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These are my personal opinions Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well being. Gonna be one of those episodes that I sit here scratching my head, wondering how to address something, some challenge that I received from someone. You might be scratching your head for a different reason. The reason is, what do you have the right to do when somebody is hurtful to you in a relationship? So if somebody's mean to you, and it's not just once, it's like all the time or a lot of the time, what do you have the right to do after that? Do you say, well, if you're mean to me, I can be mean to you? Do you say, well, if they're mean to me, I'm gonna cheat, I'm gonna do whatever I want? Or maybe it's not just being mean. Maybe it's just like you can't stand that they do something and you want to. You want them to stop, so you go ahead and do your own thing. There's a big disconnect here that I am thinking about as I say this and that is communication. Hey, I don't like when you do that. That might have been discussed. Something like that could have been in a conversation at one point. I don't like when you do that. Will you please stop now let's talk about romantic relationships. This is any relationship we can have with anyone. A friendship, a work relationship. Romantic relationships are the toughest ones typically, so I like to address those. But we can apply this anywhere. But in romantic relationships, there's a different what I call relationship contract. Meaning when you sign up for a friendship, that contract is different than a relationship contract or romantic relationship contract, a work relationship or an acquaintance contract Contract, they're different. And the word contract I'm using loosely. But there are basically boundaries to a relationship. There are guidelines, there are criteria. For example, you wouldn't expect your friend to embarrass you in front of other people. It's part of the relationship contract that you have with them. That contract might be something as simple, an unspoken thing where this friend isn't going to embarrass me in front. In front of other people, or this friend will have my back when I need them. So we have these relationship contracts that we sign up for. In my opinion, this is my. I look at every relationship I have, contains guidelines, contains boundaries and a good relationship, a healthy relationship. These don't have to be spoken. These do not have to be discussed. They are given. And in romantic relationships, for some reason, we think, or a lot of people think, that these relationship rules that we have set up, the ones that are unspoken, can be broken. And when one person in a relationship thinks that the rules can be broken, that's when there's difficulty, that's when there are challenges. That's when bad things happen. And now we have to either heal through them by talking about them and working through it, or maybe we'll go our separate ways because we can't. But that's why we need that missing ingredient of that simple concept of communication. Hey, when you do that, it hurts me so. I wish you would stop doing that. That could be something that you say to someone. I wish you would stop doing that. Please stop doing that. It's disrespectful. It doesn't feel good. Will you do that? Will you do that for me? And I think a healthy answer is, of course. I'm so sorry I did that. I'll stop doing that. That makes sense. I will stop doing that because you asked and I didn't realize it was hurting you, or maybe I didn't care that it was hurting you or. Or whatever. But they stop. And that's a step forward. That's something you can move forward on. If they didn't care, that might be another conversation to have for sure. But this is how I look at any relationship. And I don't mean to make it sound like I put these very strict rules on relationships. It's just what we all sign up for, any relationship. And romantic relationships typically have. They do typically have more strict rules. When you're with your friend, you might look at someone else and say, hey, they're attractive. When you're with a romantic partner, it may not go as well. Or maybe you have a comfortable, secure relationship where you can talk about that and it's no big deal. And if that's the case, great. I love having a secure relationship, so that doesn't get in the way. And a secure relationship means that we trust each other. So even if there was an attraction, it wouldn't be something that she believes that I would pursue, just like it wouldn't be something that I believe she would pursue. And so we have these givens in relationships. I trust that person, they trust me. You trust somebody else, they trust you. So I started off this episode by asking, what rights do you have? Or what do you think you deserve to do in a relationship when something is happening to you? It's a head scratcher for me. Because especially romantic relationships, they're complex and everyone has their limits and their standards. And some people have a line. And if you cross that line, that's it. That's why I think when you have open, honest, very transparent communication, it will never get that far. You'll never get to the point where you think, okay, if that person is doing this to me, then I'm going to go do it to them. Because you're going to have a conversation before that. At least that's the hope. That's what I hope. And even with infidelity, hey, I don't feel like we are connecting in this relationship. I don't feel loved. I don't feel cherished. So I am not happy with our current sexual relationship, and I want that to change. That might be a hard as hell conversation to have, but I would rather have that conversation with my wife before she just went out and did something about it with somebody else. I would want a chance to make things right. If they aren't right, I would want to know what's wrong. A lot of situations, some people know what's wrong and they still don't change. But I think we give them a chance. We want to give them a chance to change. I want to give you a chance to change so that I don't have to do what I'm thinking about doing. That could be the mindset that's happening in the other person. So if that person's being mistreated or that person is unhappy for any reason, should they just say, well, I'm unhappy, so I'm going to go do this thing, or I'm unhappy, they make me unhappy, so I'm going to make them unhappy. We already know what happens when one person is doing something harmful or something that causes some sort of suffering, that when the other person does that too, it compounds the suffering and the harm in the relationship. So that is why I'm bringing up this question. What is your right? What do you believe you deserve? And I'm not here to answer that question necessarily. I'm here to pose it so that you can reflect on it, to find out if you are essentially reciprocating behavior that you don't want in the relationship. But you may feel like you have no choice, or you may feel like that's the only way to be satisfied or get your message across, your communication. And if that is the case, then is that ever going to change? Meaning if you are in a relationship today and you are being mistreated in any way, or you're unhappy, unsatisfied, and you haven't conveyed that yet, will you convey that before you reciprocate that? Or maybe you did convey that yet and nothing has changed. Then what? What do you do now? Oh, I got married. So now what? I'm stuck. That's what a lot of people think. They're stuck because they signed a piece of paper or they made a promise, a promise to the world, a promise to God, a promise to the person. So they believe they've signed over their life for eternity. So now they can't change their mind and now they're stuck. So they feel like, because they're stuck, I guess I'm going to have to do this other thing to get my needs met or whatever. And that's why I like to look at a relationship contract as different than a marriage. A marriage contract, I guess you could say, because a marriage is written down, it's usually recorded in some way. Here are my vows. But a relationship contract are the givens. It should be a given that you expect certain treatment and they expect certain treatment and that it happens. But when it doesn't happen and the relationship contract is violated, then what? If the rules are broken, then what? I believe the first step is to communicate. Hey, you broke that rule. Whatever you want to say or however you want to say it. And that didn't make me feel very good. So we need to talk about that. And this is a direct communication. This isn't a walk away being sad with tears in your eyes and hope they get the message. That's not direct. And some people won't get it. Even when you show them your sadness and your suffering, they won't get it. Directness is very important. When you did this, this hurt me. This is why it hurt me. This is How I feel right now. Why did you do that to me? Why would you hurt me so badly? Depending on what it is, that might be the conversation you have. But I believe that's an important first step, and it has to be direct, because if it's not direct, then everything is assumed. They saw me crying. They saw me upset. They saw me angry. They know I'm angry. There's the assumption they know it. They know how I feel. Well, did you tell them? No, I don't need to tell them. They know how I feel. That might be true. They might know how you feel, but there's still an assumption there. And when that assumption exists, there's a possibility for miscommunication. And there's also a possibility for straying, straying outside the relationship contract. And when that happens, that's when it gets even worse. When somebody violates the relationship contract, things will start to fall apart because one person might be keeping a secret, or one person might be doing behaviors that causes the other person to suffer. And now there's two people suffering, and the cycle repeats itself because it goes back and forth and it compounds and it gets worse and worse. And so you have to get out of that cycle. And communication is the number one way to do that. It may not work, but at least you've gotten past that hard step of expressing yourself and expressing something that affects you and is affecting the relationship. So this all stems from an email I received. Somebody wrote to me and said, I've been reading your emotional abuse article and listening to your love and abuse podcast. I'm dealing with something unique. My husband cheated on me. I was so upset that I told him to go back to his house and tell his mom. His mom told him that this is a terrible relationship and that he should immediately get a divorce because I'm emotionally abusive and manipulative and I stunted his growth. His mother and I are not very close, and she doesn't know me well at all. I believe it was kind of harsh for her to say that. I also recognized that I was being emotionally abusive unknowingly. Now that I know that I've been working on myself and I feel like a completely different person, not only changed for him, but also for myself. His mother doesn't want him to come back here, and I've tried to explain to her how much I've changed. He refuses to seek other perspectives from people who know me. And he's going to go to therapy and decide if he wants to end things with me or not. And he's decided to currently not talk to me. He said he still loves me, but his parents are influential. I just want another chance to show him that I have changed and I will continue to change. And I've told him that. He said that he needs the entire week to figure out what to do. And I'm still holding on to hope. But do you think this relationship can be saved? I know I've put in the work and I will continue to do so. And I signed up for your healed being lessons. My concern is he will never see this because he doesn't want to talk to me and he needs time and space. I'm afraid his parents will convince him that it's best to get a divorce without even giving me a chance to prove myself. I'm scared because I feel like when he decided to marry me, he. He decided to give me a chance. He never brought this up before and only brought it up to his mom. So I didn't realize it until now. I think I should be given the benefit of the doubt and given a second chance to make things right. What do you think about this scenario? I usually don't read them in full, but that was well written, it was articulate. I wanted to read every detail because there are some head scratchers in here. This is what I was talking about earlier. Some head scratchers. First of all, thank you for sharing all of that. That sounds very difficult. I hope you are in a better space. It's been a few weeks since I received this, so things may have changed. But one of the head scratchers is, why are you trying to win him back when he's the one who violated the relationship contract and cheated on you? Now, your answer is in the message that you sent to me, which is, I was emotionally abusive. Okay. Does that mean he has a right to cheat on you? This is an important question, an important distinction, because sometimes we can mess up in a relationship and hurt people that we love. Does that give them the right to do something so drastic? To cheat? So what I hear in your message to me, the person who wrote this, I hear somebody who says, this is my fault that he cheated. And when somebody cheats, it's a very conscious decision. It is their choice to do so. And because of that, it is their responsibility. They should take responsibility for that choice. And everything you shared with me isn't him taking responsibility for that choice. It's him allowing you to take the blame for it. It's like he said, I wouldn't have cheated if you didn't hurt me. Now, I know this is a little bit controversial. I've heard from people that have written to me and said, I'm in an abusive relationship and I can't get out of it. And I decided to cheat because I wanted my emotional and physical needs met and that person wasn't meeting them and on and on. And, you know, I'm not here to judge anybody's choices. Sometimes we are in situations like that, and it's tough if you can't get your needs met with the person that you're with and they are abusive. I'm not in a position to tell you what you need to do. I'm not in a position to tell you you shouldn't cheat or you shouldn't go outside the marriage. I think that my personal opinion on this is that if you feel like you need to cheat or need your needs met by someone else to leave the relationship that you're in first, that's a personal thing. And sometimes that can't happen. Sometimes people are in a very difficult or even violent relationship. So I can't sit here and judge your situation and say, no, you shouldn't go outside the marriage because maybe doing that is what keeps you sane. Maybe doing that is what keeps you from a dangerous situation like you get out of the house. I don't know. I don't know. Every scenario I will talk about in general, however. So there are certain circumstances that certain people can be in where going outside the marriage might. They might feel like that's their only choice, so they do it. And who am I to judge? That's all I'm saying. What I'm talking about today, though, is in general, with most relationships, what do you have a right to do? What do you feel like you deserve in return when they treat you a certain way? And in general, in most relationships, and especially the one, the person who wrote to me, this person made a conscious choice to cheat on you. And it doesn't sound like you were a violent person or a dangerous person. I mean, emotionally maybe, but does that give your husband the right to cheat on you? And again, I didn't read anything in here that says he was apologetic, that he made a mistake. It almost sounds like you wrote it in a way that he is okay with it because of how you treated him. And there is a moral argument there. Maybe. Maybe he feels that because you broke the relationship contract by being emotionally abusive that he can now break the relationship contract because it's null and void. Because if you broke it, then it negates what's been written or what's been unwritten, so to speak. And so now he feels like he can do that. I think that that kind of betrayal crosses the line again, in general, most relationships. And because it crosses the line, it goes beyond the typical violation. Like there's a hierarchy of sorts of violations here where someone looking at a person and being attracted to that person is a lot different than someone acting on it. The acting on it part goes beyond a typical relationship contract. So coming back to your message, the person who wrote you sound like you're trying to win someone back that did something against you. And that is just the opposite of what I see or what's supposed to happen when someone does such a big violation and crosses that line. They're the ones who are supposed to come back to you and say, I'm so sorry, I did the worst thing possible. And I can understand if you'll never forgive me and what can I do? Because they're the ones who cross that line. Whereas you have been emotionally abusive and you admit that and you've discovered that about yourself. But should that lead to someone cheating? Should that lead to the person that not only is in it for a commitment with the relationship contract, but also in it with the marriage vows? And again, every situation is different. And if you believe you've been that bad enough for him to seek someone else and just blatantly violate that relationship contract or your marriage vows, then I can understand why you feel this way. But it's a two way street as well. And I don't mean both people are in it and caused the betrayal. Like some people say, like, oh, that person cheated. And then somebody will say, yeah, but it takes two. No, it takes one to cheat. They, they go cheat. No matter what you did, if they've cheated on you, that's a huge violation and that needs to be addressed on its own and that person needs to take responsibility for it. And if they say, well, I cheated because you treated me this way, then they're making, they're balancing their act with whatever you did and justifying it. And that kind of justification. It doesn't work if somebody can justify such a betrayal based on something else that you did. Even if it was really terrible, it could have been terrible. Like if you cheated, that might be like, might give the other person the feeling that they have a right to do that. But if that violation didn't take place, now you're in this other situation where one person has been hurtful. According to her message to me, she says she has been hurtful. And all I can say is, okay, that's. If that's how you feel and that's what you believe you've been, then I just have to believe you. I get a lot of letters that are written like this from people who really haven't been hurtful, but they think they have. I don't know if this is one of them, but I get a lot of them and a lot of them sound like this. I tried so hard and I worked on myself and am I the abusive one? And I thought I was doing the right thing and they just sound so sincere and they're trying to make the relationship work and they're trying to satisfy the person they're with and no matter what they do, they can't do it. And so I get these messages and they explain what the other person did and the other person sounds 10 times worse. I ask myself, wait a minute, why are you asking me if you're the abusive one? If that person points the finger at you, blames everything on you, says you're the problem, and they come from a position of superiority, looking down on you because they're perfect. At least that's how it comes across in the message they send me. So I get messages like that all the time. So when I read this, you know, my spidey senses tell me that might be going on here, But I can't say I don't know enough. But that's the feeling I get. So since I don't know, I just have to go by what you put in your words. Coming back to his infidelity, he needs to take responsibility for that. He can't just say, because you did this, I did that. Therefore it makes it right. My opinion, but I think that's the healthy thing to do because that also paints a picture of the future. Let's just say that he does come back to the relationship and then you do something that makes him angry and then he goes off and cheats again. Are you then going to look inward and say, oh, what did I do this time to make him cheat? Because that's not your fault, that's his. And this is why it goes back to the point of talking communication. Like if he really felt like he was being emotionally abused instead of first going off and cheating, hopefully he said, hey, look, I don't like the way you're treating me. Will you please stop? And if you don't, you have another conversation. Hey, look, I said you have to stop. And if you don't stop, I'm Going to have to seek my emotional and physical needs elsewhere. That might never happen in a relationship. Somebody might not ever say those words, But I would rather have that conversation had taken place than for somebody to just go off and do their thing. But if it did take place and the emotionally abusive person didn't stop behaving the way they did, and then that person went and said, I told you, they went and did their thing, they cheated, and they can come back and say, look, I told you and you never stopped. So now we're on thin ice there that we can look at that a little differently. So that would be my first question to this person. Did you have that conversation? Did he ever approach it? Did he ever say, you need to stop, you need to stop. You're making me feel terrible. You're hurting me. And you just said, I don't care. Or you said, oh, what am I doing? I want to stop hurting you. I don't want you to feel that way. This is why I get that gut feeling that you might be a victim of abusive behavior here. And again, I could be 100% wrong, but the reason I get that feeling is because someone who writes to me and says, I just want things to work out, I just want to do whatever I can to make things right, I just want to make them happy, I'll do anything to make them happy. That's usually not the abusive person. That's usually the other person, the one who's being victimized in some way because the abusive person doesn't see themselves that way. That's why I have that gut feeling, and that's why I keep mentioning it. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And take it as you will, but if I'm right, you need to give yourself a break. Because you may have been led to believe that it's your fault that he stepped out on the marriage. It's your fault that he cheated on you, when the reality is he made that conscious choice to do so, and he needs to take responsibility for that and he needs to apologize for it. So if my gut feeling is right, then yes, he needs to be the one to apologize. Because you sound like you're a person who already tries to make things work. But if I'm wrong and you have been hurtful and abusive, and maybe you've had many conversations and you've never stopped that behavior, then again, that's kind of a gray area. He tells you to stop, you don't stop. He tells you to stop, you don't stop. And he says, well, fine, you're not going to stop. Nothing I can do. So I want my emotional and physical needs met. I'm going to go meet them elsewhere. I'm not giving him a pass to do that. It's still his choice. And I still believe that it's best to break off, separate or even divorce before that happens. At least a separation. But that has to happen first. There has to be some sort of break in the relationship. I want to take some time off. And then at that point it makes more sense. There's more permission, I guess you could say, to do that. There's more justification, if you will. Again, not giving anyone a free pass to do that. But at least it makes more sense to me when it's in that sequence. You're having trouble, you communicate. You're having trouble still you communicate. You try to communicate, you try to communicate more and it never stops. Then what? It's never stopping. This has got to stop. And if it doesn't stop, I need to get my needs met elsewhere because you're not meeting them. And I've tried to tell you how to meet my needs, but you're not doing it. So gray area. I can't and won't judge anybody for that. If it were me, you know, my personal approach is, hey, if you don't stop, I gotta end this relationship. That's the first place I go in my mind. I don't think, hey, if you don't stop, I'm gonna go cheat. That doesn't make any sense to me. If you don't stop, I'm gonna end this relationship because I don't want this anymore. Yeah, we're married and we have kids and we own businesses together. I don't care. I'm going to get to that point because I don't want to be treated like this anymore. So I'm going to end the relationship, or at least we're going to go to therapy. I'm going to try everything I can before the relationship ends. But that's my approach. That's my sequence of events. I think it needs to go through that sequence of events to give everyone the best chance, everyone a good chance at change before it crosses the line. Now what do you have hanging over your heads? Cheating. So now that's in there, that's very difficult to get out of your head without a lot of healing. It's possible, it's probable. You can do it. I have an article on cheating. If you go to theoverwhelmedbrain.com I have a few articles, actually type in the word infidelity and you will find several there. And I think it's worthwhile if cheating has happened or is about to happen in your relationship, hopefully not, then that is a good article to read. So coming back to this person, that's how I feel about what you described and him cheating and things like that. And I'll get to your other questions or your comments here. Like one of the things that you asked, is this a relationship that can be saved? I think it will be very difficult if what I described is true. Meaning he believes he had a right to do it. And there was no clear communication beforehand. Lots of discussions before this happened. If that didn't happen, if you did not have a lot of clear communication of you needing to stop these behaviors, and he tried and tried and tried to make you stop whatever behaviors you think you have done, and he feels that he had no other choice, which is kind of silly. We all have a choice most of the time. But if he feels like he had no other choice but to go cheat and get his needs met from somebody else, then maybe, maybe the relationship can be saved if he tells himself, okay, I really enjoyed the relationship as it was. I wish I didn't have to do that and I hope that she has changed and I'll give her a chance and blah blah, blah. I mean, it can be meaning he can come to that place. But my feeling is that he's in a place of righteousness right now where he looks down on you and feels justified for what he did. And if he stays in that place, then even if you get back together, it will become an issue later. Just like I was saying earlier, it will become an issue because anything you do wrong, he can use it to justify his behaviors. These are just guesses. I'm making assumptions. I'm using a crystal ball. I don't know. But I've done this for a long time. I've been working with couples and people for a long time and this is usually how it plays out. If the other person is not apologetic and they feel justified in what they did, and there was no clear communication at first, then it. Getting back together with that person doesn't usually work out. So yes, it's possible he could, quote, take you back. It's also, I'm going to say, probable that you may feel like you're walking on eggshells, not wanting to do anything wrong to make sure that he doesn't go off and do his own thing again. So there's that I apologize if that's not easy to hear, but that's how I see it. Another part of this is his mother. You mentioned his family, his mom. His mom has influence over him. It sounds like. And doesn't like you. It sounds like. And I have a problem with this. Let's just take out the infidelity altogether. I have a problem with people who listen to their mom, their parents, when it comes to their own relationships. That tells me that there's not enough independent thought in his head to make his own choices in life or to make commitments because he's listening to his mommy like a child listens to their mommy. And when you have such an influence in someone's life, you're not dealing with them. You're dealing with the whole package. So if you choose to sign up with him again, you sign up with him and his mom. Because if he's not independent and autonomous enough to say, well, my mom doesn't like you, but I don't care because this is what I want. If he's not in that space, then you're dealing with too much. That's too much. I wouldn't want to bring that into my life. If Asha, my wife, if her mom didn't like me, and Asha said, well, I don't know if we can stay together because my mom doesn't like you, I'd say, what the. What are you talking about? That doesn't make a difference. You're an adult. You can make your own choices. Hopefully, I would never have to say that to her. I know I wouldn't. Because she's an adult. She can make her own choices. And so when I hear a full grown man listens to his mom and says, well, I don't know, because I listen to my mom and she doesn't like you, if that's happening, that was probably another reason this relationship can't work. If his mom is an influence in his life, then she is an influence in your life and in your happiness. Because if you commit to a relationship with a person who listens to his mom and his mom doesn't like you, guess where you stand now. It's two against one. You're not marrying a man or getting back together with a man. You're getting married or getting back together with a man and his mommy. And I say that on purpose, like a child listening to his mommy. And as we grow into adulthood and move away from our parents or emotionally speaking, then we make our own choices. And if he's not in a space to make his own choices, then there might be some immaturity there. And maybe that immaturity has something to do with the decisions he made to cheat. If that is what's running his life, then he may not be capable of making adult decisions right now. Our parents are great when we're growing up. Hopefully some aren't. But they are trying to raise us the best they can. Some of them don't do a good job, but some of them do try. And when we grow up and become adults, then they release us. And now we make our own decisions, we make our own mistakes and we can sure refer to them every now and then, ask them if they have a thought on something we're doing. But to dictate the decisions that we make in our life, that is when I draw the line. There's another line that gets drawn when that line is crossed. When my mom says, I don't like your wife, therefore you shouldn't get back with her then I'm not really a grown up, I'm not an adult. I have the maturity of a teenager or younger because I'm still listening to my mom and maybe she's right. Who knows, she might be right. But I need to figure that out on my own. I need to figure out if my decisions are going to work for me or not. My decisions don't have to work for my parents. My parents have had their lives and they've had their kids and they've done their best hopefully to raise us to the point where we can become our own decision making adults. So when we reach that age, they're not needed so much anymore. They can be asked questions and referred to and we can get some good advice. But ultimately the decision comes down to the person, the adult making it not the adult and apparent that they need to rely on to look into their lives and make decisions for them. So if you get back into the relationship with this man, be aware that you are committing to him and his mom. And very likely his mom runs the show. Or at least from what you're telling me here, she does. She runs the show. So there's that aspect of it too. Now I'm going to get off the bad news wagon and try to give you some hope, some optimism. Again, everything I said so far I believe is what it should be like. He should apologize and you shouldn't be trying to win him back because he's the one who should be trying to win you back because of everything he's done. But you know, listen to that again if you need to but here's the bit of hope. I want to set you off on a direction that if this is going to work, let's just try this. You might want to visit his mom, his parents, and have a conversation and say, hey, look, I did this to your son. I was mistreating him, and I learned this about myself, and I'm so sorry that I put him through that. I just want to tell you that I'm not looking for forgiveness. You probably will never forgive me. I just wanted to let you know that I apologize. I'm so sorry for doing that to him. And whether we get back together or not, I just wanted to let you know that that it. I am very sorry that all of this happened. And then leave it be. Because what that does is it lets his parents know that you're taking responsibility, first of all, for your behaviors that you believe you did. And if there's a chance that they will accept you one day, that is your best chance of it happening. Do I believe you should do this? I have a personal opinion that maybe it's not a good idea, but if you want to try, you can. The reason I think it's not a good idea is because I'm not sure if this person, this man that you've been married to, is necessarily going to be a good fit because of the influence that his parents have and because I don't hear any taking responsibility for his infidelity and because I don't want you walking around on eggshells all the time thinking that if you do anything wrong, that he has a right to go cheat. That's again, that this is something I'm assuming I could be 100% wrong. So there's that aspect of why I don't necessarily think it's going to be that great of an idea to get back together, but let's just say that you want to and you want to try, you want to give it a shot, I'll give you the options that I believe might work if this has a chance of working, is to talk to his parents and apologize for any behavior that you believe you've done. And don't ask for forgiveness, just apologize. Just leave it in their court. And that empowers them to make a choice about you or not, and that could influence them to influence their son. Do I like this? Not really. But if this has a chance and you want to give it a chance and you want to find out, that could be a way you could go. I don't like that you should have to get his parents involved ever at all. Because your husband should be man enough. I'm just going to use that term, an adult enough to stand up and say, this is my life, dad, mom, you can't tell me what to do or who to like or who to love. This is what I'm going to do with my life. But if he is not able to do that or capable of doing that, then perhaps you can go to his parents and apologize for something that I still feel like you may not have done. But if that's what lead you to get back in a relationship with somebody, just to find out if it's going to work or not, then maybe that's the way to go. But I do believe when you apologize, you just put it out there, tell them you're sorry, tell them how you behaved and that you regret it, and then you just leave it be. You walk away, don't ask for forgiveness because that's a strings attached. You don't want strings attached. Just apologize and walk away and then see what happens. And if they tell their son, oh, she was so sweet. She came over and she apologized and now we feel differently about her. And then he comes over and says, I'm so sorry for what I did, because I think this is probably required as well. I'm so sorry for what I did. And I've thought a lot about it and my mom said you apologized and yes, I'm willing to give it another chance. And that's all genuine. Like, if that's all genuine, if that all unfolds the way you want it to, like that, then there's a chance. There's a possibility that it could work out. But I really believe it rides on his perspective of his own behavior and his willingness to make adult decisions about commitments and his willingness to see past any of his own righteousness if it's there and come to a different place inside of him, and if he wants to give this a chance and you are not feeling like you're walking on egg cells all the time after you get back together, then there's a possibility it could work. That's the only hope I can give you. So if you really want to try, that's my suggestion. It may fail miserably. They may look at you and call you some bad names and you may walk away feeling worse than ever. So know that that's a possibility. But I like to give people, I give you the option to exhaust all your options. That's what I like to do. I like to exhaust all my options. So If I were in your shoes and I really wanted this relationship to work out, and I was blaming myself for all of my partner's infidelity and the way they mistreated me, if that's where I was and I wanted to exhaust all my options, and I knew that his parents or my partner's parents were a huge influence on my partner's decision making, then I might go ahead and do that just to see what happens, but also be prepared that nothing may happen, or it could get worse. Because his parents may really not like you at all, but he may have them bamboozled. Just remember that he may have fooled them into thinking you're terrible because of all the stories that he gave them. And if that's where they are, they may not be able to get off that mindset. So you just have to be prepared mentally when that happens. But if you want to exhaust all your options, that's my only suggestion. You said in your message that you feel like a completely different human being. That means that you have grown, that you have healed something inside of you. And if you are this new person, remember that you also deserve someone who treats you with kindness, with respect, who supports you, who supports your happiness, who supports the decisions that make you happy. And also remember when you heal something in yourself, you also see people differently. You see what you deserve. So when they act in a certain way, you can tell yourself, I don't deserve that, or I do deserve that, because you have healed, you have grown. And you take that with you into every relationship that you create, meaning you know deep down how you deserve to be treated. Like the line in your letter, it says, I'm scared because I feel like when he decided to marry me, he decided to give me a chance. And that right there put a little bit of fear in me to make me think that you believe you're not worthy, like you weren't worthy in the first place. And we should never look at ourselves like that. We should never think, I hope that person gives me a chance. I hope that you never, ever look down on yourself to think that you deserve a chance. Because the right person doesn't give us a chance. The right person loves us exactly as we are. And so if that's how you feel, I want you to change that perspective, that self narrative, to tell yourself, I deserve to be loved for exactly the person I am today. And sure, if you have to heal and you have to work on yourself, great. That means that there's a new and improved you, and that person should be loved exactly as they are today and not looking at others thinking they have to give you a chance. I think we need to look at others believing that the right person accepts us exactly as we are. And when you have that kind of relationship, you won't have to worry about having a hard conversation or telling somebody that they're hurting you or mistreating you, because that's going to be obvious. It'll be clear because the line of communication will be open and, and you will want the other person to know how to treat you because they will want to treat you the way you want to be treated. That's the bottom line. When you have a healthy relationship, people treat you the way you want to be treated. And that's a loving thing to do. I want to thank the person who wrote to me and I do hope that you get through this and remember who you are and what you're worth and you deserve to be treated with respect and kindness. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Overwhelmed Brain. I want to thank the patrons that give back to this show. I am so grateful to you. Thank you. I see your names every week and it warms my heart. If you value this show like these patrons do and you want to give back, head over to MoreToB.com and there are options to do that over there. And I talked about some things that I normally talk about over at my other podcast, Love and Abuse. If you are in a difficult relationship, you can listen to that podcast and get some deeper insights over there@loveandabuse.com and if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, join the program that is helping a lot of people heal over@HealedBeing.com and with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions. Be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want. Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure. And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amaz.