Denial is a powerful tool. It took me months before I faced the difficult, painful fact that I was being cheated on. Not to use a cliche but a girl just knows. Everytime I confronted him about his suspicious behavior, I got the table turned right on me with the classic cheater retorts: "You're paranoid." "You don't trust me?!" "You're just insecure about my friendship with her." I was seeing inappropriate things with my own eyes. Yet I was told I was crazy for assuming anything inappropriate was going on. I was hearing about his so-called "friendly" rendezvous' with her from witnesses, but of course, that was just "hearsay." The whole office observed their indiscreet flirting - while our own relationship remained private, per his stipulations, obviously - and he just dismissed it as "gossip." I wanted to believe him, so I did. But all of his defensive explanations were inconsistent with the reality I observed and heard about on a daily basis. The extent of his fooling around was never clear - and to this day I still don't know all the things they did. But I was certain about two things: 1) while we were in a relationship of 6 months (after a year of friendship), he repeatedly crossed the emotional and physical boundaries of what is appropriate with someone who is not your girlfriend, and 2) regardless of what he was or wasn't doing with her, it bothered and upset me. I asked him to stop. But he didn't care. How can someone genuinely love you when he disregards your objections to his behavior and continues to deliberately hurt you? After those long months of fighting, attempting to reason with and trying to get through to him (but all I got was a brick wall), I began to seriously re-evaluate my self-value and self-respect, morals and expectations in a relationship. Not to mention the helpful, loving support I got from my friends. I snapped out of it and what resulted was a rage within me that I had never felt before. I didn't recognize myself. I had to keep working in the same office with him and her after our break-up, and the rage I felt from every encounter with them was indescribable. Rage that I tolerated him, rage that he was completely blind to the pain he caused, rage that he was even trying to dupe me, rage that I had been in denial, rage that I put myself through it for 30 seconds let alone as many months as I did. The last time I saw him was a year ago at a goodbye party for him and other coworkers leaving the office. It was unfortunate the way it ended but I was thankful he was out of sight, out of mind.
Until Friday.
I walked into the office of an attorney I was working with and there he was, sitting in the visitor chair. I said hi. He said "sup." (Not making that up). I got some documents from the attorney, turned around and walked out. I felt nothing. Well, except the awkwardness that hung in the room. The brief encounter brought on this post. I have been thinking about the wide spectrum of cheating, the betrayal, and the reasons some people tolerate it. It is a very subjective, personal issue for each person that experiences it. What is officially considered cheating? Where do you draw the line? Is emotional attachment to another person considered cheating? Or does there have to be physical acts in order to deem the behavior "cheating?" I think it all depends on the seriousness of the relationship, and the value of the person in your life. Have you been dating for 6 months? Or have you been married for 6 years? Were the cheating offenses just a one-time event? Or an ongoing, long-term affair? What is the value of this person in your life? And is the trust between you reparable? Clearly for me, he wasn't worth it. I decided he was not someone I could trust nor someone I had respect for any longer, because he would never take responsibility for his actions. But I am thankful for the experience I had. It was probably one of the most painful but significant relationship lessons I've learned.
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6 comments:
Cheating is something selfish and cowardly people do. They want whatever you provide plus more. And this story isn't unique to men anymore. Women are cheating for the same reasons, they want more. Why can't people just admit that and refrain from being in an exclusive relationship until they're truly ready and have found that person? By the way, is your whatever attitude about marriage in any way related to this experience?
common: can i get an amen. you might know better than me but i, personally, haven't known of any girls cheating first. i really don't think it's out of them wanting "more" like men do. men want their cake and to eat it too. women either do it to make their bf's jealous b/c they're not getting enough att'n, or out of revenge. i don't think it's b/c they can't control their raging hormones and just can't get enough lovin', like their disloyal counterparts :).
no, the cheating experience taught me a lot, but it did not, in any way, influence my views on marriage. i never ever wanted to marry that dude...it was not that serious. did it affect my trust in men? probably...i'm just more cautious and wary of the red flags now, and the quality/values and intentions of a guy i'm interested in. marriage is a different topic altogether.
Girls don't cheat first?! Who are you? Do you grow up on the island of the Amazons or something? What world are you living in? There are plenty of girls cheating out there precisely cause they also want their "cake and eat it too."
Point is, there are plenty of people who commit to exclusivity too early or for the wrong reasons, and by the time they realize it, they decide it's better to sneak off with someone else instead of breaking it off.
You obviously believe women are perfect and incapable of such a thing, but I am here to tell you, you would be wrong. If you don't know of any girl who has cheated, that just means you haven't talked to a whole lot of girls. 'Nuff said.
as a close friend, i hated to see you go through that ordeal. the main problem there was he didn't know how to man up to what he was doing or thinking. If he would just have taken responsibility, you guys may have been able to figure out what the problem was and figure out what to do from there. it would be hard for me, personally, to forgive cheating, but because I was raised thinking, once you cheat it's easier to cheat again. As for women not cheating first, I know plenty of women who cheated first. A couple of girls that I knew and more male friends who got cheated on. I saw how it crushed them, and they were affected as equally. sometimes i think their pride may have been affected more, especially since they are the man, and it's more normal for the man to cheat, not to be cheated on. Anyway, it's wrong for anyone to cheat on someone else. It falls under dishonesty. That's one thing I hate, dishonesty.
ok let me clarify. i'm not generalizing and saying "women never cheat." of course i don't believe that. in fact, higher percentages of women cheat in marriage than men - something like 60% against 50% (thanks, oprah). however, we can argue about men's versus women's motivations to cheat...not that any motivation is justified. but we can't know unless we are in that person's shoes. is honesty always the best policy? there are so many different degrees of cheating on the spectrum, and that was the original point of my post. but in my specific situation, in a casual relationship, honesty would have been best. and would have saved a lot of unnecessary angst, stress and wasted time. plus, isn't it harder to handle more than one woman (or man) at a time :)?
true that! unless you have an agreement on polygamy ;)
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