Episode Description - Why Good People Cheat: The Truth About Infidelity
Can a marriage survive infidelity, or does trust, once broken, stay broken for good?
In this podcast episode, Brannon and Tyler Patrick, brothers and licensed therapists with decades of combined experience helping couples heal from betrayal and addiction, dive deeply into the world of affairs, betrayal, and broken trust.
Known as “The Therapy Brothers,” Brannon and Tyler challenge the way most people think about betrayal, explaining that secrecy, deception, and unspoken expectations are generally at play in a relationship long before any physical line is crossed. The brothers trace how old coping patterns, unaddressed loneliness, and simple neglect can all lead a relationship toward dangerous territory, sometimes without either partner realizing it's happening. They also point out a specific shift in how couples communicate that can either pull them closer together or push them further apart.
Most importantly, Brannon and Tyler explain what it really takes to rebuild trust after an affair, and why healing isn't defined only by whether a couple succeeds in saving their marriage or not.
Whether a relationship survives infidelity or ends after it, the brothers offer practical insights into recovering from betrayal, recognizing genuine change, and creating healthier relationships built on honesty, courage, and integrity.
If you've ever wondered what separates the couples who make it through from those who don't, this conversation gets right to the heart of it.
Show Notes
About Brannon & Tyler
Brannon Patrick, LCSW, and Tyler Patrick, LMFT, are brothers and licensed therapists who specialize in helping individuals and couples recover from infidelity, addiction, and broken trust. With more than 20 years of experience each in addiction and trauma treatment, they combine clinical expertise with practical, straightforward guidance. Together, they host The Therapy Brothers, a weekly call-in show with over 500 episodes, where they help people work through betrayal, shame, trauma, and addiction in real time. Their approach focuses on healing the underlying trauma and shame that fuel relationship struggles, helping couples rebuild trust through honesty, accountability, empathy, and resilience.
Connect with Brannon & Tyler
You can connect with Brannon & Tyler on Facebook at The Therapy Brothers. You can follow Brannon & Tyler on YouTube at @therapy.brothers, on Instagram at therapy.brothers, and on their podcast at The Therapy Brothers. To learn more about their upcoming events, visit their website for men's retreats at Rising Son and women's retreats at Radiant Dawn.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Brannon and Tyler Patrick
- Hosts of The Therapy Brothers podcast, Brannon and Tyler Patrick, highlight that while society categorizes cheating into physical, emotional, financial, or even AI-bot affairs, true betrayal boils down to a fundamental breach of integrity, deception, and doing things behind a partner's back.
- Most couples enter relationships on "autopilot," carrying unstated individual assumptions about what constitutes fidelity without explicitly defining it. Cheating happens when a partner breaks that unspoken marital contract—whether it involves keeping financial secrets or hiding a long-term pornography habit.
- Shame serves as a massive barrier to relationship health. Partners often choose to assume their spouse shares identical values because they are intensely afraid of vulnerability, judgment, conflict, or rejection if they surface hard topics.
- One common driver of chronic cheating is an underlying, long-standing addiction. Escapist patterns like utilizing pornography often start early in life as a way to numb out and cope with stress, fostering early traits of secrecy, hiding, and shame that persist long after marriage.
- Not all betrayal stems from full-blown addiction; it frequently arises from a "slow fade" of loose personal boundaries. Partners who are unhappy or lonely may slowly start hedging their bets—seeking validation through flirting at work or connecting online—until an innocent dynamic rapidly accelerates into an emotional or physical affair.
- Couples easily fall into danger zones when they allow the heavy daily tasks of life, careers, and children to crowd out active investment in one another. Neglecting shared experiences or failing to consistently maintain what relationship expert John Gottman calls a "love map" fractures the relationship.
- De-escalating distance in a marriage requires the courage to address disconnection proactively. When confronting an issue, partners should phrase things collectively (e.g., "Something feels off between us" or "I'm feeling disconnected") rather than launching an accusatory, "you-centered" attack that triggers defensiveness or gaslighting.
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Transcript
Why Good People Cheat: The Truth About Infidelity
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Tyler Patrick, Brannon Patrick
TRANSCRIPT
Karen Covy: Hello, and welcome to *Off the Fence*, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making to try to figure out what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how do we get unstuck? I'm your host, Karen Covey, a former divorce lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur.
With me today, I have the extreme pleasure of talking with two guests. They are Brannon and Tyler Patrick. Brannon and Tyler are brothers and licensed therapists who specialize in helping individuals and couples recover from infidelity, addiction, and broken trust. With more than 20 years of experience each in addiction and trauma treatment, they combine clinical expertise with practical, straightforward guidance. Together, they also host *The Therapy Brothers*, a weekly call-in show with over 500 episodes where they help people work through betrayal, shame, trauma, and addiction in real time. Their approach focuses on healing the underlying trauma and shame that fuel relationship struggles, helping couples rebuild trust through honesty, accountability, empathy, and resilience. Brannon and Tyler, welcome to the show.
Brannon Patrick: Thanks for having us.
Tyler Patrick: Glad to be here.
Karen Covy: I am excited—I've been so excited for this conversation because I love what you guys do. I've listened to some of the episodes on your podcast, and they're really amazing. So, thank you for being here, and I just want to dive right in with betrayal.
Let's start with this: a lot of things are called betrayal or cheating these days. There are physical affairs, there are emotional affairs, there are affairs with AI bots, there's financial cheating—there's all kinds of cheating. So, what do you define as cheating or betrayal?
Brannon Patrick: Well, I think if you just take a step back and think about what it feels like to be betrayed, I think we all can answer that. It feels like you got deceived. It feels like somebody did something behind your back. So, I think betrayal is pretty clear: you're being lied to, deceived, and manipulated.
But the cheating thing is an interesting question, Karen, because a couple's understanding of fidelity, for the most part, falls within a certain box, but there are certain things that different couples do that they're okay with and things they are not. According to their understanding—kind of the contract that they have with each other, and by the way, most couples don't actually make that very clear—if you break that contract, then you're cheating. One partner might say, "Well, I didn't think that was cheating," and another partner would say, "That's absolutely cheating." That just shows either denial on the partner who cheated, or a lack of communication between the two of them about what fidelity is in their marriage.
Karen Covy: Yeah, I love that, and I love the idea of a contract, because what I see often in my work is that people 100% have a contract. But they don't usually talk about it, so my idea of what our contract is might be very different from my spouse's idea. Are there any things that you would recommend couples do to surface this unspoken contract?
Tyler Patrick: I think a huge part of what goes on behind the cheating is important to talk about in order to get to the contract. When we get into a relationship with somebody, Karen, we do it because we want to have a safe place. We're looking at it from an attachment perspective. We want someone to be our safe place, where we get security, empathy, and understanding. That's why we get into a relationship in the first place, and anytime that foundation gets rocked, it puts us into a really unstable and shaky place emotionally. That's where people would say that it's cheating, right? You were supposed to be my safe place.
Now, the problem is that most people get into a relationship and they both have an assumption in their head of what it means to have fidelity. I've heard guys say this to me before: "Yeah, I don't tell my wife about all of my financial decisions because it's my job to make sure that I always have a little bit of an extra nest egg that I know she's not going to go spend." Or, the classic one we get in our office: a couple will come in, and a guy might say, "Hey, I've secretly been using pornography for years, keeping it hidden from my wife. I don't think that's cheating, even though I've had to hide it." And she's over here going, "It sure feels like cheating to me. It feels like you're stepping outside of our relationship, and you're putting your energy and effort sexually toward other places other than here."
I think the thing that gets in people's way is, number one, they're on autopilot themselves as to what is already assumed fidelity is. But another big thing that gets in the way is shame. People have a hard time talking about these topics because they're so tender and vulnerable, and we're so worried about the judgment of the other person. Sometimes we prefer to just assume they think the same things as us because we're afraid that the conversation is going to get rocky, or we're going to get judged or rejected.
Karen Covy: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, but it leads me to the question of why do people cheat in the first place?
Brannon Patrick: Well, that's a big question because there are a lot of different answers to that, and a lot of times, it's somewhat of a mix of answers. We see everything from somebody who's struggling with a raging addiction that they had long before they got married. They've been acting out behind the scenes, lying about it, and pushing the limit. Their tolerance is really built up, so they're really looking for that next dopamine hit, doing crazy things. And so, yeah, the addiction is there, and the addiction is driving cheating behavior.
Karen Covy: Would that be the case with pornography, for example?
Brannon Patrick: Yeah, well, porn is like the gateway drug. It's like when you're 12, and you're down in your basement by yourself, you are already starting a pattern. First, sexuality and sex are exciting, and it works to numb out and escape the stressors of life. When I'm a teenager, I'm starting to realize, "Wow, I can use that to feel good." But all I have to do is hide. All I have to do is keep it to myself. I'm ashamed. I don't want anyone to know, because if they really knew, they would be mad at me or reject me.
So you can see how you're already developing an attachment problem. To create trust in a relationship, you're already learning how to lie, you're already feeling a ton of shame, and you're hiding a big part of who you are. Then, what do you know? You get married, and that doesn't just evaporate. It doesn't just go away. We see that side of it a lot—the addiction side. Tyler, do you want to speak to other reasons?
Tyler Patrick: Yeah, that's probably the more common one that we get, but it's interesting because a lot of people come into our office thinking it's a full-blown addiction when, in reality, it might be more of a compulsive behavior or an occasional thing that they don't really want to do but find themselves doing. I think people do it for emotional coping, and that's where addiction comes into it.
But most of the people we work with, if you were to ask them five years ago, "Hey, if I told you you were going to be a cheater, what would you say?" They would be like, "No way. There's no possible way that I would be there." Then there's this slow fade that happens. They start to just get their boundaries a little bit too loose with somebody at work, or they start finding new places online to get some validation from people that makes them feel good because they're not getting it in their marriage. Eventually, they start hedging their bets and putting more energy into those relationships, until all of a sudden that slope gets steeper, and pretty soon they're off the deep end into an emotional or a physical affair, or both. They're looking at themselves in the mirror, going, "How did I get here? I would never have anticipated I'd be the one hiding secrets like this and doing these kinds of behaviors." Most of the time, it's a slow fade into emotional coping.
Karen Covy: Well, that brings up an interesting question. Are there certain types of relationships or relationship patterns that if people could see them in their relationship, they would know they're starting on that slippery slope—that the relationship is in danger of having one of the partners step out?
Tyler Patrick: Yeah, I'm thinking of that old song where the couple both end up on a dating site to meet somebody because they're not happy in their relationship—"Escape (The Piña Colada Song)." You start to feel certain things, and I think for a lot of couples, this happens slowly. They don't address it with each other because of that shame piece we were talking about, but they start to feel disconnected from each other. They start to feel like they're not seeing each other. They don't do the work to actually cultivate an ongoing—what John Gottman would call—ongoing "love map" of getting to know one another.
We can get to know, love, and emotionally make love to our partner for the rest of our lives just by putting in the time, energy, and effort into getting to know them in an ongoing way. Most couples get busy with the duties of life—kids, work, everything else—and the place where they sacrifice is their investment in each other. So, if you're not spending time with each other, if you're not getting to know each other, and if you're not having shared experiences together, you start to cope by reaching out to get your validation from other people. That's a really risky spot to be in for both partners in the relationship.
Karen Covy: Yeah. Brannon, anything you'd like to add?
Brannon Patrick: Yeah, if you think about something that's required for cheating, it's dishonesty or a breakdown in integrity. When you start to see one partner or both who are willing to break their integrity and be dishonest in any area of their life, you're setting things up for possible cheating.
The other thing I'd say is—and I don't know a better term for this—but there's like this "loosey-goosey" energy. It's like, "Oh, I'll go to work and just flirt a little bit here." There's sexual energy being put out to the world like, "Hey, my feelers are out right now," if the neighbor, the coworker, or whoever was willing to connect to that. So, there's a willingness to break integrity, loose sexual energy, and then what Tyler's talking about—fractures in the relationship that aren't getting repaired. When there are deep-seated issues there, you're really in the danger zone.
Karen Covy: So, if someone feels like they are in this danger zone, or they feel like their spouse is in the danger zone—which is more likely, right? They feel something is off, they feel disconnected. What can they do about that so that there doesn't end up being an affair?
Tyler Patrick: I think courage is the first step, and what we mean by courage is the ability to step into the discomfort that you haven't up to this point in terms of identifying patterns and themes, and actually calling that out a little bit.
Now, do it in a way that is more of an "us" type of conversation rather than a "you" type of conversation. You don't want to go to your partner and be like, "Hey, you have all this sexual energy going other places, you are doing this..." I would probably approach it and say, "Hey, something feels off between us. I've noticed that there's this disconnection. I feel these places where we're not able to talk freely." Then I would look at the things that build relationships, like shared experiences, facing challenges together, getting to know one another, and constantly asking the right questions. We need to invest in our relationship, so I would go with some proactive suggestions: "Hey, I'm suggesting we do some of these things because I want to value our relationship, and I feel that maybe there's a distance or a disconnect there, and I'm afraid of where that might go."
Now, that's scary if you haven't been doing it because your partner might—especially if things are already happening—make you feel a little crazy. They'll say, "Oh, what do you mean? Nothing's wrong. I'm still here, I'm not doing anything." There's a little bit of gaslighting that goes on if there are already problems there, but having the courage to step into that is the key factor.
Karen Covy: So, let's say that somebody in the relationship feels that distance, they feel like things are getting off, and they don't know what to do about it. Can they have these conversations on their own, or is it better to go to a therapist or a marriage counselor and get guidance to go through it? Because I can see that conversation going south really fast, especially, Brannon, to your point, if someone is already starting to step out.
Brannon Patrick: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm a big fan of going to a good therapist who can walk you through it. But one thing I want to point out here is that there's a spectrum. If I'm just having problems with my wife and we're arguing or shut down, that's one thing. But I'll give you an example: I was talking to someone recently, and she was finding sex toys and condoms in her husband's truck and watching him on his phone go to massage parlors. That is a different conversation than, "Hey, we're having some relationship issues and we need to work on things."
Depending on where you are on that continuum, you're going to approach it a little bit differently. If you have hard evidence of cheating, what's interesting, Karen, is that sometimes I'll meet with people who have that hard evidence but still want to be in denial about their partner cheating. They need to get honest with themselves about what's actually happening in the relationship so they can go confront it in a healthy way.
Karen Covy: Why does that happen? If they have the hard evidence, how can they be in denial?
Brannon Patrick: The pain. The pain of the reality is that my family is going to get torn apart, the implications, the security of my life—what's going to happen and where. It is easier to go into denial than it is to face the hard reality. That's why a lot of times, people who get cheated on will isolate. They don't want family and friends to know the reality, because family and friends will say, "What are you doing? Get out!" So they just want to stay hunkered down in their isolation and denial, and it's a really lonely place to be.
Karen Covy: Yeah, it sounds like it is. Is there hope? Can a relationship be repaired after an affair, after some sort of betrayal or cheating?
Tyler Patrick: That's something that we love about our job, and I'm sure you get to see that in what you do. I would just say this before I answer your question: regarding what Brannon was saying, the denial of that partner is that they're afraid of what they might have to do if it's actually true. The thing they're most afraid of is going and meeting with somebody like you, Karen, and realizing, "I have to consider all options here; I might have to make some hard choices." The interesting thing is, if they actually follow through with meeting with somebody like you, they find more peace and clarity, and might even choose to stay more easily once they know what they're dealing with. But they're too afraid to do it, so they live in this personal little hell. In reality, if they just got through the denial and started to look at the landscape differently, they could find more peace.
Now, as far as rebuilding relationships, just speaking personally and self-disclosingly, I'm about 15 years into this process myself with my wife. I will say unequivocally that our relationship is way better than it ever was at the beginning. It comes at a price; it comes with the adoption of certain life principles to live by. When couples are willing to step into accountability, humility, empathy, and continued growth together, and they give it time —and then you have a partner like my wife who has to wrestle with the whole process of surrender, forgiveness, and trust again —when both partners do that hard, really excruciating work, it puts them on a foundation that allows them to build something new and way better than they ever started with. But it takes both doing that kind of hard work.
Karen Covy: Brannon, anything to add?
Brannon Patrick: Yeah, I'll give the other side of it. We see couples work out, it's wonderful, and it's true; I love that part of our work. I love when a family stays together. But I also love when one or the other individual gets healthy, and they're willing to move on, have boundaries, and face the hard realities. That's recovery, too. We don't always see relationships work out. We love when they do, but I also love when an individual finds that recovery. The beautiful thing about individual recovery is that it is 100% within their control. They can do that if they choose it, whereas the relationship isn't. That's an awesome guarantee and an awesome thing that people can do: they can go get recovery. Then, hopefully, the relationship thrives too, but if not, hopefully the divorce thrives and they move forward.
Karen Covy: Yeah, I love how you reframe it so that you're not defining success or recovery just in terms of whether they stay married. For so many people, marriage seems to be the goal at whatever cost. You can be really unhealthy and the relationship can suck, but you're still married so you're doing a great job—and I don't know that I agree with that.
Tyler Patrick: I agree with you, too. I was just thinking of a story. I got an email earlier this week from a woman I worked with about five years ago. She worked with me for almost two years, and in that process, she was really stuck wanting to believe in her husband and wanting to believe he was going to do the work. She gave him every benefit of the doubt, but his behaviors kept showing up as continued dishonesty, continued pride, and continued coercion. She was sitting in group one day, and finally, something clicked. One of the ladies in the group said to her, "You know, I think you're such an amazing person, and I think you're settling for table scraps. You deserve so much more than you're currently getting in your relationship."
Something about that particular moment on that day shifted in her, and about six months later, she was divorced from this man who wasn't changing. It was devastating and it was hard, but she made the right choice for herself because she realized she deserved something better than what she was getting.
Five years later, she's sending me an email saying, "Hey Tyler, that was a really hard time in my life, and I just want to say thank you, because without that, I would still be stuck in a holding pattern. I want to let you know that since meeting with you, I've continued to grow, I've met somebody new, we have a new family, I've got two little children, and I'm completely happy. My life has gone on and it's really beautiful, and I just want to say thank you." Those moments are just as good for us as seeing a marriage stay together, because she decided to grow. She decided to actually treat herself the way that she needed to be treated.
Karen Covy: Right. That is so beautiful. But I have this question: let's say there's been an affair in a marriage, and the person who had the affair has cut it off, stopped, and they really want to try to work on their marriage. If the spouse doesn't know, do they tell their spouse about the affair or not? Do you have to come clean in order to heal?
Brannon Patrick: Yes, and here is the reason why: you will never resonate in your power and your honesty when you have a big secret underneath. As much as you want to bury it and pretend like it didn't happen, honestly, Karen, I'm going to speak for Tyler and myself. We get sick and tired of hearing, "Well, it will hurt them so bad, so I don't want to tell them."
Karen Covy: Yeah, exactly.
Brannon Patrick: You know what hurts them worse than that? Not telling them. It's holding that secret and then living in your shame in the relationship for the rest of your life. Keeping just a piece of you guarded and hidden from your partner—especially a big piece of something that has happened to you—undermines things that you can't even see as you go forward in the relationship.
You have to drink the bitter cup. You need to go through the recovery if you actually want the relationship to heal. Now, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are like, "Well, we're doing fine now," and you probably can do just fine if that's what you want. But you won't thrive. You won't thrive if you have a massive secret that you haven't dealt with. The intimacy will only go so deep.
Karen Covy: Tyler, what's your perspective?
Tyler Patrick: Yeah, I agree with that. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a guy come in for his first appointment. He told me all of his deep, dark secrets, and he had some heavy stuff. I asked him, "Does your wife know any of this?" and he said, "No." When we finished our appointment, I asked how it went, and he said, "Oh, I really want to work with you; it feels like a good fit." I said, "Okay, well, do you plan on telling your wife about all your stuff?" and he said, "No, of course not. I'm done with it now, I'm never going to do it again. Why would I tell her? That will just blow everything open and hurt her worse."
I just sat there with him for a second and said, "Okay, that's fine, but I'm not going to be able to work with you because I don't believe you can step into the kind of man that you want and need to be in your relationship unless you can get honest with yourself and with your wife. So, let me know what you decide."
About two weeks later, he came back into the office and brought his wife with him. He said, "I told her last night, and we're swimming in it. I don't even know where this is going to go; we don't know up from down. But I followed your advice and I told her." She, of course, had a breakdown in my office for the complete hour. But I know where this goes now. This puts both of them on a level where they get a chance to see the landscape as it actually is.
In the long run, it helps him start to move toward a life where there is no greater feeling in the world than going to bed with a clear conscience. If he will stay above the surface and go to bed with a clear conscience every night, he'll start to like what he sees in the mirror. He will start to resonate in strength and offer that strength to his wife if she chooses to stay. There won't be a wall in their relationship that continually gets hit but never gets spoken. That is really frustrating for couples; they hit these walls because people won't share, and then they can't get to the depths of intimacy they want. There has to be full vulnerability to get to that level of intimacy.
Karen Covy: Yeah. From my non-therapist way of looking at it, it depends on what you want from a relationship and how you define marriage, right? If you're okay with that shallow level of marriage, maybe it doesn't matter so much. But if you want the deep connection that everybody says they want, you have to bring the walls down. That's what I think. Brannon?
Brannon Patrick: Yeah, I'm going to tell you something weird about my brother here. Tyler is the king of hangnails; I've seen him have more hangnails than any human.
Tyler Patrick: Where are you going with this, Brannon?
Karen Covy: Let's talk about it.
Brannon Patrick: Let's talk about it for a second. With a hangnail, if you just leave it, what happens? It's annoying, and you end up picking at it. It's painful, and clipping it off or cleaning it up can be really hard and painful, too. But if you actually do that, it gives your nail a chance to actually heal.
It is the exact same principle. You can have little hangnails in your marriage, keep them there, and just not deal with them forever. Or, you can pull out the clippers and say, "Hey, it's time to chop this thing off before it turns into an ingrown fingernail or something worse and bigger." Plenty of couples live with these little hangnails. A lot of times, with betrayal and betrayal trauma, what we see is that one person has it but is trying to hide it, and that is even more destructive. It's not so much about the affair; it's about the protection against reality that really causes the attachment wounds.
That is what a lot of people are unconscious of. They think, "Oh, I'm just protecting them from the pain of this affair," but they do that at the cost of lying to them all the time, being disconnected, turning the tables, and acting out of shame. You're bringing all of that to the relationship just because you think you're protecting them from the pain of the affair. It doesn't work. It doesn't work well.
Karen Covy: You just mentioned a term that I don't know if I've ever heard before: betrayal trauma. What is that?
Tyler Patrick: Betrayal trauma is the world we swim in all the time. Basically, it's the PTSD-like experience that a betrayed partner goes through when they finally find out about the cheating, the addiction, or the affair. Usually, a partner feels something is off, but they can't put their finger on it. A lot of times they end up in our office saying, "Oh, I need to be a better spouse," or, "We've got disconnection." But when it finally blows open, it rocks their world because we are wired for connection and attachment. Now, the place where I am supposed to be the safest doesn't feel safe at all anymore. I don't even know what else I don't know.
Partners who are betrayed often experience the exact same kinds of symptoms as PTSD: bad dreams, sleep problems, eating problems, hypervigilance, and panic attacks. Their brains won't shut off, and they always feel on edge because they are constantly wondering, "What else is there? Do I need to check this?" They become hypervigilant and use all their energy acting as a probation officer instead of a partner. Then they feel bad, they can't stop the behavior anyway, they feel shameful, and pretty soon they're cycling through their own trauma response. It's very similar to a soldier going away to war or somebody witnessing a car accident. It is the same kind of physical and emotional response.
Karen Covy: That's really interesting. Brannon, how can someone break through that? Because it seems to me—again, not being a therapist—that there are almost two levels to this. There's the couple's work they have to do with each other, but there's also individual work. I think people assume that the only partner who needs to do individual work is the one who had the affair, but it sounds like with betrayal trauma, both people need to do their own work as well.
Brannon Patrick: I love the way you asked that question because yes, that's absolutely true. It is a process; it's not just a quick fix. Betrayal trauma is so tricky because you are still living with the very bomb that got dropped on you. You're living with them, you're there with them, and you're going to couples therapy trying to work on the relationship, but you feel like, "Wait, I'm still being gaslit, manipulated, and lied to about other things."
The first thing you need is safety. You need to create a space where you can have safety, even if you are still in that relationship. You also need support from people who have been through it and mentors who have walked the path. Once you get that safety and support, you go through a process of deep healing from grief, because you're grieving the reality of your new life. The process goes on and on, taking one step at a time, which is why I highly recommend finding specialized help with professionals who truly understand betrayal and betrayal trauma. They can help you understand why a particular piece is so important right now and where to go next.
Karen Covy: I love that. Tyler, what's your perspective and experience as someone who has dealt with this intimately, too?
Tyler Patrick: Yeah, I would just say that this is incredibly hard to hear when you're the one who has been betrayed, because you didn't do anything wrong. When you hear a professional say that there are three recoveries taking place—his, hers, and ours—it almost feels mean to tell the person who didn't do anything wrong that they have their own healing and work to do. First, I just want to acknowledge that if anyone is listening and you're in that spot, Brannon and I understand that you didn't do anything wrong, that there is a lot of pain there, and that you need the space and time to get grounded and feel your feet planted again. Eventually, that pathway leads to personal freedom.
If it's okay, Karen, I'll tell a quick personal story. We were about six months or so into our own process after the bomb had been dropped. My wife was really struggling with all of the things you naturally struggle with: Can I ever trust him again? Do I ever want to be intimate with him again? Can I trust him around my kids? She was struggling, and she could see that I was putting in a lot of effort, but her heart was holding back because she didn't want to get hurt again and she was really angry.
One day, she was driving home from school and was just consumed with bitterness. She was listening to a talk or a podcast that referenced the story of the Good Samaritan from the Bible, and it hit her that she was acting like the people who passed by the beaten man on the side of the road. She thought, "It hurts me so bad to know that I'm being that person, and yet it still feels so unfair."
She walked in the door after listening to that, and I happened to be in a terrible emotional state myself that day—just sitting in the shower, crying. She walked into the bathroom, put her hands on my face, looked me directly in the eyes, and said, "Hey Tyler, what you've done is not okay. I am really, really struggling. I don't want to leave, but I will leave if your behaviors continue. But I want you to know that I know you're a good man."
That was a massive turning point in our relationship, and it was mostly because of the work she was doing, even though she shouldn't have had to do it. I was doing my work as well, and of course, there were a lot of bumps and bruises in the road along the way, but that was a turning point for us because my wife decided to take her power back by moving toward forgiveness for her own sake, not necessarily for mine.
Karen Covy: I love that. I've heard from a lot of clients where they'll say, "Okay, I had an affair, we're in therapy, we're working on our stuff." But the spouse who had the affair will complain because their partner is hypervigilant, wanting to know where they are, and having a hard time rebuilding trust. Meanwhile, the guy is like, "Man, it's been three months, how long is this going to take?" What do you say to that?
Brannon Patrick: Three months? Yeah, it takes a long time, and one of the essential ingredients of trust building is time. If he was the one who cheated, she needs to see over a consistent period of time that he is a person of integrity. Usually, around the one-year mark, you start to see a shift where it becomes the betrayed partner's job to step back in with some vulnerability to see if they can trust again. And the only way you can trust again is to actually take the risk to trust, which can feel incredibly daunting.
We tell people to really educate themselves on what real recovery feels like so they can understand what a truly changed person looks like—someone who has reclaimed their heart and understands themselves on a deeper level. When you start to see those consistent changes, then you step back in. But asking, "When are you going to trust me?" after just three months is so counterproductive because it completely destroys safety. I've never once seen a betrayed partner respond to that by saying, "Oh, you're right, it's been three months, I trust you now!" It never happens.
Karen Covy: Right! It takes a lot of patience and a lot of work to rebuild after an affair, but it can be done. If you are the person who has been betrayed, how do you know if the repair is actually working? How do you know if there is something in the relationship worth saving, or whether this is just going to happen again?
Tyler Patrick: That's a great question. In our work, we talk about something called the "Trust Equation" and how trust is restored. If you see these principles playing out in your day-to-day life, and you observe your partner engaging in them proactively—even when they don't think you're watching—you're going to start to feel a difference.
Look for them being proactive about changing their character flaws. If they've learned how to hide things their whole life—spilling into everything down to whether or not they tell you the truth about what they ate for lunch—watch to see if they are actively working on their integrity. Look for humility, which we define as accepting all of yourself, both your strengths and your weaknesses, and then actively working on those weaknesses while using your strengths to help others. Look for empathy—learning the skill of stepping into the space with someone else who is hurting, making it entirely about them, and just being fully present with them.
If you see a partner who is consistently working on empathy, humility, accountability, and integrity over time, you will feel it. It is a different energy, and you start to feel a strength coming toward you rather than a feeling that they are trying to take something from you. In the meantime, if you've been betrayed, I highly recommend you don't make any massive, permanent decisions until you get your feet emotionally planted again. You want your head and your heart connected so that you are coming from a place of clear reality rather than making decisions out of fear, anger, or intense dysregulation. Let's go to work on yourself first, get you grounded, get you trusting your own instincts again, and then look at the landscape to decide what is right for you.
Karen Covy: Brannon, what do you think? Tyler just mentioned something that I hear a lot from spouses who have been betrayed. They have a hard time trusting their spouse, but they also don't trust themselves because they wonder, "How did I miss this? How did I not see this happening right under my nose?" What about that?
Brannon Patrick: It's a really powerful dynamic, and I'm going to let the cat out of the bag here, even though this sometimes gets us into trouble. There is something that happens that a lot of people don't expect. If you get betrayed and you decide to do your own work—to focus on your own healing, trauma recovery, and processing shame and forgiveness—it gives a betrayed partner blessings they didn't anticipate. One of those blessings is that they start to trust themselves deeply again. They tap into a deeper intuition than they had beforehand. They know what it feels like to experience true peace, power, and an understanding of who they are.
We have had betrayed partners say things like, "I'm so grateful I got betrayed," because it pushed them to do that deep internal work. Some of them are now divorced and some are still married, but they are incredibly solid within themselves. So, how do you know when to leave, when to stay, or if they are truly in recovery? You know because you are able to discern the truth so much clearer, and you trust yourself so much more to make the right decisions for your life. It's a massive answer, but it's pretty incredible.
Karen Covy: Yeah, that sounds really amazing and empowering. Guys, I could talk to you for hours, but to respect your time, let's wrap this up full circle. Is there anything else that either one of you would like to add that you think the audience needs to know about cheating, trauma, and betrayal?
Tyler Patrick: I would just say that if you relate to the topic we're discussing today, I am so sorry you have to go through this because I know how incredibly difficult it is. But regardless of where your relationship goes, you have the power inside of you to make your life turn out great. There is peace, freedom, and power in reclaiming your own heart and doing your own work. If it saves your marriage, that's awesome. If it doesn't, it will lead you to new places where you will attract beautiful new things. Hang in there and do your work.
Karen Covy: That's beautiful. Brannon, how about you?
Brannon Patrick: I would just echo that. If you are listening to a podcast featuring a divorce coach, lawyer, and mediator alongside two therapists who specialize in betrayal, you're not in total denial because you are willing to listen, learn, and get educated. I applaud you for having that courage. Professionals like Karen are here to help you navigate the process, and Tyler and I are here to help you map it out, not to tell you exactly what you should do, but to guide you through it. If you've been listening to this and feeling completely alone, please take the steps to reach out, get that support, and move forward.
Karen Covy: That is wonderful advice. Thank you both so much for being here. If people are interested in learning more about you, your work, and the retreats you lead—like the men's and women's retreats—where can they find you and listen to The Therapy Brothers?
Tyler Patrick: Thanks, Karen. First, I just want to say thank you for what you are doing in this world. You are stepping into a place that is really sticky and hard for a lot of people, and it takes a special person to do the work that you do. For anyone who wants to learn more, we've created a dedicated page on our website just for listeners of this episode: therapybrothers.org/offthefence. It links straight over to a picture of Karen, says "as seen on her show," and highlights a couple of specific episodes that relate to what we talked about today.
If you want to check out our retreats, we have a men's retreat running September 17th through the 20th at risingsun.org, and our women's retreat happens every spring at RadiantDawn.org.
Karen Covy: I love that. If anyone out there is listening, you guys are the real deal. Everybody always talks about how they went to therapy, it didn't work, or the therapist was terrible, but you guys truly know your stuff and help so many people. Thank you so much for the work that you do. If you are listening and this is resonating with you, do yourself a favor and reach out.
Thank you both so very much.
Brannon Patrick: Thanks, Karen.
Tyler Patrick: Thank you.
Karen Covy: And for those of you watching and listening, if you enjoyed today's episode and want to hear more conversations just like it, do me a huge favor: give this episode a thumbs up, like and subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and I look forward to talking with you all again next time.
