Mark: Hey, this is Mark from Make Him Yours and
I'm here with a very special guest today, Anita Chlipala, Chicago's relationship, dating
relationship therapist has joined me. We're going to be talking about five steps to prevent
infidelity in your relationship. Now, if you don't know Anita, Anita is the awesome author,
should I say, First Comes Us: The Busy Couples Guide To Lasting Love. She's an amazing therapist.
14 years you've been working with people one on one. Literally this morning you were doing
it. Anita, why is it so important initially, before we get into the steps, how common is
this now. This shocked me when you said this.
Anita: Yeah. Uh, so statistics vary, but commonly
I've been reading that about 80% of relationships are affected by infidelity.
Mark: 80% of relationships are affected by some
kind of infidelity. So we don't want to give you anxiety or anything, but this is, we need
to talk about this topic and how to prevent it in your relationship so you can be one
of the 20%. First up Anita is to define what cheating is and very few couples do this.
What do you mean by this? Most people go, well, sleeping with someone that's cheating,
but there's way more to it than that.
Anita: Right. So when I ask my couples when they
come in, have you defined cheating prior to the incident or incidences? They've all said
no. And so to me a 0% statistic over 14 years is incredible.
Mark: All said no?
Anita: All of them. Yeah. Or they might say,
Mark: Like what constitutes cheating in both their
definitions? No one's had that conversation.
Anita: Right. Or they will say, well, kind of. I
said, "if you cheat then I'll leave you." I'm like, that doesn't count. That's not a
definition. And the thing now is that over the last several years, emotional cheating
has gone on the rise. And so people usually define physical cheating as sex or, uh, you
know, there could be that physical part, but now it's also emotional. And so couples really
need to define what both of those look like.
Mark: It's so much more blurry now. And you've really
got to sit down with your partner these days. And if you want to be part of the 20%, really
define, well, what is cheating to us? How do we define it? And it's going to be different
for every couple and every person. And that's why it's so important to have this conversation.
Mark: Number two is assume that you too can cheat.
You know, women clients who come to me, or I'm sure clients who come to you, they always
go, I would never in a million years do that. It's so out of my reality that, that how could
this other person go and do it? And the reality is we are all capable of it
Anita: and it can help prevent it because you know
you're not immune. Yeah. And I think sometimes people think there's a type of person that
cheats or only bad and moral people can cheat, you know? And I mean, I frequently tell, you
know, like audience members, like in a podcast or a video like this is some of my favorite
clients have actually cheated and no they're not bad people. And so, but by thinking that,
you know, I'm not immune, I'm not, you know, I'm vulnerable to possibly cheating can help
you prevent it.
Mark: Yeah. No one wakes up in the morning thinking,
you know, I'm going to cheat today. What a great idea, right? No one does that. We're
all vulnerable to this and we're going to do another video with Anita on risk factors.
So you can start to see, well these are the risk factors that grow along. Once that video
is out, I'll put the link up here and in the description. Number three, Anita is this concept
of walls and windows. So once you've defined cheating, how do you not to interrupt, how
do you then knowing you can do it too, how do you use this concept to prevent it?
Anita: One aspect, uh, the windows part is being
able to have transparency with your partner. And so that means having open communication
and being able to talk about your day to day. Like frequently, uh, with my couples, the
affair partner knew more about what was going on in the person's life than the partner or
the spouse. That's a problem. And so having that transparency, being able to share information
back and forth is the window between the couple and that should,
Mark: okay, so this goes beyond defining cheating.
You've actually got to have that open communication. What do you mean by walls?
Anita: So walls, I like to use the metaphor of a
brick wall where everything you do or don't do can either put brick walls around your
relationship put like bricks.
Mark: Like solidify. Not talking about between
you. You're talking around you.
Anita: Yeah. So like your, your relationship to avoid
uh, threats or to be a little bit more impenetrable to threats. Like to consider yourself like
having a wall around your relationship. And so like with the bricks, it's like what you
do or don't do can either add bricks to the wall or take some away. And so like, let's
say you're in a relationship but you avoid to mention your partner's name or you're married
and you take off your wedding ring when you're at a networking event, things like that you
have...
Mark: Things that take basically stuff from the
foundation.
Anita: Yeah. And you know, you can like what if you
go to like a lunch date with a coworker and you think it's just lunch, right? So all those
kinds of, and again, it's just about developing that mentality of the actions that you're
taking or not taking.
Mark: Basically, are the actions we're taking building
this or are they eroding it?
Anita: Correct.
Mark: Number four is about having hard conversations.
And the reality is when we enter monogamy, we're not changing our biological makeup.
You know, we're not changing the fact when we commit to someone that of course we're
going to be attracted to others along the way. But it's very difficult to have these
conversations. And because these conversations get pushed under the rug, we tend to avoid
them. We push it down, we disempower it. And of course anything we push down and try to
repress, finds a way to come up and explode. So how do couples go about having these? What
can be very difficult conversations like, "Oh, we are attracted to others." You've got
a cool story where client actually owned it.
Anita: You know, one of my clients did talk to me
and said that he was crushing on his wife's best friend. And so I talked through it with
him and a few months later I asked him about it and he's like, "Oh yeah, I'm not even thinking
about it anymore." Cause it was a little bit like popping the bubble. Right.
Mark: Once you own it, it actually takes its power
away.
Anita: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean part of the interest
or the of infidelity is the secrecy. Right. And so if you suppress attractions, if you
kind of keep them a secret, they have it. Like you said, they have a tendency of growing
in power. And so being able to talk to someone, especially your partner is critical. And again,
it's not like to say it in a hurtful way. Like, "Oh, I thought that person was so hot."
Like the intention is not to be hurtful, but to have that openness and honesty so that
you can talk about any potential threats.
Mark: Any topic.
Anita: Right.
Mark: And reward the honesty. You have to reward
someone's honesty. Cause if someone's honest, you have this hard conversation, which is
awesome, but then you punish each other for it. It's like a dog. It brings you the newspaper
and you get the dog and we bring you the newspaper.
Anita: It is so important for each partner, and I
say this over and over again to my clients is you are both responsible for creating the
conditions in your relationship for honesty to be there. Because if you do punish your
partner, they're going to learn, I can't be honest with you. And that's a problem.
Mark: I love this content because it's so different
and it doesn't get talked about a lot. Like this 80% rate, who talks about that and who
has these conversations? Number five is relationship check-ins. What are they? Why are they important?
Anita: So anything that you can do to have a pulse
on your relationship. So that's, are we meeting each other's needs? Are you happy? Could I
be a better partner? And in what ways? Because again, people love differently. You're not
your partner. So, and we change, right? So you want to keep doing those relationship
check-ins to make sure that your relationship is strong, you know, and it not vulnerable
to some of these reasons why people cheat.
Mark: Right, and so does this have to be both, do
both people have to be. I'm sure if you're sitting at home, you're going, I'd love to
do all that, but he might not want to do it with me or I'll feel needy if I do that. Does
it require both partners to be active, enthusiastic participants or how can you start this on your own?
Anita: I mean, you could, I mean, you could just
change your behaviors or if like your partner has asked for things in the past, then yes,
you could start. I want you to start the positive cycle. Don't just wait for your partner. Yeah.
Ideally it would be amazing to have both people because then you could hold each other, you
could hold each other accountable and, and again, I think sometimes, you know, guys are
scared of the relationship talk because they're expecting everything to be so negative. And
so that's why framing it as something positive, like, you know, is there any way, yeah. Is
there anything that you've been missing in our relationship that I could improve or is
there a behavior that I do that annoys you that I could work on? You know, so it doesn't
even have to be like a start. Don't start with like a sit down serious conversation.
It could be, yeah, it could like, you know, mute the TV during a commercial and be like,
you know, Hey, I was thinking or if there is some kind of like a relationship topic
on the TV, just hook it to that and be like, what would you like? You know that person's
asking for more sex. Like what do you think about our sex life? Just to start the dialogue.
Mark: And gets it going and you can start taking
any of these five steps, start to do them in little ways and make them a rewarding experience
for the guy and you break the stereotype of, "Oh, every relationship conversation sucks,
it's just going to get worse." You break all of that away and actually really build the
foundation for something that's part of that 20% of empowered relationships.
Anita: Absolutely.
Mark: Anita, thank you for coming in.
Anita: Thank you so much for having me.
Mark: We're going to do a video on the warning signs
as well, so make sure you check that one out. How to prevent infidelity. That's the theme,
Anita loves to talk about that. And she does, you do amazing content on this. I really do
enjoy them. Leave your thoughts, comments, questions, everything. I'd love to hear from
you. What do you think of the content? Put it all in the space below. Do it right now.
Give the video a thumbs up and hit the big red subscribe button with the little bell
as well so you get all the notifications for future videos. Anita, thanks for coming in.
Anita: Thank you so much.
Mark: Thanks guys. We'll see you in the next video
very soon.
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