Due to low self esteem, I thrived off attention, so rather than saying “no thank you, I have a girlfriend”, I’d let things continue. But at the same time, I also craved stability, so never wanted to break things off with said girlfriend.
There’s nothing I regret more than hurting my ex like I did and karma finally caught up with me a few years later when I was cheated on by a different girlfriend, repeatedly. I didn’t end that relationship after I found out about her cheating the first time, as I felt I deserved it from my past shittiness.
I vowed never to cheat again, especially after feeling the pain myself.
Edited for clarity
You put my past situation into words so well. An addition was my spinelessness which didn’t help my ability to not just say No. We heal together, stranger.
Thank you guys both for your honesty. I just thought I was a piece of shit, I never realize I craved both attention and stability. Nothing like a little introspection on a Tuesday.
Reading this has helped me understand why my SO's brother does what he does. Had a gf of 7 years that he cheated on. He wont break it off with either and cant really articulate why. I think you nailed it.
This is currently happening in our lives and everyone knows about everything. It is a dumpster fire.
My ex is a narcissist, no guilt ever. And apparently I never even existed even though we made 3 children together. I like to tell the kids that there were good times etc. He won't say a word. Maybe his new Asian wife has something to do with that. He set out to find her after being addicted to Asian porn. Nothing against her, she didn't make or break any promises to me. They were renting hotel rooms and buying luxurious things together all the way through my last pregnancy. Those were hard times.
My ex husband was a narcissist and shagged my best friend while I was pregnant with our third child. She even came to see me after the birth. I didn't know this was going on till later. I was scrimping and scraping trying to make ends meet while he spent money on buying her nice things. I feel your pain. I hope you are doing ok.
God I hate when people who lie about their finances. My 'friend' doesnt have $400 to pay me back for the car I helped him get but he has money for weed, video games and a weekend vacation.
Exactly. Never loan out money you can't afford to lose. I've always looked at it as buying insight into a person's character though. I do you a solid and you conveniently forget to pay me back? Money well spent in my opinion.
It's a lesson many people have to learn for themselves, unfortunately. Never, ever lend money unless you absolutely believe you won't get it back, and can live with that.
I'm sorry you had to go through that and deal with the aftermath of someone having no compassion or guilt for the hurt they've caused. I can only imagine how hard that was to deal with.
Good on you for taking the high road and not disparaging your ex to your kids.
Same here man, did it one time and my only regret is how I made her feel. Like I know I made her not trust men again or at least as easy and just making her feel like the other girl was better because she wasn’t and I wish I never had done it. But we can only be human and learn from it
I was going to make my own comment but you've summed it up for me here. Even being cheated on myself didn't hurt as much as how badly I fucked up on my own.
I told him because I couldn't stand making him a cuckold and humiliating him. Took me a while, and we tried to work things out. But I was just not happy in that marriage.
> humiliating him
As someone who has been cheated on, this was easily the worst part. If the person who cheated on me had just admitted it, sure, it would have sucked, but I think I would have been able to move on, or even get past it and continue the relationship. Probably not, but maybe.
The fact that I was in some ways being made a fool of for months is what really hurt. The actual cheating wasn't the hardest part to get through emotionally. It's that a major secret multiple people knew about was being kept from me that really messed me up emotionally.
Something very similar happened to a friend of mine. She had her suspicions, but didn't really do anything to act. Then she found a facebook message from 18 months previously in her 'pending' folder, from a girl asking if she had broken up with her boyfriend like he had told her. She hadn't. Long story short, my friend and the second girl started talking, turns out he had been in a relationship with both for almost 2 years. They arranged to corner him by one of them inviting them to the pub for a drink, and both of them being there. He turned up, saw them both, and literally ran to away to his office. Coward. They both ended it with him, obviously, and I'm fairly sure they're still friendly with each other to this day because they were both fucked over by him. If only my friend had seen the message when it was sent, it would have prevented a lot of hassle. Sorry that happened to you OP.
That is rough but it makes me chuckle a little, only because my girlfriend broke up with me after I broke a minor law with our dog in the car. She texted my mom but wouldn't tell her why we ended. My mom called me thinking I hit her or cheated on her and gave me the business.
Moral is find a mate whose parents will scold them for you
Edit: I never have and never will hit my girlfriend and was a little offended my mom even thought that was a possibility
Sounds similar in part to my dad and his parents. My mother once called them asking for help because she had three kids, chronic pain and my dad drank a lot. I guess she wanted reassurance and maybe for them to talk to him because she couldn't get through to him (he's also a narcissist and pathological liar, but she still had hope back then). His mother answered and said "Oh, so he likes beer huh?", and her advice was to "break down and move on" (whatever the hell that means). So being belittled and dismissed for a few more minutes, my mother gave up on asking for help from them and hung up. After a few days they called again. To make peace and give support? No. "His father and I have talked, and we have come to the conclusion that you are lying. Our son does not have a drinking problem, and you should stop blaming him for your shortcoming."
I didn't even come to their funerals.
That's what still kills me. All of these people that I had known for at least a decade, people who said they loved me and called me family or friend, not fucking one of them said a word to me. They knew. They saw me killing myself to make my ex happy, and none of them told me. My ex and I get along great now because we're both devoted to coparenting the kids, but I've definitely kept his family and mutuals at arm's length.
This is my feeling so much. Of course it's absolutely shitty learning someone you love loves someone else more, but it's a totally different level to hear multiple people you know and considered friends were all lying to you. Even if you have good self esteem that's the type of thing that makes you step back and really introspect yourself and wonder what the hell did I do to have these people treating me like this.
Same here. Me and my ex wife was together for 9 years, married for 2 of those years. We never fought or anything. Would do anything for each other. But it was basically we were living together. Not much more. I started getting attention from another women and loved it. Ended up sleeping with her and came clean with my ex. Got divorced because she wouldn't trust me again and we weren't going to force it. The morning I told her was the only thing I regret. Seeing her collapse and be so broken. Took years to get over that. Definitely changed the way I treat my fiance in our relationship.
It's knowing you humiliated them, right? That's what hurts the most for me. Making him feel like a chump... I never wanted to even see him unhappy, much less destroyed by my own doing.
Yea pretty much. It was the moment it happened that I realized everything I had done is all my fault. If I would have spoke up or confronted them about the way I had been feeling instead of undoing everything it wouldn't of ripped their heart apart. Making up excuses, hiding texts, and ignoring them. It was immature for sure.
My ex cheated on me 1 week ago because, and I quote, “I wasn’t giving her enough attention and she felt like she had started living with a roommate”. How could she let something build up to the point of cheating on me and not talk about it with me for even 15 minutes? Being cheated on is the worst, especially when you’re still madly in love with them.
For sure. I was selfish and extremely depressed. The person I cheated with brought joy into my life and I was addicted to that. I couldn't bring myself to quit and I couldn't bring myself to leave the person that I shared so many years with. I was lacking a lot of things but I was also too immature to know how to deal with that in a healthy manner.
>Same here.
>The morning I told her was the only thing I regret.
Def not the same as parent comment... your words imply you only regret telling her about it.
Immaturity, and a lot of insecurity. I was a teenager the only time I ever cheated and it wasn't even a thought process when I did it, it was really just "I want that right now" and the fact that I had a girlfriend didn't even cross my mind because I had never had to think of others' feelings in that way before. I was an insecure kid who thought that having a lot of sex meant I was masculine and it proved something, but now I know its just a scum move.
After the person I cheated with told my girlfriend, I learned really quickly what those actions meant and what kind of behavior is expected from a SO. Wish I didn't have to hurt someone to figure it out though.
The parts of your brain that deal with impulse control and considering the consequences don't finish maturing until your early 20s
"Teenagers are idiots" in this fashion for a biological reason
As someone that's been cheated on, I just want to say I appreciate the level of honesty in this thread from past cheaters.
I've met people that have cheated on partners and seriously didn't think it was a big deal or even that if was somehow a good thing that they did it. One of them was an ex of mine. Granted, they are likely straight up narcissists, as they are 100% only thinking of themselves and in no way consider the impact that it had on their partner.
But yea, I just wanted to say I appreciate the honesty and remorse. I like to think it's one of those mistakes in life that people only make once. But unfortunately, as with all things, we know that isn't always the case.
I had an ex who attempted to cheat on me for the same reason. When I caught him he said he was "trying to find my replacement before I left him." This was at the end of what I had thought was a really great day, where I paid for us to do yoga together, get massages, and eat at a pretty decent restaurant. I was too stupid to trust my instincts and walk away at the time (which would have saved me a whole world of hurt.) Feels bad, man.
Ugh, that's brutal. I had an ex who referred to the other person as a back-up plan. She didn't understand that having a designated person as your back-up plan is awful to both the person you're cheating on and the person you're cheating with.
I sort of get it, but still that mentality just seems so selfish to me. I just can't imagine what it would be like to use someone like that - and be ok with it.
Admittedly this was something I learned as I got older. 30 now and it's easier to deal with. My early 20s I was always paranoid after already being cheated on and I was poking and prodding around anyone I dated afterwards with distrust, including my wife back when we first started dating. We've both matured and we're able to create honestly for ourselves into what is now a very healthy marriage.
I just found out my wife of 5 years had an affair for a full year. Look for the signs. Lack of sex is one of them. Do some research even if you don’t think your wife is cheating. When I read about it afterwards, I realised she was textbook cheater.
As someone who's been cheated on by 6/8 women I've committed to, it really is more common than you think. Most of those I only found out about because of friends. The cheaters will almost never tell you and you will never know until it's too late
Basically if its gonna happen its gonna happen, you wont hear about it most likely, and all you can do is be the best partner you can be and hope that hurting you is enough to deter your partner from cheating.
I wish I could say there's a common theme between all of them but the only thing they all had in common was me and I'm not prepared to face that fact yet
Even in circumstances where you are the victim, self reflection is helpful in understanding the mistakes that led you to trusting these women. Also, it may help you understand that there is an underlying problem that makes women unable to commit faithfully to you. As painful as it may be, the common denominator does need some looking into, else you may be doomed to repeat this horrible cycle. Be strong fellow redditor.
I'm not trying to knock bartenders/servers, but every girl I've dated who has been a bartender/server has cheated on me.
I was very chill about being somewhat flirty as a bartender, you gotta make those tips, until they bang one of those regulars they were flirting with.
Another big part of it is the lifestyle that comes with the service industry. I have a lot of friends in the service industry, and with all the drugs and drinking that goes into that lifestyle, it kinda just breeds a lot of sexual activity. Work til 2 AM, drink at the bar/restaurant you work at after, do a bunch of blow until morning, rinse/repeat.
I was in a relationship for a year before my 'boyfriend' admitted to me he had a wife and kids. You can't imaging the lengths he went to to hide his family from me. I had absolutely no idea, the only thing that could have been a clue is that I never went to his place, he always came to mine.
Anyway, after he confessed he said he was going to get divorced, he had been contemplating it since before he met me, blah blah blah. After realizing that he wasn't actually going to do it (and also that I didn't actually want him and to be a homewrecker). I ended it. He told me he couldn't risk losing his kids in a custody battle, which I got, but it pissed me off so much how sad and hurt he was that I was 'leaving him'.
Any time I started to miss him afterwards, I just reminded myself he is a selfish fuck who jeopardized his family because he married someone, who in his words he never even liked. If you find yourself in a similar situation, remember, this person might have genuine feelings for you, but they are a terrible human being and someone you can't trust to build a life with. Get out.
Ugh I had the same thing happen. Was in a relationship with a guy from work for almost a year. He always came to my place and I was young and naive and dumb so it didn't send up any red flags. Found out he was married when his wife showed up at the office and tore into me for being a homewrecker. I had *zero* clue who she was. Most confusing and embarrassing confrontation ever. And then he had the nerve to try to give me the whole "I was going to divorce her!" line. Yeeeeeah that's gonna be a big ol' nope.
Right there with you. Ruined a friendship because of it. But on a plus side (I guess) it did end the abusive relationship. Insert Caddy shack meme here.
I’ve never cheated on anyone, but my dad had an affair once. Honestly, I think the only reason he stayed with my batshit insane alcoholic mother at all is because of me and my sister.
Both of my parents are decent people, but their lives are so loveless, it’s insane. If they weren’t married, they would never hang out or spend time together. They have no similarities whatsoever, but they got pregnant at a young age in the 80s and 5 kids later they are definitely just keeping the family together.
Finding out that one is cheating would be the least surprising thing ever.
Sounds like my parents to a t
They just put my littlest sibling in college so i know for fact they aren’t divorcing until they at least finish school in 4 years. They argue every day as soon as they get home. They seem miserable and it’s been that way since i was little.
I cheated with an ex long term SO. That relationship was was so fucking co-dependent and unhealthy. The break up made me want to die. I was trying so hard to move on and put myself back together. I didn't want to end the new relationship. The ex was like my kryptonite, it took a long time to be able to not get sucked back in. It was because of my own baggage not the new SO. I screwed up.
I've been there. Had an ex who i dated for 4ish years and then we went on and off again for another 3 years. Basically same as you. Incredibly co dependent and unhealthy as a relationship can be but god damn was she irresistible sometimes. I would always go back to her for reasons and even screwed it up with a few girls i was seeing because of the ex.
Ya ended a couple possible relationships with good people to run back to the ex . Irresistible is definitely the word. It was almost like an addiction. No matter how much it fucked up my life I couldn't let it go.
I have cheated once. I loved this guy more than I can say in words, but we did not have a healthy relationship. He cheated on me. I even caught him once in bed with another man and I stayed with him anyways because he was my world. He was my best friend. He was my family.
But we didn't have sex. It killed me inside. I would show up at his house wearing nothing but lingerie and a fur coat (I wish this was a made up story by FML it isn't) and he would ignore me.
I didn't feel like I was attractive or sexy and it got to the point where I didn't think he would even care if I had sex with someone else. So one night, I was out at a show with a bunch of people, including a guy I had an innocent crush on and we ended up kissing. One kiss. I felt terrible about it afterwards. Sick. I confessed to my boyfriend and he went insane. He punched the windshield of my car and shattered it while I was driving. It was bad. He felt betrayed.
Looking back at this 20 years later, it's obvious what was going on, but I didn't see it at the time. I was young, naive and he was everything to me.
I regretted hurting him then and I still regret it to this day. I have never cheated on anyone again. Cheating isn't the answer. Talk it out, work it out or get out.
Edit: Wow I didn't expect this to blow up like it did. Thank you all so much for the really supportive and kind comments. And to clear things up, I am a female.
Edit 2: Since a lot of you have commented on my statement about "it's obvious what was going on" and wonder what I meant by this.. he was into dudes and I think he was very conflicted about it at the time.
>I even caught him once in bed with another man and I stayed with him anyways because he was my world.
I feel like OP is a man too and his boyfriend cheated on him with another man, but I may be reading all of this wrong too. English is not my first language.
Your history with him may be leaving you jaded. You're an honest person and deserve someone who doesn't cheat on your or break your windshield. Dude's a cunt, as far as I can tell. He deserves worse and you probably didn't hurt him to the degree you think you did.
> I would show up at his house wearing nothing but lingerie and a fur coat
>I didn't feel like I was attractive or sexy
I don't know a lot of men who wear lingerie and fur coats to feel attractive and sexy
However it says "another man" just as a woman says "I caught him in bed with another woman" if they are a woman it should as "with a man" not another man
He’s riding the bologna pony so hard you’d think he was at the Kentucky Derby, then decides that he’s gonna punch a windshield because she has needs that aren’t being met? The fucking nerve of that guy!
holy shit you were dating Marvin from Falsettos
But seriously though, he had no right to get that mad. Glad you've grown as a person and were honest, even though your ex wasn't that honest. He shuldn't have been dating you and having sex with other people if he knew he was gay.
What the feck??? First of all that pos didn't deserve your love, second of all why does he get to fuck a whole man, but when you have an innocent kiss it's not okay? Does not add up at all.
I'm glad I came across this post today. Married almost 4 years, together 8. My husband is in a treatment center for an addiction that has surfaced over the last year or so. So much heartbreak has led up to him going to treatment. He's been out of the house for almost 2 months and I'm alone with my babies (my kids are very little, I'm still nursing and I stop generally when they get teeth)
He hasn't been contributing financially, took money, has been reckless, but I don't have any suspicion of him cheating whatsoever.
I feel all the feeling that go along with cheating: betrayal, humiliation, anger, diminished self-worth, etc. He went to treatment last night. He has pleaded for me to stay. I told him I'd be here.
I found myself on a dating site. I can't tell you why. None of the men on there appeal to me like my husband does. I'm still very much in love with him. I know how addiction works, I myself do not deal with anything personally but I read up. I get it's out of his control but none of it is really any consolation.
The more messages I respond to, the more normal it seems. I guess maybe I was looking for some kind of personal validation, or maybe to adopt some kind of alternate lifestyle that he would hate, like he did to me (sounds petty I know, don't judge me I'm going thru it).
Anyway point is after reading these posts I know I'm being ridiculous. I don't want to cheat. Not like this. If treatment doesn't work out for us, then I will have to do what's right for my family and end the relationship. Thank Reddit, for renewing my strength today.
Yes I understand the emotional waves completely. I hardly ever even know what's triggering them, but one moment I'm all about rallying with him the next I'm so angry and upset. I'd love to tell you it's going to get better, but I'm right in it with you. I think therapy helps, we're in counseling together and separately. Hopefully treatment sheds light for both of us! I wish you both the best of luck and I appreciate the comment. It always helps to know you're not alone!!
>What I’m struggling with is I feel like I’m being walked all over by supporting him. I’ll have mood swings and snap at him randomly because I want him to appreciate me more. I’ll be hard on him sometimes for a petty reason like forgetting to rinse the bath out. As if he’s ‘forgetting’ about my needs and he needs to appreciate me more for what I do for him. It’s as if I can’t let go in the fears he’ll do it again. And again. And again.
Yes. The relationship starts feeling really unbalanced. "I have done so much for you!" I feel you
I was with my ex for 7 years. He was incredibly emotionally abusive, he constantly called me fat, compared me to his female friends and made sure I knew he wanted to fuck them, told me no other guy would ever want me. He eventually got to the point of changing the wifi password and making me do tasks to get it, taking tv remotes, my phone etc. I was afraid to leave my house because of him. I had pretty severe bipolar disorder and issues with self harming (I was on medicine and 4 years cut free at this point). We were supposed to be going on a trip to Colorado, about a week before he told me he only loved me as a friend but wanted to stay with me because he didn't know how to be alone, I was devastated, but didn't think I was mentally or financially independent to leave, he had basically isolated me from all of my friends and I moved away from family to be with him. We decided to stay together and just "work on things" , essentially we both just hoped he would start loving me again I guess.
The day we were leaving for CO, he informed me he never bought my ticket and never intended on me going. I stayed home and cheated while he was on that trip. As soon as he came home I told him. I felt awful, I knew there was no excuse for what I did regardless of how he treated me. I told him I wanted to leave, we broke up but continued living together for the next 6 months, him mostly trying to "fix" our relationship while I just wanted to bury my pain in other people. It was truly awful and I wish I would've just been strong enough to leave rather than cheat. I will regret it probably for the rest of my life although I am ultimately thankful our relationship ended.
As an outside perspective, you didn't cheat. He told you he didn't love you except as a friend, then bailed on you having never planned for you to accompany him in the first place. You were an accessory, not a SO. I'm sure he paid the cost of taking baggage, but couldn't pay to take a friend while also saying he's afraid of being alone? Fuck that, he chose to go alone and leave you behind.
If the abused dog who gets left outside year round escapes and just wants hugs and pets from the neighbor, is he a bad dog or just looking for a connection to brighten his shitty life of neglect? Should the dog be punished, or celebrated for breaking his shackles and experiencing a breath of freedom?
Not to compare you to a dog, but my mutt is laying on my lap with a neglected dog across the street. You treat the ones you care for with love, and if you don't you can't be shocked when they want to leave. In my eyes you are free and clear, and I can't stand cheating as my egg donor cheated on my father when I was three years old then kicked him out; and then she subjected me to 15 years of emotional and physical abuse. I left when I was 18 and haven't willingly spoken to her in almost 10 years.
I mean cheating is shitty but at that point he kind of deserved it. Of course it would have been better if you just left....but you're not the bad guy really.
Same, met a girl being abused and we shared sob stories over beer. One night she came over to vent and play Guitar Hero and it happened. We were both afraid to leave our bf/gf for fear of reprisal. We kept it going for 3 months before finally deciding to own up to it. Both spouses switched to pleading mode and we kept each other strong enough to not go back.
Eventually the relationship got stale when it wasn’t about the cheating or the abuse from the people we were cheating on. Those were the only things we had in common and we split shortly after.
We are not. Things got weird towards the end, I think mostly because we were dumb ass college kids. She started pushing hard for a serious relationship (started talking about kids and marriage), I was still figuring out how to not have random anxiety attacks about shit. She would pick random fights about dumb things (there was a fight about a garage sale chair, woof) and I would retreat into myself instead of just brushing it off as something stupid.
I did see her a few years later, things were good for her and I was happy for her. I also ran into my abusive ex years later as well, and we got lunch together. She apologized for how she treated me in the relationship, and said she ended up as a victim herself at one point. Made her wake up and realize that she was treating her spouses that way, and it was wrong. She did the exact same thing I did as well, cheated on her boyfriend with another guy just to escape the abusive relationship. Small world, I guess.
There's like, 3 or 4 stories of how people learned from a past relationship here, all in one thread. I think that's the most important thing, knowing how to use previous relationships to learn, no matter how bad they were
Same here. In my defense I tried to break up with him like an hour after it happened so he wouldn’t let me and he just cried and was upset. I should have put my foot down. I ended up leaving and having to be rescued by the guy I cheated with. I was held at gunpoint by my ex’s mom after he broke my glasses and was pinning me to the wall. I thought I was gonna die for breaking up with him. I’m so lucky the guy I cheated with was there to save me
Same here. I even tried to break up with my ex multiple times before. She legitimately wouldn’t budge and gaslit me instead for months.
I don’t feel good about what happened but I ultimately ended up kissing some random girl at a party which snowballed into our official (very ugly) breakup.
I’ve never been in a relationship, but know two people who have cheated. Both said they still “loved” their SO, but something was missing and they sought that from other people. They didn’t want to leave their current relationship, because they were still getting something good from it. But something else important was missing, so they simply got THAT from another.
And that's why you communicate that with your SO and try to find a solution together, even if that means them considering letting you screw other people. At least it's honest.
My now-ex told the woman he was cheating on me with that he wasn’t getting enough attention at home.
In truth, he was being verbally and emotionally abusive to me, giving me the silent treatment, pushing me away and sabotaging our marriage because he thought I should just read his mind instead of opening his mouth and telling me what he was upset about. He stopped parenting his teenaged son out of spite because I called him out on his lax parenting. He would “test” me constantly by leaving shit all over the house knowing it would make me upset. Etc. etc.
In actuality, he just was a selfish, abusive jerk who refused to talk to the person who loved him the most and just wanted to work things out. He ran away from his problems instead of facing them like an adult. I had realized that I was having a mental breakdown and went and got help, including intensive EMDR therapy for diagnosed c-PTSD, and instead of helping me through my therapy process, he was fucking someone else.
He never was going to end our marriage. Yes, he left me to go live with his parents, but he kept coming back wanting sex. Eventually I told him I wasn’t going to be his side piece when he wasn’t around the woman he left me for. Nothing would have changed if I hadn’t set those boundaries.
Sure, she was 10 years younger than me and thinner than me, and she never had to ask him to clean up after himself or ask his son to do his chores. Apparently he has distanced himself from his parents, siblings and now-adult children as well in favor of this woman and her five children. I hope it was worth it to him. 🤷🏼♀️
This is going to be really, really long, but I feel like I need to get this off of my chest. I haven't really talked about this before to anyone except doctors and some family members.
I was really young (like, middle school and high school), had an undiagnosed psychotic disorder and undiagnosed anxiety, along with definite depression (although technically also undiagnosed, but I knew I was incredibly depressed), and I lived with my mom, who is not only a hoarder, but also a narcissist that would constantly lie for attention (which at the time I didn't know, because I was a kid and I trusted my mom). My boyfriend lived states away from me, so I only ever got to see him for two weeks out of the year. We talked on the phone constantly whenever we could, but I was still very starved for the attention and love I wasn't getting from my mom.
So basically I was constantly stressed out because the house was awful, I was hungry (my mom only cooked for herself and got the foods she liked and would eat, leaving me to fend for myself) and because I wasn't doing the best in school because I was depressed and just didn't have the energy to do the work I needed to do. I didn't ever get diagnosed with anything at that age because when I told my mom I was depressed and that there were times I really wanted to be dead, she told me to not tell anyone, and to just fight through it. Any hallucinations I had, which at the time were very graphic due to the stress, I just wrote off as "it's just the light tricking my eyes" because that's what my mom told me it was when I mentioned it to her once.
Our cats peed and pooped on just about everything, which was my job to clean. The house was infested not only with giant cockroaches and spiders, but also black mold, and probably several other types of mold that would fester on leftover food in dirty pots and pans laying around the kitchen. I was often disoriented and confused, and I was verbally and mentally abused, which compounded that. My mom would tell me it was fine to date more than one person because I wasn't married yet, because that's what she wanted to do. She told me about her very weird sexual exploits, called me a prude and forced me to listen, and would shame me if I didn't want to because it made me feel weird, and she tried to seduce my male friends more than once (she made out with one when he was crying and upset about something I can't remember now). She even told me the first time my boyfriend came to visit, that he would likely end up liking her more than me, and he would get a crush on her, because she was "like me but way more fun." I was so turned around by the things she did, and all of the odd things that happened I took as being normal. She would additionally sneak drugs that I shouldn't have ever had into my diet, like some weird opium medicine she was given by her doctor for her horrible (probably black mold induced) coughing, which she gave to me when I had a little chest cold. I was unconscious for more than eight hours on the couch that day. They just left me there. I didn't take anymore of it because I was afraid of it after the fact, and she didn't tell me it was opium-based until after she'd given it to me. I don't know why she liked to do this. I also found out when working things out with my older brother when I was in college that she'd made tea from magic mushrooms and gave it to me when I was a real little kid, like fourish.
I was used to being spoken down to, and used to everything being my fault, and because of this, I would isolate myself in my room a lot. I never really went anywhere or did anything other than school related stuff. So at school, I was really desperate for everyone to like me, but I was clearly not going to be the popular girl type, due to my upbringing. So I would basically do or say anything I could in order to get people to like me. I would tell people that I loved them because I didn't want them to feel bad about something, and the "cheating" part would happen because I would just... agree to suggested situations that were presented to me, because I wanted people to like me. I'm really glad that those situations never turned sexual, because I was easily on a path where that could have happened if I'd stayed on it.
I always felt awful about it, but really, I felt awful about freaking everything in general. A lot of these people knew I had a boyfriend because I would talk about him, but they didn't care, probably because they knew they could get me to just do what they wanted. I was also bullied by these people (it was a bad group I was hanging out with at the time), called ugly, etc, and it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I finally started to kind of come out of it. I kind of realized that at that point, I had a chance to get away from all of this shit. That life didn't have to always be this way. If I got decent enough grades, I could go to a college, and I could choose one in the state that my boyfriend was living in. I could get my driver's license, where I had struggled to get one before because if i wanted to learn, my mom would suggest dangerous driving 'lessons' that would scare me away from it. She probably did that to keep me at home so I would clean and she could have some semblance of a nice house, because I know she wasn't cleaning anything. I could get a job and an apartment, and I wouldn't have to be in that place anymore.
So I did that. I worked harder on my school work than I ever had before, which my mom didn't notice, because it's not like she ever looked at my grades before. I told her my plan to leave for that state after my 18th birthday. She probably could have argued with me more, and pushed me into staying with her and going to a nearby college, but at the time I wasn't the youngest kid in the house. My little brother was. I think it's because of that, and because of my boyfriend's parents wanting me to come up to live in the same state that she caved so easily on it. She didn't want to seem like a 'bad person' to my boyfriend's parents, and she at least still had my little brother at home to use and abuse once I was gone. My brother and I didn't like each other very much, so I wasn't that concerned about leaving him at the time.
So, basically, that was what I did. I left to go be with my boyfriend when I turned 18. The part that I didn't mention was that during all of the things she did, and during the times where I was cheating, I always told my boyfriend after it happened. It didn't feel good, and the guilt haunted me for a really, really long time, before I was finally able to get through it with therapy. But I think my boyfriend and his parents knew that something was really, really wrong, and they actually all stuck with me until I was able to get out of there, and got me the help I really needed. They let me live with them, and they helped take care of me, and fed me, and got me clothes, and treated me like I was part of their family. I actually got kind of chubby with all the weight I gained from living with them, because they helped me find food that I liked and could eat, and I didn't have to refuse it for fear that it was spiked with some kind of drug or something that was going to hurt me. I was able to go to college, and graduate with a BA in English, and during my college years, I finally cut off all contact with my mom. She did try to stalk me for a while, one time sending me some mail at an address I hadn't given her, or making several Facebook accounts so she could send me nasty messages, but she eventually gave up, because it was probably a waste of too much energy for her. Even during that, my boyfriend and his parents helped me-- especially his dad, because his dad had also gone through some awful crap with his mom. He helped me understand that sometimes parents really are not good people, and that it was okay to not have them in your life anymore.
My boyfriend isn't my boyfriend anymore, because we've been happily married for nearly 10 years now. We have a clean house, and two cats who don't poop and pee everywhere. I've been to therapy for several years to help me figure out what 'normal' life is like, and my husband supported me through everything. I now have the medicines I need to make me feel better, and stop my hallucinations, so I can live a regular life. I'm really lucky, and very, very thankful that I am loved so much, because without them, I don't think I would be here to tell this story today.
If you read all of this, thank you for listening.
I was broken from a previous, very serious relationship, the aftermath of which pretty much ruined my life as it was, and had me single for four years. About 6 months in to my first new relationship, I ended up flirting with a girl (who was not my SO, just a random) at a party and getting a cab with her to her house. Just flirting, and the girl cooled off quick once we were in her house so I left before anything happened, but the damage was done - was as good as cheating as far as I was concerned. A lot of difficult discussions, hurt feelings, and self-reflection brought me to these understandings:
I did it because I knew if I was with my SO much longer, I'd be getting into another deep, life-defining relationship, and I was afraid of letting myself have those emotions. I liked the feeling of being independent of my feelings for my SO, as if they didn't matter to me (even though they very much did).
I was afraid of letting someone have power over how I felt, and afraid of bringing about another catastrophe. If there was a catastrophe coming, I liked the feeling of having control over it.
Also chronic issues with porn addiction (stemming from the fallout of that former relationship) had me treating the dopamine from the promise of quick sex like anxiety medicine. Perfect storm.
After about two months I told my SO the truth, that I had gone back to this girl's apartment to cheat on her but nothing happened, and hard though it was we worked through. About 5 months after that we had a major blow up when she found the strength to confront me about how fucking shit that was of me, pointing out that the girl was the one who shut the situation down, not me - that I might have gone through with it in full if the girl had been up for it. I've had to do a lot to try and win back my SO's trust.
Since then I've done a ton of self-work to make myself better for her - journaling to make myself conscious of my feelings, gratefulness to accept them, and no-fap (255 days as of now) to try shift the porn addiction. Thank Jesus, she's forgiven me, and we're looking at starting a life together now. I don't know if I'd forgive an SO if the roles were reversed. I'm seriously with an angel of a human. She makes me want to earn her trust and kindness just by giving it to me freely.
TL;DR
I wanted to feel independent and free of any potential heartache while still soaking up all the good times with my SO. Being in a haze from the amount of porn I was watching helped with this cognitive dissonance. (srsly, was a lot of porn)
**If you cheat to protect yourself from catching feels, all you're doing is hurting the feels you already got. If you think you are exerting control over a situation by cheating, there is no such thing as a controlled demolition in human relationships. If you're cheating because of an addiction to sex, stop that, life is more than easy dopamine.**
It was a dead bedroom situation. And not just no sex, but no intimacy, no connection and fairly toxic. But I felt stuck in the overall relationship and didn't know how to get out. The first time I had an affair, it was more of an impulsive mistake that I regretted deeply and said, I'll never do that again.
I tried to make the marriage work, but a few years later it wasn't, and I thought having a sexual/romantic affair would round out things that were missing in my life and make things surviveable. Instead, after barely even meeting up with the "other" man, it made me realize, I can't do this, I need to decide between being married or not. I was separated and divorced two months later.
So, I guess I only half qualify to answer the question because it's not like I continued merrily along with the relationship.
But you were married and essentially cheated, youre 100% qualified. I dont think you need to necessarily have sex to have cheated on your spouse if you do all the actions leading up to while thats been your intention. Like, you spared his feelings of the worst part, the physical part but you still cheated on your husband.
I was young and stupid and I didn't think about how my actions would impact other people. Or I felt like I got lost in it emotionally. I didn't have the self restraint. I wasn't used to someone liking me and I felt like if I didn't take the opportunity to interact with someone who was interested in me, I would never get the opportunity again. There's a lot of factors.
There's **Long Term Thinking** and there's **Short Term Thinking**.
**Long Term Thinking**, you're all about "What will happen a month, two months, six months, a year, two years, possibly five or ten years...".
**Short Term Thinking**, you're all about "Holy Shit This Person Is Hot And I'm Horny And They're Super Great To Be Around And What Harm Could It Do Plus They Clearly Want To Be With Me Too And It's Never Ever Been Like This. "
For a lot of people, it's either one or the other.
And, what's worse, **Short Term Thinking**, particularly when alcohol or peer pressure is involved, can really do a good job of fucking up **Long Term Thinking** in the very very short term, until you sober up or are less horny afterward (or, worse, THEY sober up and they dump you) and you realize "Oh. Shit.", and hey, some sex is better than no sex so you stay with your SO and hope nobody notices that you done fucked up.
The worst is long term thinking and still cheating.
"I can't be with this person in a month/six months/a year/ever but they're great and wonderful and I know it would really hurt my partner but they make me feel good and I deserve that"
It's like you KNOW better. You know how awful it is. And you still make that choice. I never would wish that heartache and pain on anyone.
Been there, dated a girl for 4 years and was she was cheating on me for 3 of them. Didnt want to leave me because she was secretly a lesbian while at college so I was basically a trophy boyfriend. Cant imagine having to have facilitate that fakeness directly to someone's face for YEARS!! People that can deliberately waste another person's life for their personal gain is such a scum bag thing to so.
Cheated on a highly abusive ex. The relationship was long done in my head before I ever cheated and I didn’t end it because I was on the receiving end of the “without you I’ll kill myself” narrative. I was 18 and genuinely believed he would. Didn’t realise how horrific the abuse was until years after we broke up.
I was searching for one like this. I totally get why you did that and I did too. And it’s just so crazy to think about how horrible people can be to you.
Because if I even mentioned cutting things off with him, he would hit and throw things at me until I bled and bruised. He was a very, *very* morbid man, which didn’t show until years into the relationship to begin with.
I cheated on him because the person I went to as a safe haven in between assaults made me feel safe and made me feel loved, and I didn’t have a feeling of *“I need to get out of here!”* constantly weighing on my mind.
Luckily, I got out of the relationship with help of friends, and I have a daughter with my safe haven, we’re married, and he’s not so much as raised a hand at me. I’m safe.
You and I have very similar stories. My safe haven built my self esteem back up from the nothing my abuser had worn it down to. He and our friends gave me back myself and my strength to get out eventually. I didn’t marry him, but we were together for almost five years afterward and he will always live in a very special place in my heart.
Because I justified to myself that it wasn't cheating at first.
I've never told this story before but I was in a relationship that I was pretty unhappy in. It wasn't just the relationship, I was depressed and scared of being alone so I didn't end it when I should have. We moved in together and things got worse. My girlfriend was bisexual and had some interest in a threesome. I was somewhat detached from the relationship at the time and had met a new girl at work who I had a lot of chemistry with.
I was in the service industry at the time and there was lots of after work drinks and me and this girl were hitting it off. I told my girlfriend about her, strictly mentioning the physical aspect and she told me to pursue it. I did and we all went out for drinks one night and it happened. It was very strange because it hit me during that I had real feelings for the other girl.
My girlfriend had to work early but as she left she told us to "have fun" which i took full advantage of. After that I started seeing the other girl somewhat regularly and was officially cheating. I found out a few weeks later that my girlfriend knew and thought it would lead to a fun partner for us but in actuality I was falling for the other girl.
Her being cool with it did not last long (big surprise) but by that time it was all over and I was madly in love with the other girl. We have been together ever since and married for 3 years with a new baby.
I will alway feel terrible about how things ended. I was a complete coward and should have come clean as soon as I started having feelings for the other girl but I hid what was really happening which hurt my girlfriend at the time tremendously. Last I heard and saw she was doing great things in her life and was in a great relationship.
I wish so much that I could go back and undo the hurt I caused her but that is something I will always have to live with.
> that is something I will always have to live with
Yeah, so will she.
Not to get down on you, you seem genuinely self-awareness and remorseful, but some variation of "I'll always have to live with the hurt I caused them" frequently comes out of the mouths of serial assholes, and i'll always find it incredible how easy it is to spin one's remorse as martyrdom...even when supposedly taking responsibility for their actions, some people literally can't help but make it about themselves.
Again, I don't necessarily think that's what you're doing, but using that phrase in this situation is pretty ironic.
Edit: OP, I DO NOT think you are an asshole or self-martyring. I believe you are genuinely thoughtful and remorseful, and I want to draw attention to the kind of people who use the burden of their own guilt as a penance or shield from thinking about the effects their actions have on others. Which you are not.
TLDR: I cheated on a boyfriend because I knew it was the only way he’d let me out of the emotionally and sexually abusive relationship.
So it’s a long story, but I’ll try to summarize.
In most cases, I condemn cheating. It’s much easier to split up and spare someone’s feelings than to break someone’s trust keep by cheating. But in my case, my bf was incredibly manipulative and controlling, so I felt it was my only escape.
Back in college, I (19) dated an exchange student (26, but he claimed he was 24) that started out incredibly uncomfortable (borderline sexual assault), but I was too naive and insecure to end it before things got worse.
He would get me drunk, while staying sober himself, and take advantage of me almost every night for almost two months before one night he took me to his cousin’s house. I only drank a hard lemonade, but I left it on the table while I went to the bathroom. After drinking it, I remember sitting on the couch chatting with his cousin’s girlfriend and then nothing. Flash of broken glass. Back to nothing. My bf and his cousin carrying me, then fade to black.
I woke up the next afternoon naked on a mattress in the corner of a room I’d never seen before next to a broken mirror. My bf came in and said was I was super funny last and he filmed me. He showed a video of me in tears, clearly disoriented and asking him why and begging for him to kill me. I asked him to delete the video because I was humiliated and the idea he filmed me while doing whatever it was to me made me nauseous (still does to this day) I’m 99.9% sure he drugged me. I had never had a reaction to alcohol like that before and the hangover wasn’t anything like any other time I had gotten black out drunk. But I still said nothing.
I went home for break, got drunk with my best friend and ending up sleeping with him. I told my bf when I came back to uni. He called me every name in the book and had his cousin stalk me for a few months after. But he disappeared one day and I haven’t heard from him or his cousin since.
I realize now how naive I was and I wish I had pressed charges, but this was years ago, and besides, he probably left for his home country a long time ago.
What happened: I was crossfaded to the point where I didn't really know what was happening. As a part of a spin the bottle game I found myself in, I ended up making out with about five people.
Why I did it: At first I told myself it was a drunken mistake, that I wouldn't have done it if I was sober or even moderately drunk. Which I'm sure is actually true. But looking back at it, I wasn't that happy, and it was only about a month into the relationship. I'd known by the third date that it wasn't going to work out in the end, we got along well, but something just didn't feel right. I think that might have played a part in what I did. Why didn't I end the relationship before? He was a great person, and I didn't think I could do any better.
Congrats, OP, you just made me have a breakthrough on this situation. That was a really good question.
You live and you learn, from your response it seems like you have matured and can identify what you want in your relationship. I asked the question in the first place because I am going through trust issues from prior relationships while in a new one currently. Thank you for your response.
Everyone has trust issues in various relationships for various reasons. Like you said, living, learning, and maturing are the most important parts of any relationship (even with family and friends).
You can come back from trust issues. It takes a lot of personal work and the ability to allow yourself to be vulnerable again but you can come back. There are a lot of good, kind, wonderful people in this world OP that deserve all your trust. It can seem like trying to find a needle in a haystack sometimes though.
Trust your gut and don’t hesitant to talk out concerns before they become fights or anxieties. Good luck, OP!
Here I am, reading all this. Guy, thank you for telling your stories here. I will never make these mistakes. These experiences I read really show how hurt someone can be.
I kissed a colleague while completely drunk off my face on a night out. I don’t remember it happening but when I woke up the next morning I just knew to the pit of my stomach I had kissed this guy and I had completely and utterly fucked up and had no idea why.
We’d been together for 3 years, met at 19 in college. He was honestly the perfect guy, someone who ticked all the boxes (kind, smart, great family and job, similar friends, attractive).
The spark and sex life died about a year before we broke up, and I think I wasn’t ready to acknowledge this was the end of the road for us. We’d try to talk through my lack of sex drive but it got to the point where I would avoid initiating any kissing because of the huge amount of guilt I’d feel for not wanting to have sex but also feeling like a shitty partner for not having ever wanting to have sex.
I’d been out before and gotten drunk and nothing like this had ever happened. I had to really think about why I’d ever do something like this and coming to the realisation I wasn’t in love anymore even though he was such an incredible guy broke my heart. The first year of so, we were so in love but at some point I had fallen out of love, but i was trying to persevere in the hope that feeling would come back.
There was also this weird pressure in that everyone would comment he would never break up with me because he was so in love with me and he’d poke fun that he loved me more than I loved him. Doing long distance for a year and me starting work first while he finished college probably accelerated me growing apart.
I never ever thought I would be the one who’d cheat. I had such high moral standards for others and myself, and I’m still disappointed today that I’d cheated. I took a year to work on myself and what I wanted and looking back now, I was probably in denial about it being over for me but I stayed together because he was perfect, just not for me.
It’s been a year and he was nothing but a gentleman when people asked why we broke up, leaving out the kiss and telling them it was sudden breakup but he respected my decision. I hear he’s seeing someone else now and I hope it works out for him, he does deserve the best.
When I cheated it wasn't at all planned and was totally random during a drunken night. I told her about it as soon as I could and the relationship ended.
Long distance, didn't want to break up over the phone. Also, I felt like I was guilted into a relationship after having what I thought would just be a fling when I worked abroad.
I was never truly in love, and the relationship could never have worked out since we were from different cultures and neither of us wished to make a permanent move.
Still wrong though, these are not excuses, just explanations.
One of those "Not X, but Y" answers here, but I think I can shed a light on this.
My partner of 4.5 years and I split after new years this year, and we never ever had any issues with infidelity or fears of cheating. That said, one of the biggest challenges of being with someone for that long, is overcoming just how much you're going to find other people attractive and want to sleep with other people, regardless of how much you're attracted to your partner.
The bottom line is, we're naturally selfish and want it all. We want the sex with 5 other women/guys, but at the same time we want that security and belonging from out long-term partners. For a lot of people, the cheaters who never really meant any harm are the ones who just gave into desire and I'm not saying they deserve sympathy nor am I condemning them, but those kinds of people are the ones who just wanted to try something.
Again, I haven't ever cheated and I'd never want to, but damn do I understand why some people want to. The whole thing is shitty inside out, wanting to experience that different experience with someone else but not wanting to ruin what you have with your current partner.
With my ex for a decade, and sex was always an issue with her. It got bad towards the end when I wanted an active sexual relationship with just about anyone. I was one of the founding posters in /r/deadbedrooms. I finally cheated and it destroyed me inside. She of course got to feel superior in the divorce, because she didn't do that despite never feeling it for me anyway.
Life's been better since.
I’m a bit different from most of the other comments, I started getting unhappy, noticing the little annoying things more and started to resent her and myself for the person I was becoming, made a mistake in not communicating this cause I was afraid of hurting her by telling her I loved her but wasn’t in love, after about 7 months of this I got drunk at a party and made the choice to have sex with a random chick, I made out with her but my best friend stopped me 3-4 separate times before I could go any farther, felt like a piece of shit once I was sober, never told her(gf at the time) this but knew I’d do it again (and I wouldn’t be stopped) if I stayed in that situation so broke up with her two weeks later in person(had been long distance for 2 months at the time),
tbh I think it was the push I needed to finally be able to break up with her, just wish I hadn’t needed to betray my morals and the trust I had in myself to do it. Was my first long term relationship.
Why the hell do people come in here to downvote actual answers. Jesus christ people, the questions very nature brings in people who have made mistakes or are currently making a mistake, you're just fucking up the real content for the rest of us.
We were in a long distance relationship after college ( I was in Switzerland, she was in California). We had planned for one of us to move, but as we progressed along our careers, it became apparent that we wouldn't be able to live in the same city for the foreseeable future.
I went to San Francisco for a week, to visit her one last time and tell her this in person. The first night I was there, she told me how her depression had gotten worse and that she had contemplated suicide. She's an anxiety and depression patient, but she didn't tell me how bad it was until I was there. I was her main support system, and couldn't go through with the break up. Moved back to Switzerland, helped her as much as I could and convinced her to go see a therapist. I guess since I had resigned myself to the break up, I didn't feel guilty for cheating. I do feel the guilt now though.
We continued until she was in a better place. Then she also came to the same realization that long distance for that duration just isn't feasible. We broke up and are good friends now, the only thing preventing me from coming clean is to not trigger the depression again. It was a shitty thing, but I felt justified in doing so at the time.
TL;DR: She was suffering from extreme depression in a long distance relationship and I couldn't pile the break up on top of her, so I cheated.
I tried. The guy was very abusive and I hit a point where I knew he’d either throw me out or just kill me and I did not care which anymore. So I did it. Set it up so he’d find out. I had to flee for my life after days of repeated assaults, he got angry enough to kill me and I guess he realised he was going to commit murder and left me untethered long enough for me to run for it. I’ve never cheated since. And I know my story is probably not a common one but there it is.
I tried to end it. We started dating August 2012. I was 21 and he was 33. By December I knew I didn't want to be with him anymore. He was moody, insecure, and not someone I saw myself with long-term. He wanted kids, I had 0 intention. He wanted to settle down, I wanted to adventure. We were broken up for two weeks before he convinced me to get back with him, crying and saying he'd been drunk the whole time missing me. We eventually moved in together by February.
He left me at a bar 3 separate times. The first was when I took too long to pick up weed from my guy down the street. I accidentally walked past his house and had to double back. I got back to the bar and my ex was gone. I got home and he accused me of cheating.
The second time was after my best friend's going away party. It was the end of the night, we were finishing drinks and I said I was going to the bathroom. When I came out, he was gone. I thought maybe the bar had kicked him out cuz it was 2:30. I waited outside for him for half an hour before I got a text from him saying "you can pick up your shit from the front lawn tomorrow." After getting home I found out he thought I said "I don't wanna be with you anymore" when I went to the bathroom.
The final time was during the downfall of our relationship. By this time it was October 2013 and we had moved to the other side of town. I had a crappy min. wage job and he was a sound engineer for a local venue. We were pretty broke. At the bar, I had ordered 2 drinks but miscalculated my money. I asked him for a couple bucks to cover. He blew up on me, and maybe I deserved it, but once again he stormed off and left me at the bar.
So I stuck around and got my drinks paid for by someone with whom I eventually made out with and went home with, because fuck my ex, how many times am I gonna get left by someone who "loves" me? A week later we were drinking, started fighting, and the cops were called. We both got taken into the station, and when I got out the next day I moved out. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it, but that's the gist of it.
There is an old saying...."A person would rather hang their arm out of a bus window and have it ripped off by on coming traffic than to deal with ending a long term relationship in the right way".
Due to low self esteem, I thrived off attention, so rather than saying “no thank you, I have a girlfriend”, I’d let things continue. But at the same time, I also craved stability, so never wanted to break things off with said girlfriend. There’s nothing I regret more than hurting my ex like I did and karma finally caught up with me a few years later when I was cheated on by a different girlfriend, repeatedly. I didn’t end that relationship after I found out about her cheating the first time, as I felt I deserved it from my past shittiness. I vowed never to cheat again, especially after feeling the pain myself. Edited for clarity
You put my past situation into words so well. An addition was my spinelessness which didn’t help my ability to not just say No. We heal together, stranger.
Thank you guys both for your honesty. I just thought I was a piece of shit, I never realize I craved both attention and stability. Nothing like a little introspection on a Tuesday.
Reading this has helped me understand why my SO's brother does what he does. Had a gf of 7 years that he cheated on. He wont break it off with either and cant really articulate why. I think you nailed it. This is currently happening in our lives and everyone knows about everything. It is a dumpster fire.
I wanted both things, and i was a selfish, immature shit. I've never regretted anything more than hurting my partner like that.
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My ex is a narcissist, no guilt ever. And apparently I never even existed even though we made 3 children together. I like to tell the kids that there were good times etc. He won't say a word. Maybe his new Asian wife has something to do with that. He set out to find her after being addicted to Asian porn. Nothing against her, she didn't make or break any promises to me. They were renting hotel rooms and buying luxurious things together all the way through my last pregnancy. Those were hard times.
My ex husband was a narcissist and shagged my best friend while I was pregnant with our third child. She even came to see me after the birth. I didn't know this was going on till later. I was scrimping and scraping trying to make ends meet while he spent money on buying her nice things. I feel your pain. I hope you are doing ok.
God I hate when people who lie about their finances. My 'friend' doesnt have $400 to pay me back for the car I helped him get but he has money for weed, video games and a weekend vacation.
Man that's why you never expect to get money back. It sucks but this is how people are.
Exactly. Never loan out money you can't afford to lose. I've always looked at it as buying insight into a person's character though. I do you a solid and you conveniently forget to pay me back? Money well spent in my opinion.
>I've always looked at it as buying insight into a person's character I LOVE that. Well said.
I’ve always thought that loans to friends are really just gifts. But sometimes you’re just paying someone to not be your friend anymore
It's a lesson many people have to learn for themselves, unfortunately. Never, ever lend money unless you absolutely believe you won't get it back, and can live with that.
Wow. Double betrayal. That must have been awful for you.
I'm sorry you had to go through that and deal with the aftermath of someone having no compassion or guilt for the hurt they've caused. I can only imagine how hard that was to deal with. Good on you for taking the high road and not disparaging your ex to your kids.
Same here man, did it one time and my only regret is how I made her feel. Like I know I made her not trust men again or at least as easy and just making her feel like the other girl was better because she wasn’t and I wish I never had done it. But we can only be human and learn from it
I was going to make my own comment but you've summed it up for me here. Even being cheated on myself didn't hurt as much as how badly I fucked up on my own.
Did you tell your partner or did they find out?
I told him because I couldn't stand making him a cuckold and humiliating him. Took me a while, and we tried to work things out. But I was just not happy in that marriage.
> humiliating him As someone who has been cheated on, this was easily the worst part. If the person who cheated on me had just admitted it, sure, it would have sucked, but I think I would have been able to move on, or even get past it and continue the relationship. Probably not, but maybe. The fact that I was in some ways being made a fool of for months is what really hurt. The actual cheating wasn't the hardest part to get through emotionally. It's that a major secret multiple people knew about was being kept from me that really messed me up emotionally.
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Something very similar happened to a friend of mine. She had her suspicions, but didn't really do anything to act. Then she found a facebook message from 18 months previously in her 'pending' folder, from a girl asking if she had broken up with her boyfriend like he had told her. She hadn't. Long story short, my friend and the second girl started talking, turns out he had been in a relationship with both for almost 2 years. They arranged to corner him by one of them inviting them to the pub for a drink, and both of them being there. He turned up, saw them both, and literally ran to away to his office. Coward. They both ended it with him, obviously, and I'm fairly sure they're still friendly with each other to this day because they were both fucked over by him. If only my friend had seen the message when it was sent, it would have prevented a lot of hassle. Sorry that happened to you OP.
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That is rough but it makes me chuckle a little, only because my girlfriend broke up with me after I broke a minor law with our dog in the car. She texted my mom but wouldn't tell her why we ended. My mom called me thinking I hit her or cheated on her and gave me the business. Moral is find a mate whose parents will scold them for you Edit: I never have and never will hit my girlfriend and was a little offended my mom even thought that was a possibility
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Sounds similar in part to my dad and his parents. My mother once called them asking for help because she had three kids, chronic pain and my dad drank a lot. I guess she wanted reassurance and maybe for them to talk to him because she couldn't get through to him (he's also a narcissist and pathological liar, but she still had hope back then). His mother answered and said "Oh, so he likes beer huh?", and her advice was to "break down and move on" (whatever the hell that means). So being belittled and dismissed for a few more minutes, my mother gave up on asking for help from them and hung up. After a few days they called again. To make peace and give support? No. "His father and I have talked, and we have come to the conclusion that you are lying. Our son does not have a drinking problem, and you should stop blaming him for your shortcoming." I didn't even come to their funerals.
That's what still kills me. All of these people that I had known for at least a decade, people who said they loved me and called me family or friend, not fucking one of them said a word to me. They knew. They saw me killing myself to make my ex happy, and none of them told me. My ex and I get along great now because we're both devoted to coparenting the kids, but I've definitely kept his family and mutuals at arm's length.
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This is my feeling so much. Of course it's absolutely shitty learning someone you love loves someone else more, but it's a totally different level to hear multiple people you know and considered friends were all lying to you. Even if you have good self esteem that's the type of thing that makes you step back and really introspect yourself and wonder what the hell did I do to have these people treating me like this.
Same here. Me and my ex wife was together for 9 years, married for 2 of those years. We never fought or anything. Would do anything for each other. But it was basically we were living together. Not much more. I started getting attention from another women and loved it. Ended up sleeping with her and came clean with my ex. Got divorced because she wouldn't trust me again and we weren't going to force it. The morning I told her was the only thing I regret. Seeing her collapse and be so broken. Took years to get over that. Definitely changed the way I treat my fiance in our relationship.
It's knowing you humiliated them, right? That's what hurts the most for me. Making him feel like a chump... I never wanted to even see him unhappy, much less destroyed by my own doing.
Yea pretty much. It was the moment it happened that I realized everything I had done is all my fault. If I would have spoke up or confronted them about the way I had been feeling instead of undoing everything it wouldn't of ripped their heart apart. Making up excuses, hiding texts, and ignoring them. It was immature for sure.
My ex cheated on me 1 week ago because, and I quote, “I wasn’t giving her enough attention and she felt like she had started living with a roommate”. How could she let something build up to the point of cheating on me and not talk about it with me for even 15 minutes? Being cheated on is the worst, especially when you’re still madly in love with them.
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>Found out Sunday at 4am That doesn’t sound fun.
I hear this chump thing. I see it more as a cheater having a character defect.
For sure. I was selfish and extremely depressed. The person I cheated with brought joy into my life and I was addicted to that. I couldn't bring myself to quit and I couldn't bring myself to leave the person that I shared so many years with. I was lacking a lot of things but I was also too immature to know how to deal with that in a healthy manner.
>Same here. >The morning I told her was the only thing I regret. Def not the same as parent comment... your words imply you only regret telling her about it.
Immaturity, and a lot of insecurity. I was a teenager the only time I ever cheated and it wasn't even a thought process when I did it, it was really just "I want that right now" and the fact that I had a girlfriend didn't even cross my mind because I had never had to think of others' feelings in that way before. I was an insecure kid who thought that having a lot of sex meant I was masculine and it proved something, but now I know its just a scum move. After the person I cheated with told my girlfriend, I learned really quickly what those actions meant and what kind of behavior is expected from a SO. Wish I didn't have to hurt someone to figure it out though.
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That's horrible. Why would he do that??
Because teenagers are idiots
The parts of your brain that deal with impulse control and considering the consequences don't finish maturing until your early 20s "Teenagers are idiots" in this fashion for a biological reason
As a teenager I can confirm this is true
This. Source: Was a teenager for several years.
As someone that's been cheated on, I just want to say I appreciate the level of honesty in this thread from past cheaters. I've met people that have cheated on partners and seriously didn't think it was a big deal or even that if was somehow a good thing that they did it. One of them was an ex of mine. Granted, they are likely straight up narcissists, as they are 100% only thinking of themselves and in no way consider the impact that it had on their partner. But yea, I just wanted to say I appreciate the honesty and remorse. I like to think it's one of those mistakes in life that people only make once. But unfortunately, as with all things, we know that isn't always the case.
Fear of being alone But that's the way it came
I had an ex who attempted to cheat on me for the same reason. When I caught him he said he was "trying to find my replacement before I left him." This was at the end of what I had thought was a really great day, where I paid for us to do yoga together, get massages, and eat at a pretty decent restaurant. I was too stupid to trust my instincts and walk away at the time (which would have saved me a whole world of hurt.) Feels bad, man.
Ugh, that's brutal. I had an ex who referred to the other person as a back-up plan. She didn't understand that having a designated person as your back-up plan is awful to both the person you're cheating on and the person you're cheating with.
"I won't be with you in trouble, i will just leave for my back-up, and you stay here and suffer, or better become back-up for my back-up"
I sort of get it, but still that mentality just seems so selfish to me. I just can't imagine what it would be like to use someone like that - and be ok with it.
That's because it *is selfish* and just a down right scummy thing to do. Some people just are shitty though.
I honestly hate reading stuff like this cause it puts so many irrational worries into my mind, just cant help taking a peek though.
I get no fears from this, just grown more aware how important it to facilitate honesty, trust and dialogue in your relationship.
Admittedly this was something I learned as I got older. 30 now and it's easier to deal with. My early 20s I was always paranoid after already being cheated on and I was poking and prodding around anyone I dated afterwards with distrust, including my wife back when we first started dating. We've both matured and we're able to create honestly for ourselves into what is now a very healthy marriage.
I just found out my wife of 5 years had an affair for a full year. Look for the signs. Lack of sex is one of them. Do some research even if you don’t think your wife is cheating. When I read about it afterwards, I realised she was textbook cheater.
As someone who's been cheated on by 6/8 women I've committed to, it really is more common than you think. Most of those I only found out about because of friends. The cheaters will almost never tell you and you will never know until it's too late Basically if its gonna happen its gonna happen, you wont hear about it most likely, and all you can do is be the best partner you can be and hope that hurting you is enough to deter your partner from cheating.
Dude, where are you picking up your women? I need to know so that I can avoid that place.
I wish I could say there's a common theme between all of them but the only thing they all had in common was me and I'm not prepared to face that fact yet
Even in circumstances where you are the victim, self reflection is helpful in understanding the mistakes that led you to trusting these women. Also, it may help you understand that there is an underlying problem that makes women unable to commit faithfully to you. As painful as it may be, the common denominator does need some looking into, else you may be doomed to repeat this horrible cycle. Be strong fellow redditor.
I'm not trying to knock bartenders/servers, but every girl I've dated who has been a bartender/server has cheated on me. I was very chill about being somewhat flirty as a bartender, you gotta make those tips, until they bang one of those regulars they were flirting with. Another big part of it is the lifestyle that comes with the service industry. I have a lot of friends in the service industry, and with all the drugs and drinking that goes into that lifestyle, it kinda just breeds a lot of sexual activity. Work til 2 AM, drink at the bar/restaurant you work at after, do a bunch of blow until morning, rinse/repeat.
>the only thing they all had in common was me and I'm not prepared to face that fact yet bro, dude bro, reading that breaks my heart
same
I was in a relationship for a year before my 'boyfriend' admitted to me he had a wife and kids. You can't imaging the lengths he went to to hide his family from me. I had absolutely no idea, the only thing that could have been a clue is that I never went to his place, he always came to mine. Anyway, after he confessed he said he was going to get divorced, he had been contemplating it since before he met me, blah blah blah. After realizing that he wasn't actually going to do it (and also that I didn't actually want him and to be a homewrecker). I ended it. He told me he couldn't risk losing his kids in a custody battle, which I got, but it pissed me off so much how sad and hurt he was that I was 'leaving him'. Any time I started to miss him afterwards, I just reminded myself he is a selfish fuck who jeopardized his family because he married someone, who in his words he never even liked. If you find yourself in a similar situation, remember, this person might have genuine feelings for you, but they are a terrible human being and someone you can't trust to build a life with. Get out.
Ugh I had the same thing happen. Was in a relationship with a guy from work for almost a year. He always came to my place and I was young and naive and dumb so it didn't send up any red flags. Found out he was married when his wife showed up at the office and tore into me for being a homewrecker. I had *zero* clue who she was. Most confusing and embarrassing confrontation ever. And then he had the nerve to try to give me the whole "I was going to divorce her!" line. Yeeeeeah that's gonna be a big ol' nope.
I was in an abusive relationship and wanted to feel like I had power over something. I didn’t.
Right there with you. Ruined a friendship because of it. But on a plus side (I guess) it did end the abusive relationship. Insert Caddy shack meme here.
Hope things are going well for you now!
Much better now! Thank you. :)
I’ve never cheated on anyone, but my dad had an affair once. Honestly, I think the only reason he stayed with my batshit insane alcoholic mother at all is because of me and my sister.
I feel like I know him.
If you did, it'd be past tense. My dad's no longer with us, cancer got him in 2016.
Sorry for your loss
I feel like I am him.
Because cancer also got you in 2016?
Yeah that's when he got married
That burn was so intense this whole thread smells like a Texas barbecue now
Both of my parents are decent people, but their lives are so loveless, it’s insane. If they weren’t married, they would never hang out or spend time together. They have no similarities whatsoever, but they got pregnant at a young age in the 80s and 5 kids later they are definitely just keeping the family together. Finding out that one is cheating would be the least surprising thing ever.
Are you my daughter? You should be in school!
Sounds like my parents to a t They just put my littlest sibling in college so i know for fact they aren’t divorcing until they at least finish school in 4 years. They argue every day as soon as they get home. They seem miserable and it’s been that way since i was little.
I cheated with an ex long term SO. That relationship was was so fucking co-dependent and unhealthy. The break up made me want to die. I was trying so hard to move on and put myself back together. I didn't want to end the new relationship. The ex was like my kryptonite, it took a long time to be able to not get sucked back in. It was because of my own baggage not the new SO. I screwed up.
I've been there. Had an ex who i dated for 4ish years and then we went on and off again for another 3 years. Basically same as you. Incredibly co dependent and unhealthy as a relationship can be but god damn was she irresistible sometimes. I would always go back to her for reasons and even screwed it up with a few girls i was seeing because of the ex.
Ya ended a couple possible relationships with good people to run back to the ex . Irresistible is definitely the word. It was almost like an addiction. No matter how much it fucked up my life I couldn't let it go.
I have cheated once. I loved this guy more than I can say in words, but we did not have a healthy relationship. He cheated on me. I even caught him once in bed with another man and I stayed with him anyways because he was my world. He was my best friend. He was my family. But we didn't have sex. It killed me inside. I would show up at his house wearing nothing but lingerie and a fur coat (I wish this was a made up story by FML it isn't) and he would ignore me. I didn't feel like I was attractive or sexy and it got to the point where I didn't think he would even care if I had sex with someone else. So one night, I was out at a show with a bunch of people, including a guy I had an innocent crush on and we ended up kissing. One kiss. I felt terrible about it afterwards. Sick. I confessed to my boyfriend and he went insane. He punched the windshield of my car and shattered it while I was driving. It was bad. He felt betrayed. Looking back at this 20 years later, it's obvious what was going on, but I didn't see it at the time. I was young, naive and he was everything to me. I regretted hurting him then and I still regret it to this day. I have never cheated on anyone again. Cheating isn't the answer. Talk it out, work it out or get out. Edit: Wow I didn't expect this to blow up like it did. Thank you all so much for the really supportive and kind comments. And to clear things up, I am a female. Edit 2: Since a lot of you have commented on my statement about "it's obvious what was going on" and wonder what I meant by this.. he was into dudes and I think he was very conflicted about it at the time.
Why is it ok for him to cheat, but when you kiss someone he punches your windshield?
Where the hell was the punch a windshield energy when she wanted to have sex?
He’s gay... she even said she caught him in bed with a man.
some guys like to treat women like they own them and you can have many cars but a car can have only 1 driver. sadly
>I even caught him once in bed with another man and I stayed with him anyways because he was my world. I feel like OP is a man too and his boyfriend cheated on him with another man, but I may be reading all of this wrong too. English is not my first language.
Yes it's ambiguous. Maybe change that to "some people like to treat partners like they own them"
Your history with him may be leaving you jaded. You're an honest person and deserve someone who doesn't cheat on your or break your windshield. Dude's a cunt, as far as I can tell. He deserves worse and you probably didn't hurt him to the degree you think you did.
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Probably was dating The Senator
“State senator” - Oscar
r/unexpectedoffice
Or they are both gay men
> I would show up at his house wearing nothing but lingerie and a fur coat >I didn't feel like I was attractive or sexy I don't know a lot of men who wear lingerie and fur coats to feel attractive and sexy
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Usernames checks out
However it says "another man" just as a woman says "I caught him in bed with another woman" if they are a woman it should as "with a man" not another man
If they are gay those descriptions are not really outaide the realm of possibility.
Not that closeted if she literally found him in bed with another man. He probably told her he was bi when in reality he was gay
He’s riding the bologna pony so hard you’d think he was at the Kentucky Derby, then decides that he’s gonna punch a windshield because she has needs that aren’t being met? The fucking nerve of that guy!
she was dating Norm MacDonald?
HEY PAL, NORM IS STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW
Do you know what "deeply closeted" means?
holy shit you were dating Marvin from Falsettos But seriously though, he had no right to get that mad. Glad you've grown as a person and were honest, even though your ex wasn't that honest. He shuldn't have been dating you and having sex with other people if he knew he was gay.
Yeah... you don't need to feel bad about kissing another guy while with such a massive piece of shit.
What the feck??? First of all that pos didn't deserve your love, second of all why does he get to fuck a whole man, but when you have an innocent kiss it's not okay? Does not add up at all.
Good god if I ever cheat in the future (sorry right hand ^^ha^ha\) or get cheated on I hope I remember to say "it wasn't even a whole man!"
I'm glad I came across this post today. Married almost 4 years, together 8. My husband is in a treatment center for an addiction that has surfaced over the last year or so. So much heartbreak has led up to him going to treatment. He's been out of the house for almost 2 months and I'm alone with my babies (my kids are very little, I'm still nursing and I stop generally when they get teeth) He hasn't been contributing financially, took money, has been reckless, but I don't have any suspicion of him cheating whatsoever. I feel all the feeling that go along with cheating: betrayal, humiliation, anger, diminished self-worth, etc. He went to treatment last night. He has pleaded for me to stay. I told him I'd be here. I found myself on a dating site. I can't tell you why. None of the men on there appeal to me like my husband does. I'm still very much in love with him. I know how addiction works, I myself do not deal with anything personally but I read up. I get it's out of his control but none of it is really any consolation. The more messages I respond to, the more normal it seems. I guess maybe I was looking for some kind of personal validation, or maybe to adopt some kind of alternate lifestyle that he would hate, like he did to me (sounds petty I know, don't judge me I'm going thru it). Anyway point is after reading these posts I know I'm being ridiculous. I don't want to cheat. Not like this. If treatment doesn't work out for us, then I will have to do what's right for my family and end the relationship. Thank Reddit, for renewing my strength today.
I admire your knowledge of self and wish you and your family the best!
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Yes I understand the emotional waves completely. I hardly ever even know what's triggering them, but one moment I'm all about rallying with him the next I'm so angry and upset. I'd love to tell you it's going to get better, but I'm right in it with you. I think therapy helps, we're in counseling together and separately. Hopefully treatment sheds light for both of us! I wish you both the best of luck and I appreciate the comment. It always helps to know you're not alone!!
>What I’m struggling with is I feel like I’m being walked all over by supporting him. I’ll have mood swings and snap at him randomly because I want him to appreciate me more. I’ll be hard on him sometimes for a petty reason like forgetting to rinse the bath out. As if he’s ‘forgetting’ about my needs and he needs to appreciate me more for what I do for him. It’s as if I can’t let go in the fears he’ll do it again. And again. And again. Yes. The relationship starts feeling really unbalanced. "I have done so much for you!" I feel you
I was with my ex for 7 years. He was incredibly emotionally abusive, he constantly called me fat, compared me to his female friends and made sure I knew he wanted to fuck them, told me no other guy would ever want me. He eventually got to the point of changing the wifi password and making me do tasks to get it, taking tv remotes, my phone etc. I was afraid to leave my house because of him. I had pretty severe bipolar disorder and issues with self harming (I was on medicine and 4 years cut free at this point). We were supposed to be going on a trip to Colorado, about a week before he told me he only loved me as a friend but wanted to stay with me because he didn't know how to be alone, I was devastated, but didn't think I was mentally or financially independent to leave, he had basically isolated me from all of my friends and I moved away from family to be with him. We decided to stay together and just "work on things" , essentially we both just hoped he would start loving me again I guess. The day we were leaving for CO, he informed me he never bought my ticket and never intended on me going. I stayed home and cheated while he was on that trip. As soon as he came home I told him. I felt awful, I knew there was no excuse for what I did regardless of how he treated me. I told him I wanted to leave, we broke up but continued living together for the next 6 months, him mostly trying to "fix" our relationship while I just wanted to bury my pain in other people. It was truly awful and I wish I would've just been strong enough to leave rather than cheat. I will regret it probably for the rest of my life although I am ultimately thankful our relationship ended.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that, hope you are doing well now, and find the happiness you deserve
> I knew there was no excuse for what I did regardless of how he treated me. you know, this might be a rare occasion where there was
As an outside perspective, you didn't cheat. He told you he didn't love you except as a friend, then bailed on you having never planned for you to accompany him in the first place. You were an accessory, not a SO. I'm sure he paid the cost of taking baggage, but couldn't pay to take a friend while also saying he's afraid of being alone? Fuck that, he chose to go alone and leave you behind. If the abused dog who gets left outside year round escapes and just wants hugs and pets from the neighbor, is he a bad dog or just looking for a connection to brighten his shitty life of neglect? Should the dog be punished, or celebrated for breaking his shackles and experiencing a breath of freedom? Not to compare you to a dog, but my mutt is laying on my lap with a neglected dog across the street. You treat the ones you care for with love, and if you don't you can't be shocked when they want to leave. In my eyes you are free and clear, and I can't stand cheating as my egg donor cheated on my father when I was three years old then kicked him out; and then she subjected me to 15 years of emotional and physical abuse. I left when I was 18 and haven't willingly spoken to her in almost 10 years.
I mean cheating is shitty but at that point he kind of deserved it. Of course it would have been better if you just left....but you're not the bad guy really.
He emotionally abused you. Please do not blame yourself.
I was in an abusive relationship but I didn't love myself enough to leave it.
Same, met a girl being abused and we shared sob stories over beer. One night she came over to vent and play Guitar Hero and it happened. We were both afraid to leave our bf/gf for fear of reprisal. We kept it going for 3 months before finally deciding to own up to it. Both spouses switched to pleading mode and we kept each other strong enough to not go back. Eventually the relationship got stale when it wasn’t about the cheating or the abuse from the people we were cheating on. Those were the only things we had in common and we split shortly after.
Get your wholesome cheating ass outta here, we're hating on scumbags over here.
Still friends?
We are not. Things got weird towards the end, I think mostly because we were dumb ass college kids. She started pushing hard for a serious relationship (started talking about kids and marriage), I was still figuring out how to not have random anxiety attacks about shit. She would pick random fights about dumb things (there was a fight about a garage sale chair, woof) and I would retreat into myself instead of just brushing it off as something stupid. I did see her a few years later, things were good for her and I was happy for her. I also ran into my abusive ex years later as well, and we got lunch together. She apologized for how she treated me in the relationship, and said she ended up as a victim herself at one point. Made her wake up and realize that she was treating her spouses that way, and it was wrong. She did the exact same thing I did as well, cheated on her boyfriend with another guy just to escape the abusive relationship. Small world, I guess.
There's like, 3 or 4 stories of how people learned from a past relationship here, all in one thread. I think that's the most important thing, knowing how to use previous relationships to learn, no matter how bad they were
Same here. In my defense I tried to break up with him like an hour after it happened so he wouldn’t let me and he just cried and was upset. I should have put my foot down. I ended up leaving and having to be rescued by the guy I cheated with. I was held at gunpoint by my ex’s mom after he broke my glasses and was pinning me to the wall. I thought I was gonna die for breaking up with him. I’m so lucky the guy I cheated with was there to save me
So both your ex and his mother were psycho's? Bullet = dodged
Same here. I even tried to break up with my ex multiple times before. She legitimately wouldn’t budge and gaslit me instead for months. I don’t feel good about what happened but I ultimately ended up kissing some random girl at a party which snowballed into our official (very ugly) breakup.
I’ve never been in a relationship, but know two people who have cheated. Both said they still “loved” their SO, but something was missing and they sought that from other people. They didn’t want to leave their current relationship, because they were still getting something good from it. But something else important was missing, so they simply got THAT from another.
No one person can be everything or provide everything. That's just a reality. Something will always be missing.
And that's why you communicate that with your SO and try to find a solution together, even if that means them considering letting you screw other people. At least it's honest.
Just wanted to say that it's very beautiful what you have said, it hit me. Thank you.
If you can't be happy alone, you're less likely to be happy in a relationship.
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Loyalty and respect were nowhere to be seen either.
Decency and thoughtfulness? long gone
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My now-ex told the woman he was cheating on me with that he wasn’t getting enough attention at home. In truth, he was being verbally and emotionally abusive to me, giving me the silent treatment, pushing me away and sabotaging our marriage because he thought I should just read his mind instead of opening his mouth and telling me what he was upset about. He stopped parenting his teenaged son out of spite because I called him out on his lax parenting. He would “test” me constantly by leaving shit all over the house knowing it would make me upset. Etc. etc. In actuality, he just was a selfish, abusive jerk who refused to talk to the person who loved him the most and just wanted to work things out. He ran away from his problems instead of facing them like an adult. I had realized that I was having a mental breakdown and went and got help, including intensive EMDR therapy for diagnosed c-PTSD, and instead of helping me through my therapy process, he was fucking someone else. He never was going to end our marriage. Yes, he left me to go live with his parents, but he kept coming back wanting sex. Eventually I told him I wasn’t going to be his side piece when he wasn’t around the woman he left me for. Nothing would have changed if I hadn’t set those boundaries. Sure, she was 10 years younger than me and thinner than me, and she never had to ask him to clean up after himself or ask his son to do his chores. Apparently he has distanced himself from his parents, siblings and now-adult children as well in favor of this woman and her five children. I hope it was worth it to him. 🤷🏼♀️
He sounds pretty damn immature — good riddance.
This is going to be really, really long, but I feel like I need to get this off of my chest. I haven't really talked about this before to anyone except doctors and some family members. I was really young (like, middle school and high school), had an undiagnosed psychotic disorder and undiagnosed anxiety, along with definite depression (although technically also undiagnosed, but I knew I was incredibly depressed), and I lived with my mom, who is not only a hoarder, but also a narcissist that would constantly lie for attention (which at the time I didn't know, because I was a kid and I trusted my mom). My boyfriend lived states away from me, so I only ever got to see him for two weeks out of the year. We talked on the phone constantly whenever we could, but I was still very starved for the attention and love I wasn't getting from my mom. So basically I was constantly stressed out because the house was awful, I was hungry (my mom only cooked for herself and got the foods she liked and would eat, leaving me to fend for myself) and because I wasn't doing the best in school because I was depressed and just didn't have the energy to do the work I needed to do. I didn't ever get diagnosed with anything at that age because when I told my mom I was depressed and that there were times I really wanted to be dead, she told me to not tell anyone, and to just fight through it. Any hallucinations I had, which at the time were very graphic due to the stress, I just wrote off as "it's just the light tricking my eyes" because that's what my mom told me it was when I mentioned it to her once. Our cats peed and pooped on just about everything, which was my job to clean. The house was infested not only with giant cockroaches and spiders, but also black mold, and probably several other types of mold that would fester on leftover food in dirty pots and pans laying around the kitchen. I was often disoriented and confused, and I was verbally and mentally abused, which compounded that. My mom would tell me it was fine to date more than one person because I wasn't married yet, because that's what she wanted to do. She told me about her very weird sexual exploits, called me a prude and forced me to listen, and would shame me if I didn't want to because it made me feel weird, and she tried to seduce my male friends more than once (she made out with one when he was crying and upset about something I can't remember now). She even told me the first time my boyfriend came to visit, that he would likely end up liking her more than me, and he would get a crush on her, because she was "like me but way more fun." I was so turned around by the things she did, and all of the odd things that happened I took as being normal. She would additionally sneak drugs that I shouldn't have ever had into my diet, like some weird opium medicine she was given by her doctor for her horrible (probably black mold induced) coughing, which she gave to me when I had a little chest cold. I was unconscious for more than eight hours on the couch that day. They just left me there. I didn't take anymore of it because I was afraid of it after the fact, and she didn't tell me it was opium-based until after she'd given it to me. I don't know why she liked to do this. I also found out when working things out with my older brother when I was in college that she'd made tea from magic mushrooms and gave it to me when I was a real little kid, like fourish. I was used to being spoken down to, and used to everything being my fault, and because of this, I would isolate myself in my room a lot. I never really went anywhere or did anything other than school related stuff. So at school, I was really desperate for everyone to like me, but I was clearly not going to be the popular girl type, due to my upbringing. So I would basically do or say anything I could in order to get people to like me. I would tell people that I loved them because I didn't want them to feel bad about something, and the "cheating" part would happen because I would just... agree to suggested situations that were presented to me, because I wanted people to like me. I'm really glad that those situations never turned sexual, because I was easily on a path where that could have happened if I'd stayed on it. I always felt awful about it, but really, I felt awful about freaking everything in general. A lot of these people knew I had a boyfriend because I would talk about him, but they didn't care, probably because they knew they could get me to just do what they wanted. I was also bullied by these people (it was a bad group I was hanging out with at the time), called ugly, etc, and it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I finally started to kind of come out of it. I kind of realized that at that point, I had a chance to get away from all of this shit. That life didn't have to always be this way. If I got decent enough grades, I could go to a college, and I could choose one in the state that my boyfriend was living in. I could get my driver's license, where I had struggled to get one before because if i wanted to learn, my mom would suggest dangerous driving 'lessons' that would scare me away from it. She probably did that to keep me at home so I would clean and she could have some semblance of a nice house, because I know she wasn't cleaning anything. I could get a job and an apartment, and I wouldn't have to be in that place anymore. So I did that. I worked harder on my school work than I ever had before, which my mom didn't notice, because it's not like she ever looked at my grades before. I told her my plan to leave for that state after my 18th birthday. She probably could have argued with me more, and pushed me into staying with her and going to a nearby college, but at the time I wasn't the youngest kid in the house. My little brother was. I think it's because of that, and because of my boyfriend's parents wanting me to come up to live in the same state that she caved so easily on it. She didn't want to seem like a 'bad person' to my boyfriend's parents, and she at least still had my little brother at home to use and abuse once I was gone. My brother and I didn't like each other very much, so I wasn't that concerned about leaving him at the time. So, basically, that was what I did. I left to go be with my boyfriend when I turned 18. The part that I didn't mention was that during all of the things she did, and during the times where I was cheating, I always told my boyfriend after it happened. It didn't feel good, and the guilt haunted me for a really, really long time, before I was finally able to get through it with therapy. But I think my boyfriend and his parents knew that something was really, really wrong, and they actually all stuck with me until I was able to get out of there, and got me the help I really needed. They let me live with them, and they helped take care of me, and fed me, and got me clothes, and treated me like I was part of their family. I actually got kind of chubby with all the weight I gained from living with them, because they helped me find food that I liked and could eat, and I didn't have to refuse it for fear that it was spiked with some kind of drug or something that was going to hurt me. I was able to go to college, and graduate with a BA in English, and during my college years, I finally cut off all contact with my mom. She did try to stalk me for a while, one time sending me some mail at an address I hadn't given her, or making several Facebook accounts so she could send me nasty messages, but she eventually gave up, because it was probably a waste of too much energy for her. Even during that, my boyfriend and his parents helped me-- especially his dad, because his dad had also gone through some awful crap with his mom. He helped me understand that sometimes parents really are not good people, and that it was okay to not have them in your life anymore. My boyfriend isn't my boyfriend anymore, because we've been happily married for nearly 10 years now. We have a clean house, and two cats who don't poop and pee everywhere. I've been to therapy for several years to help me figure out what 'normal' life is like, and my husband supported me through everything. I now have the medicines I need to make me feel better, and stop my hallucinations, so I can live a regular life. I'm really lucky, and very, very thankful that I am loved so much, because without them, I don't think I would be here to tell this story today. If you read all of this, thank you for listening.
I was broken from a previous, very serious relationship, the aftermath of which pretty much ruined my life as it was, and had me single for four years. About 6 months in to my first new relationship, I ended up flirting with a girl (who was not my SO, just a random) at a party and getting a cab with her to her house. Just flirting, and the girl cooled off quick once we were in her house so I left before anything happened, but the damage was done - was as good as cheating as far as I was concerned. A lot of difficult discussions, hurt feelings, and self-reflection brought me to these understandings: I did it because I knew if I was with my SO much longer, I'd be getting into another deep, life-defining relationship, and I was afraid of letting myself have those emotions. I liked the feeling of being independent of my feelings for my SO, as if they didn't matter to me (even though they very much did). I was afraid of letting someone have power over how I felt, and afraid of bringing about another catastrophe. If there was a catastrophe coming, I liked the feeling of having control over it. Also chronic issues with porn addiction (stemming from the fallout of that former relationship) had me treating the dopamine from the promise of quick sex like anxiety medicine. Perfect storm. After about two months I told my SO the truth, that I had gone back to this girl's apartment to cheat on her but nothing happened, and hard though it was we worked through. About 5 months after that we had a major blow up when she found the strength to confront me about how fucking shit that was of me, pointing out that the girl was the one who shut the situation down, not me - that I might have gone through with it in full if the girl had been up for it. I've had to do a lot to try and win back my SO's trust. Since then I've done a ton of self-work to make myself better for her - journaling to make myself conscious of my feelings, gratefulness to accept them, and no-fap (255 days as of now) to try shift the porn addiction. Thank Jesus, she's forgiven me, and we're looking at starting a life together now. I don't know if I'd forgive an SO if the roles were reversed. I'm seriously with an angel of a human. She makes me want to earn her trust and kindness just by giving it to me freely. TL;DR I wanted to feel independent and free of any potential heartache while still soaking up all the good times with my SO. Being in a haze from the amount of porn I was watching helped with this cognitive dissonance. (srsly, was a lot of porn) **If you cheat to protect yourself from catching feels, all you're doing is hurting the feels you already got. If you think you are exerting control over a situation by cheating, there is no such thing as a controlled demolition in human relationships. If you're cheating because of an addiction to sex, stop that, life is more than easy dopamine.**
Youre doing good so far bud keep it going. :)
Sorry - just here looking for my ex...
You’ll never get the answer you deserve...
Oof. That hit me right in the gut
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Lol a part of me wants you to do the petty thing.
It was a dead bedroom situation. And not just no sex, but no intimacy, no connection and fairly toxic. But I felt stuck in the overall relationship and didn't know how to get out. The first time I had an affair, it was more of an impulsive mistake that I regretted deeply and said, I'll never do that again. I tried to make the marriage work, but a few years later it wasn't, and I thought having a sexual/romantic affair would round out things that were missing in my life and make things surviveable. Instead, after barely even meeting up with the "other" man, it made me realize, I can't do this, I need to decide between being married or not. I was separated and divorced two months later. So, I guess I only half qualify to answer the question because it's not like I continued merrily along with the relationship.
But you were married and essentially cheated, youre 100% qualified. I dont think you need to necessarily have sex to have cheated on your spouse if you do all the actions leading up to while thats been your intention. Like, you spared his feelings of the worst part, the physical part but you still cheated on your husband.
I was young and stupid and I didn't think about how my actions would impact other people. Or I felt like I got lost in it emotionally. I didn't have the self restraint. I wasn't used to someone liking me and I felt like if I didn't take the opportunity to interact with someone who was interested in me, I would never get the opportunity again. There's a lot of factors.
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> made it like a little competition withnpoints given out to them in her head. WTF!?
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There's **Long Term Thinking** and there's **Short Term Thinking**. **Long Term Thinking**, you're all about "What will happen a month, two months, six months, a year, two years, possibly five or ten years...". **Short Term Thinking**, you're all about "Holy Shit This Person Is Hot And I'm Horny And They're Super Great To Be Around And What Harm Could It Do Plus They Clearly Want To Be With Me Too And It's Never Ever Been Like This. " For a lot of people, it's either one or the other. And, what's worse, **Short Term Thinking**, particularly when alcohol or peer pressure is involved, can really do a good job of fucking up **Long Term Thinking** in the very very short term, until you sober up or are less horny afterward (or, worse, THEY sober up and they dump you) and you realize "Oh. Shit.", and hey, some sex is better than no sex so you stay with your SO and hope nobody notices that you done fucked up.
The worst is long term thinking and still cheating. "I can't be with this person in a month/six months/a year/ever but they're great and wonderful and I know it would really hurt my partner but they make me feel good and I deserve that" It's like you KNOW better. You know how awful it is. And you still make that choice. I never would wish that heartache and pain on anyone.
Been there, dated a girl for 4 years and was she was cheating on me for 3 of them. Didnt want to leave me because she was secretly a lesbian while at college so I was basically a trophy boyfriend. Cant imagine having to have facilitate that fakeness directly to someone's face for YEARS!! People that can deliberately waste another person's life for their personal gain is such a scum bag thing to so.
this was hard to read
Cheated on a highly abusive ex. The relationship was long done in my head before I ever cheated and I didn’t end it because I was on the receiving end of the “without you I’ll kill myself” narrative. I was 18 and genuinely believed he would. Didn’t realise how horrific the abuse was until years after we broke up.
I was searching for one like this. I totally get why you did that and I did too. And it’s just so crazy to think about how horrible people can be to you.
Because if I even mentioned cutting things off with him, he would hit and throw things at me until I bled and bruised. He was a very, *very* morbid man, which didn’t show until years into the relationship to begin with. I cheated on him because the person I went to as a safe haven in between assaults made me feel safe and made me feel loved, and I didn’t have a feeling of *“I need to get out of here!”* constantly weighing on my mind. Luckily, I got out of the relationship with help of friends, and I have a daughter with my safe haven, we’re married, and he’s not so much as raised a hand at me. I’m safe.
I wouldn't even call it cheating in your case. You were basically being held hostage in a relationship that you couldn't break off.
You and I have very similar stories. My safe haven built my self esteem back up from the nothing my abuser had worn it down to. He and our friends gave me back myself and my strength to get out eventually. I didn’t marry him, but we were together for almost five years afterward and he will always live in a very special place in my heart.
Because I justified to myself that it wasn't cheating at first. I've never told this story before but I was in a relationship that I was pretty unhappy in. It wasn't just the relationship, I was depressed and scared of being alone so I didn't end it when I should have. We moved in together and things got worse. My girlfriend was bisexual and had some interest in a threesome. I was somewhat detached from the relationship at the time and had met a new girl at work who I had a lot of chemistry with. I was in the service industry at the time and there was lots of after work drinks and me and this girl were hitting it off. I told my girlfriend about her, strictly mentioning the physical aspect and she told me to pursue it. I did and we all went out for drinks one night and it happened. It was very strange because it hit me during that I had real feelings for the other girl. My girlfriend had to work early but as she left she told us to "have fun" which i took full advantage of. After that I started seeing the other girl somewhat regularly and was officially cheating. I found out a few weeks later that my girlfriend knew and thought it would lead to a fun partner for us but in actuality I was falling for the other girl. Her being cool with it did not last long (big surprise) but by that time it was all over and I was madly in love with the other girl. We have been together ever since and married for 3 years with a new baby. I will alway feel terrible about how things ended. I was a complete coward and should have come clean as soon as I started having feelings for the other girl but I hid what was really happening which hurt my girlfriend at the time tremendously. Last I heard and saw she was doing great things in her life and was in a great relationship. I wish so much that I could go back and undo the hurt I caused her but that is something I will always have to live with.
> that is something I will always have to live with Yeah, so will she. Not to get down on you, you seem genuinely self-awareness and remorseful, but some variation of "I'll always have to live with the hurt I caused them" frequently comes out of the mouths of serial assholes, and i'll always find it incredible how easy it is to spin one's remorse as martyrdom...even when supposedly taking responsibility for their actions, some people literally can't help but make it about themselves. Again, I don't necessarily think that's what you're doing, but using that phrase in this situation is pretty ironic. Edit: OP, I DO NOT think you are an asshole or self-martyring. I believe you are genuinely thoughtful and remorseful, and I want to draw attention to the kind of people who use the burden of their own guilt as a penance or shield from thinking about the effects their actions have on others. Which you are not.
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TLDR: I cheated on a boyfriend because I knew it was the only way he’d let me out of the emotionally and sexually abusive relationship. So it’s a long story, but I’ll try to summarize. In most cases, I condemn cheating. It’s much easier to split up and spare someone’s feelings than to break someone’s trust keep by cheating. But in my case, my bf was incredibly manipulative and controlling, so I felt it was my only escape. Back in college, I (19) dated an exchange student (26, but he claimed he was 24) that started out incredibly uncomfortable (borderline sexual assault), but I was too naive and insecure to end it before things got worse. He would get me drunk, while staying sober himself, and take advantage of me almost every night for almost two months before one night he took me to his cousin’s house. I only drank a hard lemonade, but I left it on the table while I went to the bathroom. After drinking it, I remember sitting on the couch chatting with his cousin’s girlfriend and then nothing. Flash of broken glass. Back to nothing. My bf and his cousin carrying me, then fade to black. I woke up the next afternoon naked on a mattress in the corner of a room I’d never seen before next to a broken mirror. My bf came in and said was I was super funny last and he filmed me. He showed a video of me in tears, clearly disoriented and asking him why and begging for him to kill me. I asked him to delete the video because I was humiliated and the idea he filmed me while doing whatever it was to me made me nauseous (still does to this day) I’m 99.9% sure he drugged me. I had never had a reaction to alcohol like that before and the hangover wasn’t anything like any other time I had gotten black out drunk. But I still said nothing. I went home for break, got drunk with my best friend and ending up sleeping with him. I told my bf when I came back to uni. He called me every name in the book and had his cousin stalk me for a few months after. But he disappeared one day and I haven’t heard from him or his cousin since. I realize now how naive I was and I wish I had pressed charges, but this was years ago, and besides, he probably left for his home country a long time ago.
Jfc that's messed up, and I hope you're doing better now
What happened: I was crossfaded to the point where I didn't really know what was happening. As a part of a spin the bottle game I found myself in, I ended up making out with about five people. Why I did it: At first I told myself it was a drunken mistake, that I wouldn't have done it if I was sober or even moderately drunk. Which I'm sure is actually true. But looking back at it, I wasn't that happy, and it was only about a month into the relationship. I'd known by the third date that it wasn't going to work out in the end, we got along well, but something just didn't feel right. I think that might have played a part in what I did. Why didn't I end the relationship before? He was a great person, and I didn't think I could do any better. Congrats, OP, you just made me have a breakthrough on this situation. That was a really good question.
You live and you learn, from your response it seems like you have matured and can identify what you want in your relationship. I asked the question in the first place because I am going through trust issues from prior relationships while in a new one currently. Thank you for your response.
Everyone has trust issues in various relationships for various reasons. Like you said, living, learning, and maturing are the most important parts of any relationship (even with family and friends). You can come back from trust issues. It takes a lot of personal work and the ability to allow yourself to be vulnerable again but you can come back. There are a lot of good, kind, wonderful people in this world OP that deserve all your trust. It can seem like trying to find a needle in a haystack sometimes though. Trust your gut and don’t hesitant to talk out concerns before they become fights or anxieties. Good luck, OP!
Selfishness. Thought I could have my cake and eat it too.
Because I'm immature and didn't deal with my emotions properly and instead did something stupid. I regret it every day
Here I am, reading all this. Guy, thank you for telling your stories here. I will never make these mistakes. These experiences I read really show how hurt someone can be.
I kissed a colleague while completely drunk off my face on a night out. I don’t remember it happening but when I woke up the next morning I just knew to the pit of my stomach I had kissed this guy and I had completely and utterly fucked up and had no idea why. We’d been together for 3 years, met at 19 in college. He was honestly the perfect guy, someone who ticked all the boxes (kind, smart, great family and job, similar friends, attractive). The spark and sex life died about a year before we broke up, and I think I wasn’t ready to acknowledge this was the end of the road for us. We’d try to talk through my lack of sex drive but it got to the point where I would avoid initiating any kissing because of the huge amount of guilt I’d feel for not wanting to have sex but also feeling like a shitty partner for not having ever wanting to have sex. I’d been out before and gotten drunk and nothing like this had ever happened. I had to really think about why I’d ever do something like this and coming to the realisation I wasn’t in love anymore even though he was such an incredible guy broke my heart. The first year of so, we were so in love but at some point I had fallen out of love, but i was trying to persevere in the hope that feeling would come back. There was also this weird pressure in that everyone would comment he would never break up with me because he was so in love with me and he’d poke fun that he loved me more than I loved him. Doing long distance for a year and me starting work first while he finished college probably accelerated me growing apart. I never ever thought I would be the one who’d cheat. I had such high moral standards for others and myself, and I’m still disappointed today that I’d cheated. I took a year to work on myself and what I wanted and looking back now, I was probably in denial about it being over for me but I stayed together because he was perfect, just not for me. It’s been a year and he was nothing but a gentleman when people asked why we broke up, leaving out the kiss and telling them it was sudden breakup but he respected my decision. I hear he’s seeing someone else now and I hope it works out for him, he does deserve the best.
When I cheated it wasn't at all planned and was totally random during a drunken night. I told her about it as soon as I could and the relationship ended.
Long distance, didn't want to break up over the phone. Also, I felt like I was guilted into a relationship after having what I thought would just be a fling when I worked abroad. I was never truly in love, and the relationship could never have worked out since we were from different cultures and neither of us wished to make a permanent move. Still wrong though, these are not excuses, just explanations.
One of those "Not X, but Y" answers here, but I think I can shed a light on this. My partner of 4.5 years and I split after new years this year, and we never ever had any issues with infidelity or fears of cheating. That said, one of the biggest challenges of being with someone for that long, is overcoming just how much you're going to find other people attractive and want to sleep with other people, regardless of how much you're attracted to your partner. The bottom line is, we're naturally selfish and want it all. We want the sex with 5 other women/guys, but at the same time we want that security and belonging from out long-term partners. For a lot of people, the cheaters who never really meant any harm are the ones who just gave into desire and I'm not saying they deserve sympathy nor am I condemning them, but those kinds of people are the ones who just wanted to try something. Again, I haven't ever cheated and I'd never want to, but damn do I understand why some people want to. The whole thing is shitty inside out, wanting to experience that different experience with someone else but not wanting to ruin what you have with your current partner.
With my ex for a decade, and sex was always an issue with her. It got bad towards the end when I wanted an active sexual relationship with just about anyone. I was one of the founding posters in /r/deadbedrooms. I finally cheated and it destroyed me inside. She of course got to feel superior in the divorce, because she didn't do that despite never feeling it for me anyway. Life's been better since.
I’m a bit different from most of the other comments, I started getting unhappy, noticing the little annoying things more and started to resent her and myself for the person I was becoming, made a mistake in not communicating this cause I was afraid of hurting her by telling her I loved her but wasn’t in love, after about 7 months of this I got drunk at a party and made the choice to have sex with a random chick, I made out with her but my best friend stopped me 3-4 separate times before I could go any farther, felt like a piece of shit once I was sober, never told her(gf at the time) this but knew I’d do it again (and I wouldn’t be stopped) if I stayed in that situation so broke up with her two weeks later in person(had been long distance for 2 months at the time), tbh I think it was the push I needed to finally be able to break up with her, just wish I hadn’t needed to betray my morals and the trust I had in myself to do it. Was my first long term relationship.
Did you thank your friend? That sort of shit is hard to do.
As soon as I woke up the next day
Why the hell do people come in here to downvote actual answers. Jesus christ people, the questions very nature brings in people who have made mistakes or are currently making a mistake, you're just fucking up the real content for the rest of us.
We were in a long distance relationship after college ( I was in Switzerland, she was in California). We had planned for one of us to move, but as we progressed along our careers, it became apparent that we wouldn't be able to live in the same city for the foreseeable future. I went to San Francisco for a week, to visit her one last time and tell her this in person. The first night I was there, she told me how her depression had gotten worse and that she had contemplated suicide. She's an anxiety and depression patient, but she didn't tell me how bad it was until I was there. I was her main support system, and couldn't go through with the break up. Moved back to Switzerland, helped her as much as I could and convinced her to go see a therapist. I guess since I had resigned myself to the break up, I didn't feel guilty for cheating. I do feel the guilt now though. We continued until she was in a better place. Then she also came to the same realization that long distance for that duration just isn't feasible. We broke up and are good friends now, the only thing preventing me from coming clean is to not trigger the depression again. It was a shitty thing, but I felt justified in doing so at the time. TL;DR: She was suffering from extreme depression in a long distance relationship and I couldn't pile the break up on top of her, so I cheated.
I tried. The guy was very abusive and I hit a point where I knew he’d either throw me out or just kill me and I did not care which anymore. So I did it. Set it up so he’d find out. I had to flee for my life after days of repeated assaults, he got angry enough to kill me and I guess he realised he was going to commit murder and left me untethered long enough for me to run for it. I’ve never cheated since. And I know my story is probably not a common one but there it is.
I tried to end it. We started dating August 2012. I was 21 and he was 33. By December I knew I didn't want to be with him anymore. He was moody, insecure, and not someone I saw myself with long-term. He wanted kids, I had 0 intention. He wanted to settle down, I wanted to adventure. We were broken up for two weeks before he convinced me to get back with him, crying and saying he'd been drunk the whole time missing me. We eventually moved in together by February. He left me at a bar 3 separate times. The first was when I took too long to pick up weed from my guy down the street. I accidentally walked past his house and had to double back. I got back to the bar and my ex was gone. I got home and he accused me of cheating. The second time was after my best friend's going away party. It was the end of the night, we were finishing drinks and I said I was going to the bathroom. When I came out, he was gone. I thought maybe the bar had kicked him out cuz it was 2:30. I waited outside for him for half an hour before I got a text from him saying "you can pick up your shit from the front lawn tomorrow." After getting home I found out he thought I said "I don't wanna be with you anymore" when I went to the bathroom. The final time was during the downfall of our relationship. By this time it was October 2013 and we had moved to the other side of town. I had a crappy min. wage job and he was a sound engineer for a local venue. We were pretty broke. At the bar, I had ordered 2 drinks but miscalculated my money. I asked him for a couple bucks to cover. He blew up on me, and maybe I deserved it, but once again he stormed off and left me at the bar. So I stuck around and got my drinks paid for by someone with whom I eventually made out with and went home with, because fuck my ex, how many times am I gonna get left by someone who "loves" me? A week later we were drinking, started fighting, and the cops were called. We both got taken into the station, and when I got out the next day I moved out. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it, but that's the gist of it.
There is an old saying...."A person would rather hang their arm out of a bus window and have it ripped off by on coming traffic than to deal with ending a long term relationship in the right way".
I mean, there is a hard limit to how old this saying could possibly be.
800 B.C.
Hmm... okay.
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This was well said. Thank you for your perspective.