204. Why Smart People Struggle More After Betrayal (Not Less) Pt 1

If you're usually good at solving problems, betrayal can be uniquely frustrating.

You're used to something going wrong, gathering the information, understanding what happened and figuring out what to do next.

So when infidelity happens, you naturally try to do the same thing.

Why did they do it?

What did I miss?

What does this mean?

What should I do now?

How can I make sure it never happens again?

You research. Replay conversations. Ask more questions. Run different scenarios. Perhaps you listen to another podcast episode hoping this will finally be the one that makes everything click.

But what if the problem isn't that you haven't figured it out yet?

What if you're trying to solve something that was never really a puzzle in the first place?

In this short episode, I explore why our ability to analyse and problem-solve can sometimes work against us after betrayal - and how thinking can quietly shift from a useful attempt to understand what happened into a sophisticated way of avoiding what we're actually feeling.