An open letter to all of you (Today’s going to be a change of pace, so buckle up) :
To the readers of Her Campus, I am divulging a story that I would not normally share, but it is important for you to know in order to understand the ideology behind cheating. This is something that I’m ashamed of; a reason to hate myself and for you to hate me. I’m telling you this because I trust you, and I know that no matter what you think or say, it doesn’t even touch how badly I feel about it. I owe it to you, because you deserve to know what kind of person you’re getting relationship advice from. I was having trouble coming up with the right words. But you know, I don’t think that the right words exist for something like this. However, I pray that I chose the best words.
In my freshman year of college, I cheated on my then girlfriend. She was from “back home” as I tell people, and we had been attending different colleges since dating. When it happened, we had been seeing each other for a couple of months but had only been officially dating for a few weeks. I should also mention at this point, I had gotten out of a long term relationship with an old friend of hers maybe weeks before we started seeing each other. On a surface level everything seemed like it was going okay. I don’t say it seemed like it was going great because it didn’t and I think people could tell. We were prone to arguing in the presence of our friends, often times exchanging passive aggressive comments back and forth like two old ladies. Nevertheless, she was my girlfriend and I loved her more than anything, despite our occasional bickering.
There’s something about being in love though that really allows a person to ignore all the horrible things that can come with dating. There’s sweetness to it, of course, being able to love without consideration to anything else in the world. But it comes with a heavy price. When you start to ignore the horrible things, you lose your soul and become the worst version of yourself. And when you finally do realize that the person you’re with might not be the person you should be with, it can only end one way: with broken hearts and a lot of tears.
As you can imagine, this is sort of the way things played out. I had never been in a long distance relationship before and didn’t know how to deal with it. On top of that, I just got out of long-term relationship with this old friend of hers—a girl I had been with since I was 15. Which means I was going into a college relationship with all the emotional capacity of a 15-year-old boy. So it should come as no surprise that I was willing to ignore all of the bad stuff in exchange for this idea of “love conquering all troubles”. Whenever she got mad at me for something I said or did, I always got the thought that I really shouldn’t be with this girl; that we should just break up and be over with it. Alas, love reared it’s shit eating grin and told me to hold on just a little longer and that I would get over it. So I did, and what happened? I cheated on her.
I should take this time to say that our relationship wasn’t all horrible. Because it wasn’t. I like to think that we had a lot of fun despite it all. She was the one person I could rely on the most in the world; the one person I felt like I could tell anything to, even though I might not like what she had to say. And like I said I really did love her.
So why did I? Why would I cheat on the person I supposedly loved the most in the world, especially if I was willing to ignore all of our flaws? I am going to cop out on this one and say there’s no easy answer. I know. That’s bullshit. But sincerely, there isn’t one. I could tell you about all of the flaws in the relationship but really anything I tell you now about her or our relationship will just be meaningless finger pointing and blaming. I don’t want to do that. I will tell you this though, dear reader: I felt alone. I felt worthless; like I wasn’t good enough for her; like there was more I should have been doing but wasn’t. And on top of that, I also felt like I was missing experiences in life that can only come with being single; like I said, I had started seeing her weeks after breaking up with a long-term girlfriend. I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the missed opportunities: other people to meet and possible romances I was missing out on all because I was in love. Because of that, I felt alone. And it’s one thing to feel lonely while you’re single. It’s a whole other thing to feel lonely when you’re with the person you love.
So a few of weeks into our relationship, I did what I thought I’d never do and I cheated on her.
I could say now that I was younger and more careless; that I wasn’t thinking and that I regret the decision I made. But honestly, I am not too sure about that. I knew what I was doing. It was my choice to make, and I will own up to it. I cheated. It was an awful decision and I’m being completely honest when I say that my life was a dark novel until the day I told her. I couldn’t enjoy a single moment of our relationship knowing what I did. Every time she wanted to get intimate; every loving word she said to me was like a knife being driven into my chest. Reminding me of what I did and what I needed to tell her. And even when I did tell her, I still had to live with the consequences. Not only did I lose her trust but I lost the trust and respect of the people in my life I cared about the most; my friends and best friends who I couldn’t tell because I was too much of a coward. It was like I cheated on everyone. Worst of all though, I lost respect for myself.
I know what you’re thinking. Tony is just a cheating asshat who is begging for your sympathy. Well, I’ll accept the fact that I’m an asshat, I hurt the one person I loved the most in the world. In doing so, I became something I never thought I would be: a cheater. I used to think that men who cheated on their wives and girlfriends were the lowest creatures on the food chain. To borrow a quote from Con Air, “they were somewhere between a cockroach and that white stuff that accumulates at the corners of your mouth when you’re thirsty.” I despised them.
Why though would I do it if I thought this? Why in the world would any self-respecting guy do this to the people they should care about the most? Of course there’s no one reason. I’d put it down to these four though:
4. Ego trips – A quote I found on Reddit:
“You’ve likely been told you’re beautiful, hot, etc. by men and boys from a young age. You’ve seen men and boys blatantly check out your body from a young age…And while the media bombards you with the message that unless you’re 115 pounds, you’re fat; unless you wear Maybellene, you’re ugly; men will tell you that you are, in fact, attractive.
Now, imagine if no man ever looked at you your whole life. No man ever told you how pretty you look today…But the media’s still telling you you’re unattractive. The difference now is that you have constant reinforcement that they are right, they’re absolutely right. No man truly finds you attractive, your boyfriends and lovers just told you are because that’s what they’re supposed to do.
That’s what being a man is like. Women don’t tell us we’re attractive out of the blue. Women don’t stare at us. And the media tells us that we’ll forever remain unattractive. And we don’t receive any contrary experiences.” (source: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/103pxb/do_women_check_out_men/c6aif9j)
Though I know that this doesn’t apply to all women, there’s still more than a grain of truth in it. Often times in long term relationships, guys will begin to wonder whether or not they are still sexually attractive to people other than their girlfriends or wives. I know I felt this way. We feel as though we have the need to prove to ourselves and to the world that we are attractive; that people desire us. Nothing can help boost a guy’s ego and self-image more than knowing that there are people out there who find him sexually attractive.
3. The fire is gone – It’s a sad fact that the thrill of being in a new relationship has a shelf life. Some people call it the honeymoon period; the point of a relationship where everything is new and exciting and sexy. Of course for some couples, this can last indefinitely and they can remain happy and excited about their relationship for a long time (and to those people I say go fuck yourselves). For most however, it can last for only so long. After that, there’s rarely anything to be excited about in the relationship anymore. The relationship becomes stagnant and uninteresting. When this happens guys lose their attraction to their significant others and might seek it in other women who might provide new and exciting experiences.
This isn’t inevitable though. One thing I have learned from my sordid relationship history is that romance needs momentum. It needs new and exciting things to keep it going. I would suggest always finding something fresh to do with your significant other to keep things alive. This can be something as simple as a date at a concert or as novel and odd as introducing BDSM in the bedroom.
2. We don’t feel wanted – there’s another quote about relationships that I feel fits well with this: Men like to be admired. Women like to be appreciated. It’s very true. And when one of these stop working, the relationship stops working. If men don’t feel admired —that is, we don’t get the feeling that you appreciate or even like being with us—for what they bring to the relationship, we’ll take our efforts somewhere where they will be.
1. We don’t love you anymore – this is the strongest and probably the most heartbreaking reason for why guys cheat. After a while, we might lose the feelings we once had for you. We may still love you, but it isn’t at all the kind of love that comes with romance. It’s more like the kind of love that comes with being with someone for so long and not being able to leave them. Breaking up is still really hard. You’ve become a part of us; something that we’re not willing to let go just yet. Or maybe we just don’t know how. Whatever the reason, we can’t break up with you, so we find gratification elsewhere until we can (if ever).
None of these are good reasons though; and there may never be a good reason. If you should ever find yourself in a situation where you’ve been cheated on or if you’re doing the cheating though, do yourself a favor and tell them the truth. If you have any shred of respect for yourself and the other person, you’d do them right by being honest and not hiding what you did. After all you did it, so own up to it.
To be completely honest, I don’t know why I cheated. I still don’t. Whatever the reason was though, it showed me that I wasn’t ready for the relationship that I was in. It showed me that the girl I was with deserved a hell of a lot better than I was giving her , because after all I did cheat on her. More importantly though, it showed me that I needed to be grow up and stop being a fuckwad. So I told her, and broke up with her. I’ve grown since then. I’m more honest with my friends and I’m a lot more grateful for the people around me who’ve stuck with me through it all. Her and I are friends now (as much of friends as exes can be) and she seems happy.
It’s been years since then, and not a day goes by where I don’t think about her for just a little bit. It’s funny though, I don’t think about the shitty parts at all. I don’t think about her yelling at me. I don’t think about us arguing, about being lonely, and I don’t think about how I cheated on her. I think about when we were happy. I think about us. When we were in love.
*All images are free stock files