Chapter 1: What should I do if my fiancé cheated on me before our wedding?
Two or three months into our engagement, I had discovered he had been talking with multiple people from different dating apps. I think we should continue with the wedding because there's a lot of money invested.
If I'm honest with you, like the event is way down my list of worries right now. What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. If you're new, I'm so grateful that you're with us. If you've been with us since episode one, hey, God help you. But man, I'm grateful everybody's here.
We're talking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your kids, whatever you got going on. For more than 20 years, I've been sitting with hurting people, trying to figure out what's the next right move for them in their life.
Chapter 2: How can I navigate the emotional aftermath of infidelity?
And so if you want to be on the show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And please take two seconds and hit the subscribe button and the follow button, all that stuff. It just tells the internet overlords that you're a fan of the show and it kicks it up in the algorithm and that helps everybody. All right, let's go out to Little Rock, Arkansas and talk to Anne. Hey, Anne, what's up?
Hi, Dr. John. How are you?
I'm doing all right. How about you?
I'm doing great.
Chapter 3: What are the signs that I can trust my partner again?
Glad to talk to you.
I'm happy to talk to you.
What's up? So, my question for you is if my fiance and I should proceed with our planned wedding or not due to some infidelity discovered right before our engagement.
Wow. Tell me more. Tell me more.
Yeah. So, we got engaged last summer, and then about two or three months into our engagement, I had... discovered on a household iPad that before our engagement, he had been talking with multiple people from different dating apps. And I was able to see all the messages were still there. I think he had forgotten about them. Yeah.
So I confronted him with it, but this was months old to him at this point. So he had sort of kind of forgotten about it, moved on, and it was fresh to me. So It's caused some fights and tension in the home since then, and he wants to potentially postpone the wedding. He thinks it's a good idea to postpone it while I finish healing or while I heal.
So I think we should continue with the wedding because there's a lot of money invested. I mean, we have everything planned, you know.
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Chapter 4: How do I deal with family pressure while making personal decisions?
And, yeah, so I just wanted to ask you— Sort of for some wisdom and, you know, should we postpone? Should we keep chugging along?
If I'm honest with you, like the event is way down my list of worries right now.
Yeah.
I can't tell if... you're in a season of denial or if you're, if he's just a great gaslighter or if at the end of the day, like this, this sucks, but it's not that it's fine. It doesn't matter. We're going to move on with this thing. I'm forgiving him.
Chapter 5: What steps can I take to rebuild trust after being cheated on?
We're moving on. I can't tell where you are, but your response is, um, it's just neutral and I don't have a way to pin it down. So take away the money. I know you've got deposits. You've got all that stuff. You've got the invitations. You've got the embarrassment, all that stuff. Take that away for a second. Do you want to marry this guy?
I still do.
Okay. Let me get beneath that question. Is he a person that you can safely anchor into till death do you part?
I felt like he was before I discovered this.
Okay. But we're past that now.
Yeah. Um, I think, I think he still is. Um, I think the other qualities of him, I feel like they outweigh this terrible thing that happened.
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Chapter 6: How can I set healthy boundaries with my parents?
Are you confident that this is all there is?
I'm as confident as I can be. I mean, I only was able to, I saw everything that there was. I haven't seen anything since. And he assures me there's not been anything since. So I just have to, I either have to keep, you know, being fearful every day where I have to just trust him.
Okay. There's a third option there. Okay. It's not, well, I just got to be worried for the rest of my life, or I just got to jump back in the middle of this boiling pot and I hope I don't get burned. The third option is, and this is the hardest one, but this is the path to healing after infidelity. After somebody cheats on you and breaks your heart, it is you doing the hard work to think
What must be true for me to truly trust him again? And then you give him a very clear roadmap for him to follow. And he walks that path. And that path might be, I don't want you to have a phone for six months. Or I want us to share whatever. Or I want to check your messages. Or I want you to delete social media.
Chapter 7: What should I consider before reconciling with family members?
You can be as crazy and out there as you want because you're the one that got cheated on. And then he gets to be a grown-up and say, I'm out, dude. I'm not doing that. Or you're worth the rest of my life. I'll do whatever it takes. But you're kind of just, it's either this or it's either this. And what you're avoiding is the hard work of truly learning to trust each other again.
Mm-hmm.
So was he an idiot who was on dating sites with a long-term girlfriend, just nervous and getting cold feet and just trying to see what else is, like, peeking over the fence to see what the other grass looked like on the other field? Or is he a serial cheater? Is he somebody that I just can't trust? He didn't come clean. I had to find this stuff. He just forgot about it.
Like, you get what I'm saying?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. The way he says it and the way I take it is... He just needed some release. I think there was tension between us.
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Chapter 8: How do I ensure my emotional well-being while caring for my family?
We were long distance, and he just wanted a release. I don't think he was actually looking for anything or anyone else. He just wanted that attention. And I wasn't physically nearby to give that.
Yeah, that's not an excuse. It's a context. But I want to know what work he's going to do. He's been doing and what work he's going to do. Because y'all will be apart again in your marriage. Right? Y'all will be in separate towns. One of you or both of you will be on work trips.
And the day in and day out of just being married, you can share a bed with somebody and be a thousand miles away from them. There will be separation. There will be seasons of distance between the two of you emotionally and physically. I want to know what he needs to do for his quote-unquote release. Right.
And is it a thing that's going to honor our commitment to each other and to strengthen this concrete that we've anchored into? Or is he going to be like, no, dude, you were gone, so I just had to. And then go do something else.
Right.
Now, it's strange. Normally, it would be flipped. He wants to do the wedding, and you're like, I don't know. Why does he want to pause this wedding?
I believe he has, in his mind, he's done the work, and he's deleted everything, and he's given me... access to his phone and, um, he's, you know, open and honest about things. And, uh, he feels that he's like moved on from this. I think he's sort of repented and, and, uh, healed from it. And he knows that he doesn't want to do that again and go through this again, of course.
Yeah. But he's not the victim here.
Right. So he, um, He, yeah, yeah.
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