Myesha Battle

I think specifically with high-profile couples, it's because we want to see them succeed, or we're excited by the prospect of the drama that unfolds from a cheating story like the Coldplay executive cheating scandal.

Oh, look at these two.

We quickly want to identify who the villain is, who's been hurt, and then rally around the person that we want to support in that situation.

Often, it's very cut and dried.

If you cheated, you're a bad person.

If you were cheated on, you're a good person.

And that's not

obviously always the case but because cheating happens so much I think that's a really quick assumption that we can make and then kind of jump to our own conclusions and want to jump to the aid of the person who's been cheated on and then of course jump on the person who has cheated.

From boredom to insecurity in the relationship to wanting to exert power or revenge in a relationship.

I really love the book The State of Affairs by Esther Perel.

She really talks about the importance of delving into what the cheating meant for the person who cheated.

and what the impact was on the person who was cheated on.

If you can't really understand both sides of that and give space and process both,

then it's not likely that you're going to get to a happy outcome on the other side of cheating, which is why it is one of the main reasons why people split up.

It's a huge fracture in trust, and to rebuild that means that you have to do the work to understand why did this happen in the first place.

Cheating is a choice.

Monogamy is a choice.

Non-monogamy is a choice.

So when people are making these choices in relationship, they have consequences and you have to be able to have conversations about why and how you repair from that.

Yes.