Infidelity

I've just spent the last couple of hours with a friend who was crying on my shoulder because her boyfriend is having an affair.

They live together and they have children and she's absolutely devastated and while she was telling me about all the little signs that she must have overlooked and how it was her fault and while she was telling me all this and I was making the right noises, I couldn't help but feel a little hypocritical as I'm a cheater myself.

I had an odd marriage. We split up, lived apart and then came back together more times than I care to count. I'm pretty sure our separations didn't hit the double digits but I'm thinking we came close.

We were boyfriend and girlfriend for 7 months when I had my first one night stand and then we were married for two years when I had my first affair. Affair guy #1 was my best friend's brother and he came into my life when my husband just wasn't interested in a sexual relationship. We slept in the same bed for 13 months and not once did he initiate anything even remotely connected to foreplay and I was bored with starting it myself. So I looked elsewhere. It lasted 10 months and we parted amicably. I still talk to Affair guy #1 on occasion and up till a couple of years ago the spark was still there but it has fizzled out for reasons I'll state toward the end of this confession entry.

The second time was with one of the bigwigs at a company I was working for. Affair guy #2 was a vice president type person and we lasted for 4 months and probably would have gone for longer had someone working at the same company not seen us together. The fact that we were both married (to different people) did not go down well with the Director of the company and he was fired and I was transferred. C'est la vie.

Affair guy #3 was hubby's best friend. What started out as a one night stand ended up lasting a year and resulted in my husband and I splitting up for the fifth or sixth time (incredibly, neither of those times were the last time). Because it was his best friend, I finally got a conscience and thought it was the best thing to do. That ended badly. He had a violent temper and he and I used to argue a fair bit but at the back of my mind I always wondered if he'd ever hit me. It wasn't till I found some documents (yes I was snooping) pertaining to a court case where a woman was beaten and raped in her home (by this guy I was seeing) that I decided to put an end to it, resulting in 5 weeks of phone calls, stalking and him being a general nuisance. Even up until a couple of years ago when he saw me on the street and cut me off in traffic to still ask "why?" he has always been a source of worry for me and the reason why even now I will not have my real name along with my number listed in the telephone book, and why I left the area I grew up in for good.

Interspersed through all of that were a number of one night stands and all in all I was a promiscuous unthinking bitch who knew better but I can't go back and change the past and really nor would I want to. Good or bad they've all been experiences that have helped shape me into the person that I am today and I like me. I'm light years away from perfect, but I've been worse.

I haven't cheated in a long time, although when I was in a relationship a few years ago I knew that given an opportunity, I would have and I guess in a way I did because I ended up having an online fling with one person and I have ultimately ended up with a wonderful man, also from the internet except I don't see myself cheating with this one.

I think that a person who has cheated is always a cheater. We're forever tempted and our convictions are tested and really it all comes down to how much you love and respect the person that you are with.

I look at what I had with previous partners and even though I know that cheating is wrong, I still can find reason for why I did what I did and I can justify the chain of events that led to me sharing my body with someone who wasn't my husband. I look at what I have now and I know that I could not cheat on someone as wonderful as him. I, better than anyone, can read my own signs and I know that I mean what I say. I can only hope that he won't hurt me either.

On one hand, I hope that my ex reads this so I can come clean and apologise for what I did. Back when it mattered, he asked me time and time again and I always said "no" and I could see on his face that he didn't believe me but that he wanted to believe me. Why would his ex best friend stalk me if there was nothing to it? I could see his line of reasoning back then and I can still see it now, yet I think deep down he didn’t want to think of me with someone else. On the other hand I hope he never finds out.

Even though I am one, I wish that people who cheat didn't form relationships unless they’re absolutely positively sure that they’re with the person they’re meant to be with because when caught, they leave a trail of devastation that could have easily been avoided if they had done the right thing and remained free of emotional attachments in the first place.

I hate what this guy has done to my friend and their children.

Posted By: Lint | 08:58 AM | Lint

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