#99 Betrayal and Forgiveness: The Path to Healing

When someone you trust deeply hurts you in a way you never expected, how do you move forward? Dr. Bruce Chalmer, couples therapist and author, joins us to unravel the complex journey from betrayal to forgiveness.

Dr. Chalmer challenges common misconceptions about forgiveness, offering a perspective that might surprise you: "Forgiveness is an inside job." Rather than focusing on whether to restore your relationship with someone who hurt you, true forgiveness is about your internal healing process. 

The conversation distinguishes between forgiveness and trust, making it clear that you can forgive someone without ever trusting them again. For those considering rebuilding trust after betrayal, Dr. Chalmer emphasizes the crucial role of accountability. Without genuine accountability from the person who caused harm, trust becomes virtually impossible to restore.

We also explore how healthy relationships require balancing two fundamental needs: stability and intimacy. Stability provides security, while intimacy fuels growth and connection. As Dr. Chalmer explains, "Roots provide stability, but intimacy is the energy for growth." When couples sacrifice intimacy for too long in pursuit of stability, the relationship becomes vulnerable to betrayal as someone inevitably tries to "crack the sidewalk."

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Betrayal and Forgiveness
• 5:45 Understanding True Forgiveness
• 9:30 The Three Steps to Forgiveness
• 17:02 Trauma and Healing After Betrayal
• 21:52 Trust vs. Forgiveness in Relationships
• 25:02 Stability and Intimacy: Keys to Healthy Relationships
• 30:37 Final Thoughts: Be Kind, Don't Panic

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Hello, Tamara here. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Dr Bruce Chalmer, a couples therapist and author, and we'll be talking about betrayal and forgiveness. Thanks for joining me, Bruce.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Well, thanks for having me on. I'm delighted to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Yes, this is a new topic for the show, so it'll be good, and I know a lot of people have experienced this topic betrayal and then whether or not they should forgive so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Yeah, indeed, I wish I could say it wasn't common, but it's very common and that's why I end up writing a book about it.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Yeah, and did you? I know you're also a therapist, so is that, I'm assuming that's how you found out, that it was very common or everyone knows that kind of thing?

Speaker 1: 0:48

Yeah, and and you know I of course it depends on how you define the concept of betrayal. Anybody who's over I don't know, fill in a age. Anybody who's over 20, you know, I mean we've all had our hearts broken one time or another, or somebody's done something that you know was really hurtful, I mean betrayal. When I talk about betrayal, it's not just somebody hurting you, it's somebody hurting you in a way that you never would have thought they would hurt you, based on your relationship with them. That's what I mean by betrayal, and so you know, a stranger can hurt you, but they can't betray you. It's somebody that you thought, oh my God, I never would have thought you'd do that, and so it's really hard to deal with.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Yeah, yeah. As soon as you said that, I'm like, oh yeah, I can totally see that when it's not expected and like totally out of character in your mind, yeah, yeah, that's what makes it a betrayal. Yeah, for sure. And then do you in your therapy? Have you helped people? I know you said the forgiveness part. Is that something you recommend or just depends on each couple? Or like, what's your philosophy on forgiveness or not?

Speaker 1: 1:50

Well, yeah, therein lies a tale, right? Because it depends on what you mean by forgiveness. And people use that term forgiveness in a lot of you know well basically two different ways, and there's the way I like and the way I don't. And I'm not saying it's wrong to use it the way I don't, but there's a reason why I use it a particular way. A lot of times, when people say forgive, what they mean is okay, if I forgive the person, I can restore my relationship with them. You know, it means there's that ridiculous expression forgive and forget, which is absurd, because if there's actually something to forgive, you don't forget it. I mean barring dementia or something like that, you don't forget it. So it isn't about forgetting. But sometimes people use the term well, if I forgive somebody, that must mean I'm going to say I guess it wasn't so bad or I guess I can trust them, and I'm saying no, that's not how I want to use the term forgiveness, because that's a whole different set of issues. When I use the word forgive, I use it and I didn't coin this phrase, but I like a way of saying it.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Forgiveness is an inside job. In other words, if I forgive someone who hurt me. It actually has almost nothing to do with my relationship with them. It has to do with my internal process. If I can let go of the shock, the trauma, the pain, you know if I can actually think about it and say, well, that sucked, but now what? That's what it feels like to forgive someone. So that that takes time and that takes work. There are circumstances where that's not a good idea to do. Yet, um, because if somebody, for example, somebody is in a relationship where they are continually being hurt you know some sort of abusive relationship or something like that they need the panic. The panic is there for a reason. They need that's a message from your body saying you got to change something. This is not tolerable. So that's not the time to forgive someone. But when? If you're not in that kind of situation, if you're not, like, acutely at risk, if it's just I don't mean to trivialize it, but if it's just painful but it's not dangerous and you really wonder, what do you do about your relationship, you're going to need to figure out how to forgive so that then you can think clearly about trusting someone, because you know you can forgive somebody.

Speaker 1: 3:56

According to the way I'm defining forgiveness. You can forgive somebody you don't trust at all. You know you can forgive someone and say, okay, I can think about this and not freak out anymore. But now I got to figure out can I trust this person Can? Do I want to stay in a relationship with them? You can forgive someone you have every intention of divorcing. You can forgive someone you have every intention of suing in court or prosecuting or whatever. So all of those things you know one, the the issue of of trusting and restoring a relationship is a whole different thing, and what I'm saying as I write about this is it's hard to make a good decision about whether or not you want to trust someone and stay in a relationship with them unless you've attained some level of forgiveness, because then you can't think clearly. So how do you get there? Of course, that's what people will often wonder, and I always love to point this out.

Speaker 1: 4:50

I talk about there are three steps to forgiveness. Beware of authors who say things like there are three steps to forgiveness. Beware of people like me. You know I mean don't take it too. Don't take it too literally. You know like I make it sound so simple. You know well, step one, step two, step three. No, it isn't that simple, but it is I. The reason I wrote about it that way is it's a way of thinking about it I think helps people kind of. First of all, it can give you some sense that maybe it's possible, because early on it is one of the first things you have to do is recognize maybe it's possible to get there, otherwise you're not going to even take the first step. So I like the idea of sort of, you know, laying it out in three steps, but again, don't take it too literally.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Step one what I say is in terms of forgiving someone. Step one is just about always to forgive yourself, and sometimes people say, well, wait a minute, that no good so-and-so cheating on me. Why do I have to forgive myself? You know it wasn't my fault. Well, no, it's not that it was. It's not that it was my fault if I got hurt. But there's always some element where I'm going to blame myself, if for nothing else for not seeing it coming, for not preventing it, for letting myself get so hurt. You know, there's always in betrayal it's there's always that piece. It's like how can I be so stupid, how can I be so blind? People were trying to tell me and I wouldn't listen to them. You know, all of those things are very common and to be able to forgive myself is often the hardest step.

Speaker 1: 6:16

And well, I didn't know what I didn't know. I mean, I knew what I knew, but I didn't know what I didn't know. And I can say, well, I should have known. Well, okay, maybe I should have, but I didn't. On that level I was doing the best I could. And when I can reach that place of saying, damn, you know, I wish that hadn't happened, but I was doing the best I could, that's what it feels like to forgive yourself. It's like, okay, well, I don't have to keep beating up on myself.

Speaker 1: 6:48

You know that the, the um, that feeling is associated with a feeling that says, well, okay, hard lesson learned. You know, okay, I learned something. You can't learn stuff without getting it wrong first. You know that's what learning something means. If I already knew, I wouldn't have gotten it wrong. But you know, you learn more from when you get something wrong than when you get it right. You know. So when I can accept that, when I can say, okay, bummer, that I didn't figure this out sooner, but I didn't do the best I could, here I am.

Speaker 1: 7:17

When you can do that, I claim that the second step, the second step is forgiving the person who hurt you, and I claim that's a pretty short step. Oddly enough, you know it may sound odd. It's like, well, wait a minute, what does that have to do with the other person? Well, if I can really sense in my heart, in my gut, I was doing the best I could, I can extend that to the person who hurt me.

Speaker 1: 7:42

It's like, well damn, you know, I wish they hadn't been so resentful. I wish they hadn't had the thoughts they were having. I wish they hadn't been influenced by the conspiracy theory they were influenced by, or whatever the hell it was. You know, but they were. Human beings are like that. You know that can happen. On that level, I guess they were doing the best they could too. They shouldn't have cheated. They shouldn't have done, you know, they shouldn't have lied. They shouldn't have done the things they did. I'm not saying it's okay, I'm just saying, well, given who they were, they were. That's what they came up with. They were doing the best they could too. I don't have to be, I don't have to be furious about it when I think about it anymore. I can just recognize wish it had been different, but it wasn't. You know, lesson learned about other people too. And then you can. That's what it feels like to forgive. It's like, okay, I don't have to, I don't have to go into a panic whenever I think about it.

Speaker 1: 8:30

It's very similar to recovering from trauma, because betrayal is a kind of trauma, and earlier in my career, before I was concentrating mostly on couples, I did a lot of work with folks who were recovering from trauma, people with PTSD and various other kinds of you know trauma manifestations and I've always pointed out, you know, trauma isn't the effects of a PTSD, for example, isn't a disease in the sense that there's something wrong with your brain. Ptsd is your brain trying to protect you. It sucks. I'm not saying it's easy to deal with, I'm just saying, yes, you're, you're over compensating. But. But evolution favors those who panic too much rather than those who panic too little, because those who panic too little didn't become our ancestors. They got eaten right. Yeah, so you know it isn't surprising. That's what we tend toward to go through a betrayal, when you're traumatized by betrayal, if the trauma is still active, in the sense that anytime you're reminded of it, you freak, you're not going to be able to think clearly about going forward.

Speaker 1: 9:31

So forgiveness is really a way of getting past that. Forgiving the person who hurt you. You get past it. It's like, well, okay, I don't have to freak when I think about it. You know, initially it's hard to wrap your brain around the idea that somebody that you love or somebody that you trusted or you know would do that to you, whatever it was. But once you get past that sense of disbelief and panic, then you can figure okay, now what do I want to do about this relationship? And that's that's. That's harder.

Speaker 1: 10:00

So I mentioned three steps to forgiveness. So step one forgive yourself. Step two forgive whoever hurt you. Step three I give a funny name to, and you don't have to be religious to appreciate this. So there's a little, you know, spoiler alert here.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I call it forgive God. So what does it mean to forgive God? You don't even have to believe in God in any traditional sense to appreciate this. It means, okay, I can accept that I only knew I was doing the best I could. I can accept that the person who hurt me was doing the best they could. Now I have to accept that the universe is like that. You know, damn it. That shouldn't happen, should it? You know, why do bad things happen to good people? The classic question, you know Well, because it does. And not only does it.

Speaker 1: 10:42

But when I say forgive God, it's not merely saying, oh, you know, life's a bitch, and then you die. I don't mean that. I mean there's something right about it, even though I wish it was so painful sometimes. You know, it's like. You know the theologians will talk about it. The why do bad things happen to good people will say, well, it's all about free will. You know, if we didn't have free will, we couldn't. You know, if we couldn't do evil, we wouldn't have free will. And it's good to have free will. So it kind of has to be that way. It's sort of like that. It's like, yeah, damn it.

Speaker 2: 11:36

It has to be possible to get hurt this way, even though I wish, yeah, they say like you can't have joy without hurt and all the all the opposites like that, yeah, yeah. And then I know, um, also like oprah talks about you, for if you don't forgive, it's basically you think you're poisoning them but you're poisoning yourself. So she, she mentions that like you're holding a grudge, the other person has no idea, like potentially, yeah, I mean, depending on how close you are, obviously, if it's uh intimate.

Speaker 1: 11:52

And anna lamott uh, I like to give credit to Anne Lamott. I think her quote is she's a novelist, but she's written a lot about this. Her quote is to not forgive is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die. It's like, yeah, you got to get the poison out of yourself and then you can think about the rat. You might still be dealing with a rat no question you might but if you poison yourself, it's not going to do you any good, and so forgiveness is really all about getting the poison out of you as a therapist, have you ever recommended like for sure, or I'm sure you let the couples decide, but are there some betrayals that are like extra bad?

Speaker 2: 12:26

I mean I know you said the abuse for sure, yeah, like a one-time cheat versus like you know or just whatever, like examples of that different kind of betrayals and what you would, for sure you know, think harder on or it's interesting, you know, as you point out, yeah, of course the couple's going to decide for themselves what to do.

Speaker 1: 12:46

It is I. The longer I've done this work, I think, the less inclined I am to give advice in the sense of this is what you should do. It's funny. Early on in my career I was like really precious about that. You know, I would never want to say anything that sounded like advice. After a while I realized that people are coming to me because they think maybe I know something and so I could actually share. You know, I'm happy to offer my opinions. You know, the one thing I am really convinced of, and remain convinced of, is I don't know better than they do how they should live their lives. I do not know that they're the expert on living their own lives. They're the ones who have the power to do it. They have to do it.

Speaker 1: 13:24

You know, when you're talking about betrayal, kind of by definition, it's always big. Now there are some couples I will work with where the the work turns out to be the person who felt betrayed deciding oh, I guess it really wasn't a betrayal, was it? It was unpleasant, but it wasn't. I guess I don't have to think of it as a betrayal, you know, I don't have to think of it as, oh my god, I can't imagine someone I was trusting would do that. It's like, well, maybe I can realize that, you know. You know, the classic example of that is and it's almost always gendered this way is a couple comes in, heterosexual couple comes in, the woman is pissed because the guy was looking at porn and she feels like it was cheating. And often where that goes is she realizes. Now I guess I don't have to think of it as cheating or a betrayal, I just don't like it. And sometimes you never know where that conversation is going to go, because sometimes where that goes and the guy the guy's got to understand where she's coming from or won't you know won't do either of many good. And sometimes where that goes is the guy realizes oh my God, yeah, I've been using that in ways that are to the detriment of our actual relationship. And sometimes it goes that she's realizing wait a minute, I can relax about this.

Speaker 1: 14:49

It isn't really cheating, it's just you know, men as a group tend to get turned on has any difficulty understanding that it was a betrayal and often it let's say infidelity of some kind in a monogamous relationship and the one who did the cheating is feeling like I will often say I wouldn't have thought in a million years I'd be sitting here saying I cheated on my spouse. And the other person is often saying I wouldn't have thought in a million years that if my spouse cheated on me, I'd still be here trying to save the relationship. And so you know it's, it's almost always big in that sense, and where they go with that it, it really varies. You know, it's what I, what I count as success isn't necessarily that they stay together or not. You know, what I count as success is that they come out of it feeling like okay, we, it feels right to do what we're doing, whether that's stay together or not.

Speaker 1: 15:41

And it is often the case that the you know when, when you evaluate success in couples therapy, there are three opinions, at least there's mine, which is ought to be the least important of the three, and then there's the couple, and they don't. They sometimes don't agree in that. You know, sometimes a couple comes in for some sessions and the one who would kind of had one foot out the door is realizing, yep, I am now more convinced than ever that I need to break up, and the other person is devastated, feeling that I hope this was going to save our relationship and, and they're both right. I'm relationship and and and they're both right. And you know what am I supposed to say? Was that a success or a failure? Yes, it was. It was both, depending on who's asking about it yeah, yeah, I was actually in that scenario once.

Speaker 2: 16:23

He brought me in, hoping it would, and I was like, no, like I know for sure I want to, but yeah, and then, um, have you after. Do you follow through with them? I'm assuming, like once you've, if they to stay, how often do they stay together? Does it end up working Like in? Do you know, like a percentage or potential? Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1: 16:44

And it's funny because in my former life, before I was a, before I did clinical work, I was a statistician. So you think you know, oh, I'd be all about keeping track of the numbers. It's not that I'm afraid to keep track of the numbers, it's that I don't know how to evaluate success in the way I was just describing. It's like I know a lot of them stay together and a lot of them don't. How's that? You know it's not. I don't think of it in that, doesn't? Those don't fit perfectly with whether I think it's a success or not? So I, you know that's sort of like do they stay in town or do they move somewhere else? That's sort of. I don't think of that as the relevant thing, you know.

Speaker 1: 17:21

So I'm constantly asking people quite explicitly to evaluate how's it going. You know it's not like I'm afraid to wonder out loud like is this helping? In fact, the very first question I ask people I've been doing this for decades now the very first question I ask people, after my little spiel about confidentiality and you know that stuff, I say, okay, here's my favorite opening question how will you know if this is helping? I focus them on that right in the beginning. It's like maybe this will help, maybe it won't. You know, pay attention to that and I'll ask it as we go. If it's, you know, unless it's obvious to all one way or the other, I will ask it very explicitly because I want them to know. But I don't. Yeah, I don't keep track of like and I see people who do and I am highly suspicious of that, frankly.

Speaker 2: 18:08

Yeah, I guess I'm more curious, like, if they stay together, have you found that some were like really happy?

Speaker 1: 18:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:13

Like you know, like it totally worked out and they don't regret it at all and they work through it and kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yes, in fact that's one of the most inspiring parts of it. You know the work. It's really fascinating. It's basically more or less kind of generalized. The couples that are coming in with betrayal and end up staying together pretty much only stay together if things are better than they were before and they very often will express gratitude. I've never heard anybody say hey, thanks for cheating. Haven't heard that one, but I've heard almost like that and it's one I tell in one of my books. Actually it's kind of one of my go-to stories.

Speaker 1: 18:54

I was a couple I was working with a few years ago now, actually, yeah, before the pandemic, and before the pandemic is significant because we were having what we knew to be a last session. It's before I was doing any telehealth and we knew it was going to be the last session because they were leaving town. They were going to be moving. It turned out, and I'd worked with them for about a year and a half, I think. When they first came to see me they were just a mess. She had just found out about his cheating with some coworkers a couple of different times. He was realizing he had a drinking problem, was in serious trouble at his work because of that I think she said she had lost like 30 pounds in the past six weeks, or it was that kind of that. She was she. I think she said she had lost like 30 pounds in the past six weeks, or, you know, it was that kind of thing. She couldn't eat, she was just in terrible shape. And they did this amazing work where he was just so, so accountable and she was too. Interestingly, she wasn't blaming herself for his having affairs, but anyway, they ended up. She said our last session we're kind of reviewing this great work they had done. They were so much better off, both happier.

Speaker 1: 19:59

She turned to him and said hey, thanks for taking one for the team. And he said oh, what do you mean by that? And I said what do you mean by that? And she said well, you're the one who has to feel guilty because he's the one who did the cheating. You know which? Of course he felt guilty appropriately, because he's the one who did the cheating. You know which of course he felt guilty appropriately. You know it's like yeah, that was wrong. He knew he shouldn't do that. She knew he shouldn't do that, but she was appreciating the fact.

Speaker 1: 20:19

You know, what she was saying was clearly we now know we were headed for trouble. Our relationship was clearly in trouble. This was a manifestation of that. She wasn't blaming herself for his cheating, but she was part of their relationship being in trouble. And she said not only are we so much better off, but she was saying I'm better off with my friends, I'm better off with my coworkers, I'm better off with the kids. I'm not freaking out about all kinds of things I used to freak out about. So thanks, this was really what we needed. Yeah, it's like thanks, I needed that. You know, so that they will often do that. I do find that inspiring. So the ones that stay together usually, it's something like that the ones that split up occasionally, it's something like that Not usually, occasionally they'll say well, we kind of knew this is where it had to go. Thanks for clarifying. That'll be the case. So, yeah, that does happen.

Speaker 2: 21:11

And I imagine accountability, like you said earlier, is the thing that most women especially, I'm guessing or either side would want to see from the other side. If there is betrayal, oh, absolutely, just admitting it and yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Yeah, that would seem. If there isn't that, you can forgive, but it's very hard to trust. That's the difference. So you know, if you can get to that place of sufficient forgiveness so you're not freaking out, Then you got to worry about trust. And if the person isn't accountable, there's no way you can trust them. And I kind of mean that almost as synonymous. It's like yeah, you can, Accountability is pretty much the same thing as trustworthiness. You know it's like OK, what will help somebody develop trust again is if they realize and it's interesting because this goes both ways no-transcript trust that that wouldn't happen again, because if things started to go off the rails, they they would deal with it, they talk about it, they they'd identify it rather than acting it out. So that's the one who got cheated on has to trust. The one who cheated has to trust that the other person is capable of trusting them again, that they're not going to live constantly where they're the permanent villain and the other person is the permanent probation officer, because nobody wants to live like that.

Speaker 2: 22:51

Yeah, I can see that. And then, as far as like prevention, is there anything as a couple therapist you see that helps people stay in healthy relationships, like what keeps a relationship healthy?

Speaker 1: 23:05

Yeah Well, that actually relates to a little spiel I give in almost every first session. In fact, I write about this in one of my books, not the Patronal Forgiveness book, but the previous one, which has a funny title, by the way it's called. It's not about communication, why everything you know about couples therapy is wrong. Is that a snarky title or what snarky title? That? And the the second part, why everything you know about couples therapy is wrong. A little spoiler alert I mentioned later in the book that applies to me too. Everything I know about couples therapy is wrong too. You know, it's not the ideas, it's claiming that you know. You know, claiming that you know. That's the problem. So, but that actually relates to the first session I do. It's the only one I do that I have a pretty specific structure for, and part of that structure is this little spiel I give, which relates to what you're talking about in terms of preventative.

Speaker 1: 23:59

You know what? What will help a couple function? Basically to one way of understanding what. What is it that helps a couple function? It's when two sets of needs are adequately fulfilled, and I reason I talk about two sets is the skills you need for one are very different from the skills you need for the other. In fact they're kind of in conflict, but they're both needs, you know I mean that word needs I'm using carefully, it's like no, and they're not desires, they're needs. If they're not adequately fulfilled, something's broken, it's not going to work. So what are the two sets of needs? They are stability and intimacy, and so short answer to your question. I've already made it somewhat long, but short answer to your question is what makes a couple work well is when they have both of those adequately fulfilled.

Speaker 1: 24:45

The interesting thing is, the skills of stability are about avoiding anxiety. The skills of intimacy are about tolerating anxiety, and they're both important. So you know, why would people avoid anxiety? Well, like, for example, one of the things I will always ask in a first session, if they haven't already said, is has there been any infidelity? I mean, I'll ask about it specifically and if the answer to that is no, that's in favor of stability. Which is to say, infidelity is hugely destabilizing, it drives anxiety through the roof.

Speaker 1: 25:17

You know sobriety. I'll ask about substance abuse, if anybody's having serious substance abuse issues or are they worried about it? You know too much of something. Whatever they decide is too much is not for me. I'm not evaluating that, but if they're saying no, we really don't have any issues around that. That also works for stability, because if somebody is habitually not sober, it's really destabilizing. Not sober, it's really destabilizing. So, and you know, they get into an argument and if they've been drinking, it usually goes off the rails or often goes off the rails. So all of that relates to stability Basically.

Speaker 1: 25:49

I will often point out to people and this is true almost all the time there have been over 30 years of doing this work, there have been a few exceptions I will almost always say to the couple, when I'm talking about stability, well, I can already tell something about the two of you. Neither one of you is batshit crazy, right, and they usually smile and occasionally say something like well, you haven't seen me yet. You know. I know we all have our moments, but and I don't mean to make fun of serious mental health issues, but what I'm referring to there is they're not, apparently, they're not psychotic, they're not thinking the FBI is controlling signals in their brain, they're not having a untreated manic episode where they're just nuts. You know, they're not nuts. That's about stability. So all those things are important, you know, uh and, and you do things like you know make a life together, fall in love, have kids, get married, buy a house. All of that stuff. All of that privileges stability. You want to keep things stable, especially having kids. Most parents don't want their kids to feel like the marriage is shaky, so all that's about stability.

Speaker 1: 26:54

The chief skill of intimacy I mentioned is to tolerate anxiety, and the reason for that is if you're going to be, what do I mean by intimacy? By intimacy I just mean to be. What do I mean by intimacy? By intimacy I just mean to be present and honest with yourself and each other. That's what I mean by intimacy, and to do that sometimes that means you're going to say something that you're pretty sure will not be fun for your partner to hear. It's going to raise anxiety, a complaint, you know, a simple complaint or not just a complaint. But what if you want to talk about a dream or a fantasy or something you know, be that in the sexual domain or just more generally? You know you're worried. Your partner will hear it and think you're weird or be repulsed by it, or who knows what they'll think will often do because they privilege stability, they'll avoid that and maybe start to walk on eggshells because there's something bothering them, but they won't say it, especially if they've tried to say it and it's gone off the rails and over time. What happens is they shut down in the intimacy department. Sometimes that's reflected in a couple's sex life Often it is. It's not a perfect correlation with intimacy more generally, but it's often a pretty good one, and so they end up more and more estranged from each other, even though they're all about stability, and that becomes destabilizing. And so that's, you know, and my favorite.

Speaker 1: 28:14

I'll give you my favorite metaphor about stability and intimacy. If you think about a plant, you plant a seed in soil and it germinates and sprouts starts to grow. Somebody comes along and paves a sidewalk over it. Well, why do they do that? Well, because it makes it more stable, it's easier to walk on. You know what's that plant going to do? It's going to either crack the sidewalk or die. Trying to crack the sidewalk because it won't just sit there. Roots provide stability, but intimacy is the energy for growth, and that's true in a plant, it's true in an individual, it's true in a couple. Couples want to interact and feel alive and grow, and if that gets compromised, somebody tries to crack the sidewalk. And what does cracking the sidewalk look like An affair. Or they fight about everything and nothing except what they're really worried about. Or somebody all of a sudden gets depressed or maybe not all of a sudden, but somebody gets very depressed. Or somebody all of a sudden says I'm out of here, I can't stand it, blindsiding the other person.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Various kinds of betrayals often result from compromised intimacy yeah, I was just going to add one thing about aging as well. Like, Like both sides, you know, menopause for women stuff changes down there, For men stuff changes and they're both afraid to potentially talk about what's going on really and just stop doing it because it's either painful or unable or less able. So, yeah, that's definitely part of it too. I would think. Yeah, that's definitely part of it too. I would think.

Speaker 1: 29:39

Yeah, absolutely, and that's you kind of. You identified the thing. You know, of course, over the lifespan, of course, stuff changes, everything changes and the key there and you identified the keys to be able to talk about it rather than avoiding it. It's like, oh my God, this hurts, you know, rather than just saying so, I'm not going to have sex anymore. It's like let's talk about that. Maybe there's ways, things we can do, or maybe there's things we have to accept. You know, as you get older, there are medical conditions that happen to people that require them to accept some new realities. But there are ways of adapting to all those things if you can actually risk talking about it. And that's where a lot of couples have trouble.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Yeah, and I have several episodes on that, like menopause for women and all the stuff you can take and do differently, and then Edie a few episodes on that and some toys and stuff. So I just wanted to throw that out there. But do you want to talk about how people can reach you or work with you or check out your books and your information?

Speaker 1: 30:38

Absolutely yeah. The easiest way for all of that is just to go to my website, which is brucechalmercom, so if you spell my name right you'll get it B-R-U-C-E-C-H-A-L-M-E-R, brucechalmercom. That has information about my practice, information about my books and my wife. I'll put in a plug for the podcast my wife and I do. My wife is Judy Alexander and we do a podcast together called Couples Therapy in Seven Words. So I'll put in a plug for that as well, and people are welcome to check that out.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Very cool? Yeah, definitely All right.

Speaker 1: 31:09

And then are there any takeaways you want to leave the listeners with before we yeah, my favorite takeaway in fact I have it on a cup for those of you who are watching the video I mentioned, our podcast is Couples Therapy in Seven Words. Well, those are the seven words Be kind, don't panic and have faith. That's the seven words and I write a lot about. You know that's seven words, but you know three concepts there. I write a lot about that and that's what I would leave people with. It's kind of a way of understanding the whole business of couples work. Be Understanding the whole business of couples work.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Be kind, don't panic and have faith. Yeah, awesome, All right. Well, thank you very much for being on. Great information and especially because it's a new topic for my show.

Speaker 1: 31:49

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 31:50

Especially like that. Yes, thank you again, and if you love this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. And be sure to check out his website, brucechalmercom. All right, thanks everyone.