy this huge house and run away from it all. Or they really think that they are Superman or Superwoman and can accomplish all sorts of things.
These are some of the types of delusions that I’ve encountered in working with couples. Now, one of the delusions that’s often ignored is the delusion about their reputation.
We’re going to be talking about that, because once a cheater is caught their reputation is gone. Whatever good reputation that they had, it’s out the window.
They often don’t realize that. No matter how much they tell themselves and you about how good they are, or about their good intentions, the reality is that their reputation is gone.
In the past, they may have been able to say “just trust me” and you’d do it. But after the affair, when they say just trust me, it’s not the same. So we’re going to be talking about what you need to know about a cheater’s delusion.
1. Their words have lost power. The cheater still believes that their words have power. Up until the time that the affair was found out, they were left believing that they had the power to steer people’s thinking.
They could make up all kinds of lies about the affair and people would believe it. Including you. And you did too for awhile. Their words did have power.
Once they’re found out, they don’t realize ‘hey, my magic power of words is gone’. It doesn’t register in their minds that this power no longer exists. Now, some of them are such good liars that there may still be a little bit of power, but it is nowhere near what it once was.
2. They don’t realize that there are no quick fixes for a lost reputation. Cheaters oftentimes live in this mindset of quick fixes. They’re used to fixing everything very quickly, satisfying needs and desires when they happen. And they’re going to be looking for more quick fixes and try them without knowing hey, this is going to fail.
Even if you can get the cheater to sit down and talk about things, if they’re caught up in the cheater’s delusion, they’re going to be wanting to operate under the assumption we can talk about the affair in this one sit down meeting and it will all be taken care of. Once again, you’re seeing the quick fix thinking there.
The thing is, there are no quick fixes. They’re going to still be approaching life from this quick fix mindset and it doesn’t compute that it’s not working, that that’s not the way real life is.
3. They’ll have tunnel vision about their lost reputation. What I mean by the tunnel vision, that little bit of light down at the end of the tunnel, they’re going to say oh, that’s just a little thing. Nothing big. This affair thing is going to blow over. I may have a little bit of staining on my reputation, but it’s no big deal.
You’re going to hear them talk about how things are not that big a deal. They’re not only going to minimize the damage done to their relationship, but they don’t realize not only that it damaged but also the spread of the damage.
Many times they don’t see the damages. Not only in the relationship with you, but within the family as well. Their relationship with the kids, their relationship with the bosses, their relationship with their employees, their relationship with their parents.
All these reputations have been damaged and they don’t realize, or they don’t see, any reason for them to be damaged. They want to think oh look, the affair was just between me and the lover. It doesn’t work that way. Once it comes out, the reputation is damaged much more extensively than they realize.
Now, these are important aspects to understand about the cheater’s delusion. The more you understand about their thinking, the more you will be able to craft or design what you’re talking about in such a way that it can get past the delusion.
The more you understand about the delusion, the more you’ll be able to understand what the cheater is dealing with. You’ll be able to understand more about their thinking.
Because here at Affair Recovery Radio, my goal is to help you through the affair experience one day at a time. This is just one more aspect of affairs you need to be aware of and it will help you in making it through this.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed the show today and if you have comments about it, please leave positive feedback at the site where you listen to the radio show, or you can see the transcript at www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com, that’s where we post them.
If you have questions, feel free to write me, Jeff@restorethefamily.com. Or leave your questions there at the blog, www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com and I’ll be glad to answer them.
Best Regards,
Jeff
