#803 Treating Predators & Infidelity - Dr. Monique Thompson#803 Treating Predators & Infidelity - Dr. Monique Thompson
Mental Illness Happy Hour
Paul Gilmartin speaks with Dr. Monique Thompson about treating sexual predators and supporting couples after infidelity, highlighting assessment, safety, and repair. Their conversation also touches on self-compassion, deep self-listening and the hard work required from both cheaters and betrayed partners.
1:44:04•5 Jun 2026
Honesty After Harm: Dr. Monique Thompson on Predators, Affairs and Healing
Episode Overview
- People with deviant sexual arousal generally understand that their behaviour is illegal and morally wrong, which shapes how treatment is structured.
- Effective management for sexual offenders relies on strict lifelong boundaries, ongoing specialised therapy, and acceptance that some situations must always be avoided.
- After infidelity, many betrayed partners first need trauma-focused support and stabilisation before making major relationship decisions.
- Those who have cheated are urged to make living and direct amends without over-promising, and to accept that their partner may or may not choose reconciliation.
- Deep, regular self-listening and self-compassion help both partners move from panic and shame towards more honest, grounded choices.
“People do know right from wrong. They especially know legal versus illegal… The hiding of it is universal.”
What drives someone to seek a life without secrecy, shame and double lives? This conversation between Paul Gilmartin and therapist Dr. Monique Thompson looks straight at two hugely loaded topics: predatory sexual behaviour and infidelity, and asks what real treatment and repair can look like. You’ll hear Dr. Thompson, a Licensed Professional Counsellor, talk frankly about running court‑mandated groups for registered sex offenders and why “people do know right from wrong” even when deviant arousal is present.
She explains assessment tools like the plethysmograph, the lifelong need for strict boundaries and ongoing therapy, and why she’s comfortable saying that for some people, permanent sexual abstinence may be the safest choice. The focus then shifts to couples, where Dr. Thompson specialises in helping partners after affairs.
She shares how her own long marriage has benefited from a full year of couples therapy, describing it as a “big tsunami” that led to “a beautiful… amazing world” between her and her husband. From there, she walks through what happens to the nervous system after betrayal, why some people need an ICU‑level response of medical, emotional and practical support, and why decision‑making about the relationship usually needs to be postponed.
Her guidance for both cheaters and betrayed partners is refreshingly concrete: make “living and direct amends” where possible, avoid over‑promising, and build a support team. Throughout, she comes back to one core skill: learning to pause and listen deeply to the “felt sense of self”, treating boredom, urges and painful emotions as messengers rather than enemies.
If you’re wrestling with cheating, recovering from being cheated on, or trying to understand harmful sexual behaviour, this episode offers careful, clinical detail without shying away from the hard questions. What would change for you if you actually trusted your gut and gave yourself the time to hear it?
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