What To Do After You’ve Been Cheated On

• David Tian Ph.D. gives advice on how to recover from a break up after you’ve been cheated on.
• David Tian Ph.D. emphasizes the importance of choosing your friends and your lovers wisely.
• In this Man Up episode, David Tian Ph.D recommends a “how to recover from a break up” course.

Boom! Stop. I’m David Tian, PhD, and in this video, I answer the question: What to do after you’ve been cheated on? Welcome to Man Up Episode 213.

Masculinity for the Intelligent Man. I’m David Tian, PhD., and this is Man Up!

Hey, I’m David Tian, PhD., and for over the past 10 years, I have been helping hundreds of thousands of people in over 87 countries attain success, happiness and fulfillment in life and love, and welcome to Man Up Episode 213. I’m here in Bangkok. It is rainy season, so it’s just rain, but it’s not raining right now so we’re coming out here on this balcony of my favorite shopping mall, Central Embassy, and we’re about to see a movie in my favorite movie theater. I thought we’d come out here and shoot this.

And the nice backdrop. I think they’re a bunch of embassies. It’s kind of weird because you can look down into embassies. I don’t know how secure this is, but I’m not exactly sure which embassies they are. There’s some nice hotels around here. It’s just a nice part of town, but the traffic at this time of day… Actually, it looks like it’s moving alright. Unpredictable.

But anyway, I got a question here and this is coming from Sergeant. I’m going to try to summarize this.

“My girlfriend cheated on me with some guy I’m assuming she met at her job.”

Okay, so a lot of the reason I chose this question is because I think a lot of guys can relate to it. I’m going to read about his venting and say that it’s totally okay for him to do this. You shouldn’t add onto it, your own guilt, for feeling the way you do. That’s one of the biggest lessons, and then I’ll give him the take away which is what he’s asking for. “What do I do next?”

Okay, some guy that the girlfriend met at her job, and he says, “I didn’t find out until after she said “We need to take a break” so she can figure stuff out because she felt bad for holding me back.” So she just says, “Hey, let’s take a break.” And then she cheats on him, and then she dumps him, which I will say is true that he’s been holding back. “I put a lot on hold for her because I loved her. She was my first long-term relationship for 4 years.” He’s 24. “And my one true love. I know our relationship hasn’t been that great, because I guess we were incompatible as she put it.”

“But I think what really happened is we both got lazy and we would have arguments about small things around the apartment. Totally normal. If you don’t know how to succeed in a long-term relationship, it will fall apart. And I’ve read statistics in all of the counseling books and long-term relationship books I’ve read, that less than 5% of couples actually will succeed. There’s about 50% of them who’ll just lead lives of quiet desperation and basically find significance in other areas of their lives like career, or in their children, or some other relationship. But then they stay together.

And then they get old, and then eventually nowadays, a lot of old people are getting divorced. A lot more than they used to. But anyway, it’s not that rare. If you think that getting into a relationship was the hard part, just getting the girlfriend, then you’re sorely mistaken and you got a big wake up call coming.

“Now, I haven’t been the greatest lately because I’m depressed with just stuff at home with her, and work, and finances. I found out she was cheating after she broke up with me when I checked her Facebook and saw her talking to the guy and her best friend who is an alcoholic druggie piece of shit. I know it’s wrong that I went through her messages, but at that point, I didn’t care and I still don’t care because it just made things easier for me to try and move on.” I totally agree. At that point, who fucking cares? You found it. You get this information and it makes it easier for you to move on.

“Either way, I’m really heartbroken as I know she probably is lying in bed with him right now after fucking each other. I know she is because I saw the messages. I cleared everything out of the apartment that I could and moved everything to my parent’s house while she was with him.” Yeah, that’s a good idea, actually. When you break up, you should move out of the apartment you guys share. “She doesn’t know it yet, though, that I took everything of mine and some things we co-purchased. I destroyed the bed frame and cut the mattress and threw it to the dumpster, ripped up our happy family picture.”

Yeah, you know, I don’t blame you. I suppose if you co-purchased it, maybe you owe her half that money back, but I mean, it’s a used mattress, I don’t think it’s worth that much. But I bet it made you feel real good. And after all, she did fuck you over. “I also cut the cord to the vacuum I bought because fuck her and her friends, and fuck them, and everybody who thinks it’s okay to cheat.”

I get it. They all know she was cheating on you with him, and they don’t care. They’re all siding with her, and so you’re bitter against all of them as well. I’m totally with you, man. Fuck them. The thing is, like most of the modern world, they don’t care. They have no morals. They have no good or evil. Whoever can get away with whatever they want. That’s why it’s a scary world, actually. And if you want to play the Machiavellian game, just get ahead and get as much as you can out of the world, which is the way most people live, actually. They only care about goodness when it benefits them.

Well, you got to be careful who you associate with. You got to be very careful because most of the world doesn’t give a fuck. Most of the world is not actually moral or morally good and they don’t care about things like that. And so, they’re like, “Aha, you cheated on him. Ahaha.” And they have no sense of this moral conviction or conscience. Or if they do, they seared their conscience so many times as youngsters that as 20-somethings, it doesn’t even matter to them anymore.

Well, maybe it’ll come and bite them in the ass later when they get fucked over and then they finally get some empathy, but who knows, right? At the moment, I understand your feelings.

“I also destroyed a wax mold thing of our hands we got at a fair. It may have been a little much, but I didn’t do anything to her stuff.” Totally cool, man. Destroy the fucking wax mold. In fact, I would recommend that you do that. If you’re not going to throw it away, you might as well destroy it, right?

“I did this all tonight when I couldn’t sleep, so I went over to the apartment and did this between about 3 hours going back and forth to my parents. I showed pictures but I didn’t take any. I’m lost and confused.”

First of all, all of that destruction, totally down with it. If it makes you feel better, go ahead and destroy it. She deserves it. And just get it out of your system. It’s much better to destroy it than to keep it, than to save it somewhere and harbor it in your heart. “Maybe there’s this possibility that we’ll get back together.” In fact, it’s better to just burn the bridges at this point. It’ll prevent you from going back and recreating that dynamic.

“I’m lost and confused, and I just want to get back out there because I don’t like being alone.” That’s bad. We all get it. You just got dumped and cheated on, so you have that void and that lack, and you are surprised by it, obviously. Maybe you saw it coming, but you were not prepared for it. You’re feeling that lack now, so that makes a lot of sense that you don’t like feeling alone. But that’s where you got to go. Go towards being alone. Spend more time alone. Travel alone. Spend more time with yourself. Feel that pain and sit with it. That’s all good.

Don’t distract yourself with other things. It’s good to hang out with friends at this point, but if you’re just doing it because you don’t want to be alone, that’s not good. As a man, face the fear of being alone. Learn how to be alone again. That’s a really important thing to do. “I’ve been with her for so long and haven’t really dated before her.” That’s tough. 24 years old, first girlfriend. “Do you have any suggestions on what to do next or what I should do with my situation?”

Yes. I have a free course on how to recover from a break up. In case you haven’t gotten it yet, get into the Man Up Facebook group, click on the pinned post or on the cover image, and just follow the instructions. Get the link and just go and get that course. That’s an amazing course. Everything I know about how to break up, how to recover from a break up, that’s what you need right now. And then most importantly, you need to learn why you were attracted to a woman like this and what’s wrong with you. It’s really important that you learn what’s wrong with you. It’s easy to say what’s wrong with her. It’s easy to say what’s wrong with other people, but you can’t change other people.

I mean, most of the world is messed up already. You can’t fully trust them anyway. That’s why it’s really important that you choose your friends wisely and you choose your lovers wisely. But you got to turn the mirror and look at yourself. That’s the most important takeaway for you from this point. What was it about her? Why didn’t you see the red flags? Why were you drawn to somebody who would later on cheat on you? Why were you a bad judge of character? Don’t make it like, “Oh, I was virtuous, and innocent, and I was blinded.”

No, there’s something about you psychologically that led you to that versus somebody who was trustworthy, one of the minority of people who are trustworthy. Because they’re out there. They’re a minority, but they’re there. Most of the time, if it’s your first relationship, and you’re 24, you probably had the kind of neediness there, childhood issues and neurosis, and that led to you being attracted to a certain type of person who would eventually cheat on you. That’s an important thing for you to learn and for you to grow and mature from there.

But start with the how to recover from a break up course. That’s in the pinned post. It’s in the free master class courses, and you can get that inside the Man Up Facebook group. If you’re watching this and you want to learn how to recover from a break up real quick, join the private Man Up Facebook group. Click the link below this video. Join the group. I’ll see you inside the group. I got to go watch this movie now. David Tian, signing out. Man Up!