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Most people think that cheating is simply a lust problem. And actually that couldn't even be further from the truth. It's much deeper than that. And in fact, it is one of the most misunderstood dynamics in dating and in relationships. And as somebody who spent almost 10 years working in private practice with thousands of couples before transitioning into the online space, I can tell you that cheating follows a very distinct pattern the vast majority of the time. And in fact, there are very early warning signs when it comes to cheating and infidelity that if you do not catch and they go unnoticed in relationships, really fester beneath the surface and literally create that long term trajectory of cheating and infidelity instead. Now, more interestingly than that, different archetypes, in this case, different attachment styles in relationships, which I'll explain what that means, if you're not familiar, have different rates of cheating and tend to cheat for different reasons. And in today's video, I'm going to break down exactly what those reasons tend to be and how we can prevent those root causes from taking shape in relationships. Because nobody is immune to this, even if you think that you're a really good person and get into a long term relationship with very good intentions. Her name is Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. I hope I pronounce her name properly. Thai Ese Gibson. I am so excited for you to be here with me today. Thank you for joining us. So let's start by breaking this down. First things first. 10% of people tend to cheat for pathological reasons. In other words, they have issues with sex addiction, narcissistic personality disorder, things like that. Where cheating is literally going to probably happen because no matter how healthy and functional that person's relationship is, their internal relationship to themselves is fundamentally flawed. Even if we look at things like antisocial personality disorder, the clinical term for sociopaths or psychopaths, I mean, that's very extreme. But in those types of cases, there's not going to be the things that you can do preventatively in the relationship to solve for these things, because that individual is going to carry their pathology into every interaction that they have. Okay, so 10% of cases generally fall under those types of events. 90% of people who report cheating in relationships fall under the non pathological category, which means they cheat and go into relationships and marriages. First thing, I never thought I would be a cheater. I never thought that I was going to cheat on this person. So we're going to break that down because I Want you to understand this. And most importantly, we're going to talk about how this tends to happen by archetype of person, in this case by attachment style. So anxious attachment style cheating often starts as testing to see if I still matter to you. Let me break this down in a lot more of a deep way. Anxious attachment styles, for those of you who are not familiar, are individuals who tend to be more needy and clingy in relationships. And they always prioritize the people around them and they people please because of this huge fear of abandonment. And these individuals, they usually pour into relationships and don't ask for their needs back because they're afraid of being abandoned if they take up too much space or have too many requests, or they're scared of being a burden to people in their life. So they end up essentially getting into dynamics where they really give to the people around them they don't receive. And then eventually they feel like they are starving. And this is the first root cause for anxious attachment styles. They feel like they are starving for validation, for approval, for reassurance, for care and connection. And what we know is that anxious attachment styles, they are more likely to cheat because they are feeling this complete lack of getting their needs met in a relationship. And they're basically feeling this yearning for like, does anybody like me? Does anybody care about me? So when somebody comes along and gives them attention, they light up. Their brain lights up is really what's happening. And anxious attachment cells are more likely to have emotional affairs in relationships, while our other two avoidant attachment styles are more likely to have physical affairs. So emotional affairs would be things like flirting, maybe even exchanging phone numbers, and then telling somebody that you have feelings for them. Even spending time emotionally with somebody and feeling like there's this emotional bonds and connection and you have feelings and you're feeding into it on a regular basis by literally spending time with that person or talking to them regularly. And in these types of cases, this is usually because this anxious attachment style does not know how to self sustain, soothe very well, or meet their own needs. So when they do not get their needs met in their actual relationship, that they're in, their subconscious mind ends up just looking outside of their relationship. Because our subconscious mind for every human being is a needs meeting machine. It's going to keep looking for ways to get your needs met if they're not being met in your life. And that includes counterproductive ways. The needs meeting machine of your subconscious mind, it does not discriminate, it's trying to get its needs met. In the fastest way possible, not the most strategic or effective way possible. That monitors your values and morals. No, that's your conscious mind, your reasoning mind that does that. So this does not excuse it. But in each attachment cells case, and I'm going to get into the other attachment cells in just a moment. Each attachment style cheats at a root basis and this 90% of non pathological reasons for cheating. People cheat because they have deeply unmet needs. They have different ways of trying to get them met. And this is our anxious attachment style version. Now we have another attachment style called the dismissive avoidant attachment style. Dismissive avoidants usually grow up with more emotional neglect and they basically end up feeling trapped in an environment where they can't get their needs met. They feel like they have to kind of show up in the way other people expect from them, but their emotions don't feel validated and they end up basically rejecting this emotional part of themselves and going, well, I don't really get my needs met emotionally, so I'm just going to try to not really have emotional needs. And that's why I'm then going to function in relationships. And so then what we see is that dismissive avoidant attachment cells in their relationships as adults, they end up being individuals who try to minimize their emotional needs. And they do this as a way to keep themselves safe and feeling like they are in control in relationships. They don't like feeling open and vulnerable and then feeling rejected. They make that mean that, okay, something in me is broken, I'm shameful, I'm, I'm defective, I'm broken. From an integrated attachment theory point of view are these core wounds fear of being trapped or defective in relationships or weak if they're too vulnerable, These types of things. Now what's very interesting here is that dismissive avoidance in relationships, they report cheating the most when they feel the most criticized in relationships and they feel like somebody is putting constant pressure and they feel the least understood. And so what ends up happening for these individuals is because they don't know how to understand their own emotions and their own needs. They don't know how to really go to somebody and say, hey, I need to do my own thing sometimes. I need to, you know, go for a drive and a hike Sunday morning by myself. And I need carve out carved out space and time to do things sometimes maybe with my friends or go hunting or fishing or whatever it might be. These types of things that they like to do. It's not. Those are not the only things dismissive wardens like to do, by the way, I'm just giving some examples. They don't know how to have those conversations. And they also don't really know how to emotionally express themselves. And so they are very prone to feeling misunderstood and then shamed or criticized when somebody doesn't understand them and takes their actions personally and as a way to rebel against that and then go get their needs met. That is where they may practice infidelity. Now, beyond that, they often cheat as well. Because dismissive ones, when they feel very vulnerable, they want to convince themselves that they don't need other people. It makes them feel safe and in control. So they may cheat or try to find these kinds of connections with people outside of the relationship if the relationship has been going poorly for a long time. As a way to teach to basically tell themselves, see, I would be fine without this person. I would be okay without this person. Now, these are not healthy ways of coping. At the end of this video, I'm going to take you through much healthier ways, what securely attached people do and why there's a much healthier approach. But let's go into the last insecure attachment style first for a lot of fearful avoidance. And this is the hot and cold attachment style. This is somebody who usually grows up with a lot more chaos and trauma growing up. And this means that they want love, but they usually have been very hurt by parents. Let's say you have a parent who's an alcoholic or a parent who has their own pathological issues, or a parent who's in active addiction. Like these types of things that cause an individual to go, okay, I want love, but I don't trust it. I very much fear it. And so they become hot and cold and back and forth. This individual usually ends up being the volatile person in a relationship more frequently and. And sort of like on this emotional roller coaster, right? So fearful avoidance, they usually cheat from trauma reenactment. A lot of fearful avoidance are like, I have to leave before I'm left, or I have to hurt you before you hurt me more. And fearful avoidance report literally in relationships, feeling like the more they love other people. And this is from thousands of conversations I had with fearful avoidance. They say things like, the more I love this person, the more they're going to hurt me. So the more I love somebody and fall in love with somebody, the more I have this impending feeling of doom at the same time. And so now we have this individual who's terrified and who wants this connection, but is also very, very, very scared of it. And so what we end up seeing is that this individual is more likely to sabotage relationships from this place of fearing being hurt. And they also carry a similar pattern in some ways to the anxious attachment style where they give but they don't know how to express their needs. So when their needs feel unmet for a long period of time, they get resentful of their partner and resentment and a lack of communication often causes the person to then justify like, look, I, I'm trying so hard. This person doesn't care about me anyways. Who cares if I cheat? And these are the types of themes that you'd often see from a fearful avoidant prior to them really acting out on their partner. Okay, now what is secure attachment approach to this instead? Because securely attached individuals, they're not immune to temptation, they're not robots, but they have really healthy coping mechanisms that prevent any kind of attraction from ever really taking hold hold to the point where it's then going to cause them to pursue something outside of their relationship. And there's a very key theme here. Securely attached people tend to do one thing very well. They talk about their needs openly, honestly and consistently. And this is actually what creates a difference between just thinking somebody's attractive versus thinking that you're actually building attraction to somebody. And watch this, a securely attached person, they might be like, oh, wow, that, that attractive person that I just met, okay, they're, they're very good looking. They'll have that feeling. They're not blind if they see somebody attractive. But what ends up happening is they're not going to build attraction to that person because they're not going to start doing things to flirt or entertain the fantasy of a connection, because the fantasy of the connection, we try to connect people to people because they meet our needs. And what securely attached people do is they go and they bring their needs home to their partner and they talk about their needs in that relationship. So they feel like they need more approval or validation. They're not going to go try to flirt with the attractive person to then try to get that approval or validation. They're going to go say to their partner, partner at home, hey, I could use more encouragement in our relationship and you know, I want us to build each other up more. Let's practice doing that. They're going to talk to their partner. So they're going to see their partner as a very healthy, reliable source of getting their needs met because they have open conversations about these things rather than trying to get their needs met outside of the relationship. And that is precisely what differentiates between just finding somebody attractive versus trying to build attraction, which then causes somebody's head to turn outside of the relationship and then often even try to pursue somebody and in a romantic way outside of their relationship itself. And what this all means is that building healthy trust is not a personality trait. It's not on you to try to meet, mind read somebody and figure out if they're a trustworthy person or not. There's yes, 10% of people who are outliers, who, you know, have pathological issues that they're struggling with, but 90% of people? It's not about trying to guess whether or not somebody's completely trustworthy. It's about building the set of skills into your relationship where you communicate openly about your needs, meet each other's needs on a regular basis, become a healthy source of that and of working through through conflict in relationship so that your relationship can become this really healthy space that you bring your love into and you feel like you're receiving love from. And when we feel happy and fulfilled by something, we don't try to sabotage it. We don't get into our dream job and then start trying to sabotage it. That's not what happens. It's when we are not happy because we have unmet needs and a buildup of resentment that then causes people to justify looking outside of their relationship. In other words, the vast majority of cheating situations are very solvable problems and are preventable. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Share it with friends and family who are on their journey of personal development and growth and thank you for listening. Next week we'll be back with more insights to guide you on your journey. And until then, keep practicing our tools and strategies to change your subconscious mind and apply some of the powerful learnings from this podcast so that you experience real life transformation.