I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 165, Escapism and Infidelity.

Hello, and welcome to the Heal from Infidelity podcast where courageous
women learn not only to heal from their spouse’s betrayal, but to become
the boldest, truest, most decisive and confident versions of themselves
ever. If you know there’s more for you than the life you’re currently
living but don’t quite know how to get there, you are in the right place.
Stick around to learn how to create a life that will knock your own socks
off. Is it possible? It is, and I’m here to show you how. I’m your host,
Andrea Giles. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode. So glad you are here. I
hope that this episode finds you feeling a little more healed, a little
more settled, a little more calm than you were maybe last week. Progress.
It’s about progress. Not about the destination. We hear that. It sounds
cliche, but it’s true. It’s about growing and feeling ourselves expand and
getting better, not about arriving somewhere. All right.

Before I dive into this episode today, I want to let you know those of you
who listened to this right around the time that it comes out, that I am
going to be having some pretty fabulous Black Friday specials going this
year. I have never done this before. It’s a first time, and the topics of
things that I’m going to be offering are going to be very, very applicable
to you. You will want to go check those out. If you are not on my email
list, get on it. If you are not following me on Instagram, get on it. I am
the infidelity coach on Instagram, and you can go to my website,
andreagiles.com to opt into my email list. You want to do that just to be
the first to know about when these Black Friday specials drop. They’re
going to be pretty awesome and powerful and things that you are going to
want. Okay. All right.

Today we’re going to be talking about escapism and infidelity. Why does
this topic matter? It matters a ton because it gives some understanding to
what people are doing when they get involved in infidelity, why people do
it, how it shows up, and how it shows up even for you, the one that was
betrayed. And some of you listening are the one that did the betraying, and
I hope that you can understand more about maybe what happened for you. The
more you understand, the more you can decide how you want to deal with
things going forward. Broaden your skills to not go back and repeat the
same things twice. All right.

What is escapism? Escapism is basically the act of avoiding reality, or of
avoiding difficult emotions through distraction or fantasy. Distraction or
fantasy. It can be healthy in moderation, but very problematic when it
becomes a way to avoid responsibility or growth. Here’s some examples of
everyday life escapism. Everyday life escapism would be like binge-watching
TV, excessive work, really not knowing when to stop to try to escape from
other things, substance use, even things like binging books, reading books
and escaping from your children, escaping from intimacy, escaping from
things that need to get done. Why escapism can be so tempting is because it
allows us to avoid doing or feeling something that we know will be
difficult, something that we don’t necessarily want.

This piece of avoiding reality is really, really important, so let me give
you an example. Okay. Let’s say that it’s a husband and wife and both of
them have jobs and they also have children and they’re in the hustle and
bustle and grind of raising children, hauling them all over tarnation for
the things that they’re involved in, doing your job, doing it well,
climbing the corporate ladder or if you’re a business owner, growing the
business, whatever it looks like for you and over time you recognize
resentments within yourself. You recognize coping strategies that you feel
that you practice with your spouse because you know that whenever you bring
certain things up, it turns into a fight and you have very little time
together without children, and so you want to avoid the fight. And you also
feel resentful because you aren’t talking about the things that really
matter to you, and so you go into this escapism and keep yourself very,
very busy.

Some things that I’ve heard clients say before is getting really involved
in, for example, volunteer work. It looks really noble. It looks really
noble. You get a lot of accolades for it. Look how wonderful you are. Look
how much you give or put into certain projects. And again, a lot of
validation can be given in some of these things. It can feel really good,
but where my clients are onto themselves is where they look at how much
they themselves into that thing to avoid looking at the thing that was the
most painful, which was their relationship.

Now, for my people, my listeners who were unfaithful, often what happens is
you go to a place of distraction and very similar thinking, resentful
thoughts towards your spouse. It’s not at all how it used to be. It’s not
at all how I thought it would be. She or he doesn’t want to be with me.
They’re so disgusted and annoyed with me all the time, or they never make
time for me. They’re always too busy for me, whatever it may be, and
scrolling through your phone and checking up on old people that you knew,
maybe old relationships and checking on them and maybe sending them a DM
and remembering how that felt 25 years ago, to be involved with this person
or to have something exciting and new.

And going to different sites and putting feelers out for anybody that’s
going to give you attention or getting attention at work by somebody.
Getting attention and having them think you’re really amazing. Look how
amazing you are, and then going, “Gosh, I wish my wife or husband thought
that of me. I wish they thought I was awesome. I wish they had the same
excitement for me that this person does,” and suddenly they are roped into
this world of either distraction or fantasy. It can go either way. It can go
both ways.

Now, sometimes it’s distraction because it just feels really good if it’s a
quick dopamine hit, but there’s no real intention to long-term be with this
person. It’s more truly a distraction. It’s taking our eyes off of the
thing that actually needs the hard attention, the work that needs to get
done by doing this other thing that feels way more satisfying. It’s just a
distraction. Just a fun little thing that very likely got out of hand. That
this thing that was supposed to be nothing, and just a distraction and just
something fun and flirty turned into this thing that had the intensity to
burn the whole relationship to the ground. The main relationship, the one
that you’re distracting yourself from, turned it into this massive thing
that you had no intention of it being.

Fantasy is where sometimes it’s around thinking that maybe I can leave my
spouse and be with this person and they’re going to be so much better and
it’s going to be so wonderful and all my problems will be solved. And this
person gets me in a way that my spouse never has, and they see me and they
understand me and they get my heart and they know me and they give me the
benefit of the doubt and it’s just going to be wonderful and we’re going to
make this life together. Why is this fantasy? Because rarely if ever goes
this way. That oversimplifies so many things. It oversimplifies getting
from point A to point B, the infidelity being made known, first of all.
Dealing with a fallout. Dealing with legal fallout. Dealing with children.
Fallout dealing, your spouse being horrified and betrayed and hurt and
going, “Crap, I didn’t realize the impact. I didn’t realize how big this
was going to be.” That’s part of the fantasy part of the delusion.

Now, when can it be healthy? It can be healthy when it’s something that
does not have a massive impact on the other person. I will say from my
point of view, with my own values, and this is something that each of you
needs to take stock of. From my own values, from my own point of view, for
me, for my marriage, it’s never okay, not ever for my husband to be engaged
in flirty conversations with anyone, not anyone. Not even innocently
because it all starts out innocently most of the time. It’s never okay.
That is never an option of where he can go without violating my trust, and
the same for him. It goes both ways.

Now, if I am feeling like I need to escape for whatever reason or feeling
frustrated, for me, what that looks like sometimes is going to the gym and
working out, or going on a really long walk or watching a show or reading a
book, or going and doing something with a friend or talking with a friend.
These can all be things that can be distracting, but sometimes the
distraction helps me shore up the reserves that I need to go face the thing
that I need to face. It’s going into this place of getting strength so I can
turn back and face the music and face the hard conversation or the thing
that I want to say or the thing that I want to ask. This is where it can be
healthy.

It becomes a problem when it becomes a way to avoid responsibility and to
avoid growth. That’s when it becomes a problem. Where it’s not going to
these places to shore up your own courage. To get back in yourself grounded
and then turning back to deal with your responsibilities. To say the things
that you want. To ask for the things that you want. To shine a light on
things that are not working well or that you want more of. Okay.

Now, escapism and infidelity. Affairs can serve as an extreme extreme form
of escapism. Why? Because it’s avoidance of the relationship challenges
altogether or of personal struggles. This is not just relationship
challenges. This is a really, really important point. So much of the time,
my listeners, you, my clients will think that if somebody had an affair or
was unfaithful in some way, then the other person surely had something to
do with it. That they drove them to it, they were not giving enough or they
never communicated well enough. Maybe the communication was terrible. Maybe
they had grown apart. Maybe there were all kinds of problems, but here’s
the deal. Each person is responsible for the things that they need, the
things that they want, and if we are going into a relationship to avoid not
just relationship challenges but our own personal struggles, it’s a problem.

Infidelity often happens because of personal struggles that have nothing to
do with a partner. So for those of you who are thinking, “I wasn’t enough.
If I was enough, you would never do this.” It is such a lie. So much of
Infidelity started 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago as a boy, as a
young girl with seeds of insecurity, was seeds of feeling not taken care
of, not heard, not listened ,to where sexually explicit material was shared
at a much too young age, without the ability or parental help or parental
guidance to navigate it, to talk about it, to ask about it.

These things create seeds that sometimes do not show up for 50 years, 40
years, 30 years. These are personal struggles. These are hurts that this
individual has never had the tools or skills or fortitude to go dig in. And
often what is revealed in infidelity is, it is time to face the music. It
is time to understand why I do these self-sabotaging things and go do the
work of the personal struggles. It takes courage, it takes integrity, but
that’s going to bring a much safer version of yourself to the marriage.

Now for my clients who were betrayed, same thing around the personal
struggles, the relationship challenges might’ve been there and then the
infidelity occurred, but we are still responsible for our own personal
struggles and how the infidelity really rubs those personal struggles raw.
That’s part of the hardship of infidelity is that it often exposes these
dormant traumas, dormant things that we have not dealt with and just lights
them up and exposes them. They are exposed, and we still have to deal with
them. Another extreme form of escapism is seeking an idealized version of
oneself or life.

This ideal version, this really pie in the sky, ivory tower, my
relationship is better than everyone else’s. I am better than everyone
else. There’s a lot of grandiosity in that thinking that you are entitled
to more than other people, that you should have more than other people. And
often, this can create problems because if we are thinking that we should
be treated a certain way by our spouse, but we are not giving it back, that
is such entitlement to not ask for the things that we want, not ask for the
things we need, but still just expect it because I should be given this. The
world owes me this.

And then when we go and have somebody that’s like, “I’ll do that. I’ll give
you that. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Then it’s giving this
fantasy that you can have everything with this other person and that you’re
just with the wrong person. When in reality there’s nothing wrong with the
person you’re with. You got to get to work and fix the relationship. This
is the work of relationships, and what happens most of the time is that
fantasy starts to wear off, reality sets in and many of the same problems
just resurface just with another person. They’re still the same person. The
problems are still the same, maybe slightly different because it’s someone
new, but we tend to attract the same kind of relationship patterns until we
deal with them. So escaping into another relationship is not going to fix
anything. It might feel great for a little bit and then those things will
just resurface once again.

Now, why do some people go to this extreme level of escapism? Often, it is
for psychological reasons. Unmet emotional needs. Might feel really empty.
Might feel really hollow within themselves in the relationship. Might be
really afraid of conflict or of confrontation. This is a big one. You might
have a desire for a fantasy world where life feels simpler or more
exciting, where it feels like everything just clicks. Everything works
better. Intimacy, communication, I can tell them anything. I promise you
this is fantasy. It’s fantasy. How we really know what we got is when we
start running into problems and see how we deal with those problems because
every relationship has them. Every relationship has them.

I’ll give you an example. I have a client who over years in a marriage got
stronger and stronger and more independent, pursuing high-level things.
High-level education, high-level jobs, and really receiving accolades for
that, being really successful. And the spouse rather than growing
themselves and being proud and being excited was threatened by this.
Threatened by this person’s success and somebody comes along, and this
person is successful in their own right, but somebody comes along that
listens to the woes of the big bad wife and how controlling or how
overbearing or how she’s just always gone and she asked me to do this and
that, and she never used to ask me to do anything before.

And then suddenly this person is feeding right into this and giving all
this attention and yeah, that’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to do that and
join them in the fantasy. This is a real situation that I’m coaching right
now. It is heartbreaking and it’s part of the heartbreak is that that
fantasy is going to crash and burn. Because the problems within this
person, the personal struggles are still there. The insecurity, the feeling
of not wanting somebody else so close to him, being more successful than
him. Until that is worked through, these issues will continue to come to
the surface. They’ll continue to arise.

Now, let’s talk about the impact of escapism on relationships. It creates
more disconnection and harm. Absolutely there’s a betrayal of trust, a
betrayal of intimacy. The different things that my clients and their
spouses do create different kinds of responses in their spouse. For
example, if somebody is dealing with stress and goes and has a one night
stand, it has a different brand to it, different feel to it than somebody
who is trash talking their spouse to another willing partner, telling them
how awful their spouse is, how awful their marriage is. That lands
differently. It has a different sting. Both are very painful, but one lands
different. It’s a betrayal of trust in so many ways, and what it shows and
what it’s reinforcing is avoidance of patterns rather than addressing the
root issue. It’s avoidance patterns within the relationship. We’re not
going to talk about it. We’re going to go our way. We’re going to do our
own thing, get immersed in our own thing, but we’re not going to talk about
it.

The long-term consequences for this are disconnection, stress, pain, and
for many couples, infidelity. There’s a huge emotional toll on both parties
involved. My people that I work with at feel betrayed are like, “This
person never even came to me and said, I’m really, really unhappy and I’m
considering leaving.” Never even gave them a chance so it creates more
issues. The avoidance patterns are still there. They were there before the
infidelity, and this just lit a fire on them, added way more pain and didn’t
go back and solve anything.

Now, in this last section, want to talk about healing and really
confronting escapism. First of all, how to identify escapism tendencies in
yourself or in your partner. One is looking at various signs of avoidance
behaviors. When it gets hot, like when a button is pushed and you feel your
heart rate rise and you feel maybe triggered, you feel frustrated, you feel
angry, threatened in some way, where do you go? Do you go to the defense and
attack or do you withdraw and avoid? Look at that within yourself. It’s
going to show you a lot about where you go. Do you lean out or do you lean
in or do you become apathetic and act like you don’t care at all and numb
out, and go get busy doing all kinds of things to avoid even the pain of
it? I don’t want to feel any of it, so I’m just going to go drink myself
silly or binge this thing silly so that I don’t have to think about it.

Identifying escapism means also really being honest with yourself. Where do
I go? What do I do? How do I hide? How do I hide from myself and from my
own pain? How do I avoid my own pain? How do I avoid seeing myself? How do
I avoid when I see the pain in this relationship? What do I do, or what did
I do in the past and what am I willing to do differently now?

A lot of the work that I do, particularly in my group coaching program, Get
Your Life Back After Infidelity, is many of them, they want to get to a
point where they are working on either the relationship they’re in or new
relationships with somebody new, and many of them, what the coaching is
around growing their ability to really understand their pattern before the
infidelity, to really see how was I showing up? How was I diminishing
myself? How was I keeping quiet or how did I use overbearing behaviors to
try to sound the alarm that we’re in trouble and those were not effective?
They were fear-based and control-based and trying to wake him up in a way
that was coming from so much scarcity and fear in me, and what do I want to
do differently now?

So much of the work that we do is in helping my clients get strong within
themselves first before really diving into their own relationship or new
relationships. Some of my clients are leaving relationships. They know that
they’re leaving. Maybe they’re left, or they already left, chose to leave,
and they are still reeling from it, and the work that they’re doing is
getting more clear on what even happened. What’s mine? What’s not mine?
What patterns did I participate in, why? There’s always a good reason for
it. We’re going to uncover what the reason is, and then we’re going to hand
back everything that’s not ours and we’re going to learn new patterns, new
ways of processing, new ways of viewing the whole thing that are supportive
of you rather than diminishing of you.

This is the work that is involved in really understanding how we escape and
how to be able to face the things that we need to face. It requires intense
honesty with yourself. It requires emotional resilience to be able to hold
what you find and to be able to hold the emotion that comes up when you are
having these honest conversations. It means developing healthy coping
mechanisms for stress and conflict, and seeking connection and intimacy
within the relationship, if you’re still with each other, or in the future
relationship.

Why does this matter? I want you to hear me on this. I have people ask me
about, for example, the effectiveness of my group coaching program if they
know that they’re leaving, if they know that they’re ending their
relationship. It is everything because our unfinished business comes with
us and reveals itself in the next relationship we’re in. It reveals itself.
It shows up. These are the things that we have to learn. We have to know
what our patterns are. We have to know how we were engaging in a way that
was not actually supportive of ourselves, of our deepest desires and how
we’re going to show up differently next time. This is the work I do all day
long with my clients. This is what we do now.

Escapism again, it is often, often an underlying factor in affairs, getting
away either in the fantasy or in avoidance of facing what needs to be
faced. Understanding and addressing it is crucial for personal growth and
healing and also, I encourage all of you listening whether you are the one
that was betrayed or the one who did the betraying to really listen to this
episode and look at your own tendencies towards escapism and take steps
towards healthier coping strategies. Other ways to ground yourself rather
than escaping. Grounding yourself is with the intention of bringing
yourself back into your body. This is something we do extensively in my
program. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please consider coming
into my program. Applying and joining. This is something that we do, that
we practice. You have to know how to get back into your body, feeling back
into the powerful self that you are, calm and clear so you can really see
the truth of what it is that you need to see.

All right. I invite you to apply if you would like more support in this.
I’ve also mentioned that for who are ready for it. I do also do one-on-one
couples coaching. I also work with a small handful of people who did the
betraying, the one who was unfaithful. I do offer spots there as well. You
can always email me with questions at andrea@andreagiles.com. You can also
go to my website to look at all the information on my group, and there will
be more information soon about couples coaching and things like that coming
up in the future.

Thank you so much for being here. I genuinely appreciate you taking your
time to be here. I also want to thank you for taking the time to go into
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means the world. It goes a long way and promoting this podcast for people
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much. I’ll see you next time. Take care.

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