Fateful Affairs: Cheating on the Cheaters

Originally published on April 30, 2018; edited and republished November 2021

Back when this was a body language site, one of my earliest blog posts I described my process of seeing how dishonest my partner-at-the-time (I’ll call him Craig) was by using tools I learned from various books and studies on human lie detection. If you haven’t read it, you can find it here.

What I failed to do was use some of the tools on myself and see my dishonesty in the whole situation — because, well, who wants to admit they were wrong, too? At the time it seemed much “easier” to be a victim. I’m leaving that post published, as is, because it served a purpose, the tools can still be useful to others, and it’s an example of how we can all gloss over some of the finer details of a situation.

I’ll start with the glossed-over details in this quote, straight from my post: “He asked me if I’d ever cheated on him; I said no and then asked him the same.” Ugh, my heart is pounding just writing this out. The reality is that I deceived myself by suppressing the fact that I was a cheater, and rationalizing my reasons why. What happened the first time we were together was this:

I was head-over-heels in love with Craig and stayed loyal for about the first year-and-a-half of our relationship. Occasionally I’d get feelings that he didn’t love me anymore because one, I didn’t love myself; two, because his behavior towards me changed and became an intense cycle of ups and downs; three, because I had a strong sense that he was cheating. The idealizations wore off and I caught glimpses of who he was, then felt strong urges to leave and do more with myself, but I was afraid to leave because I convinced myself that our story was straight out of a fairy-tale and we were supposed to be soulmates dangit! How could I abandon that? But he wasn’t the first soulmate to come around.

I’ll take you back...

When I was sixteen, a cute, brown-eyed Australian guy (Kyle) and I started talking on the VampireFreaks website; I was immediately smitten with him, and he with I. We were convinced it was meant to be and I’d move to Australia, eventually get a marriage visa, and we’d live happily ever after! We quit talking after a while and then reconnected a few years later. We stopped talking again, after re-realizing that we lived too far apart and plane tickets to the other side of the globe were/are expensive.

Then, for almost the last time, Kyle and I reconnected, and this was while I was in my relationship with Craig. The truth is, I had an emotional affair with him. But those aren't as bad as physical affairs, it’s not like we were kissing or having sex, we were just talking and sending photos. Yeah, that’s what I told myself: it wasn’t cheating. But the reality is that having an emotional affair is cheating, and it’s just as bad as doing anything physical.

Where did my sudden urge to leave Minnesota and travel come from? It came from my cute Aussie guy, who I eventually stopped talking to once again. I left Craig to travel regardless because I knew that’s what I really wanted to do — just needed a push from another guy, I guess.

Not The First Time, Nor The Last

I might be making it sound like that was my first dance with infidelity, but I suppressed and rationalized a few other instances as well.

My first major relationship was with a wild and crazy Montana guy (Kenny) who I met and made out with at a concert. I left my parents a note and ran away to be with him, and traveled America selling magazines door-to-door. It was another case of falling hard and fast, then being disappointed and wondering how fate could be so cruel. We acted like we were in a relationship, he treated me like his girlfriend, but he wouldn’t say I was his girlfriend to anyone.

Six months after leaving Nebraska, traveling and being with this guy, I visited home for my sister’s wedding. During that time I strayed twice: the first time with my original Minnesota friend, Leo (we’ll get to him), when we laid on my bed and held hands. The second, a day or two later, with an old friend, Stan, when we made out on the grass in a cemetery. But it was okay you know, because Kenny never said I was his girlfriend so I had no obligation to act that way. That’s what I told myself when he asked if I got with anyone when I visited home — nope!

On top of that, the magazine crew was mostly guys, and when my emotional needs weren’t being met by Kenny, I’d look to the other guys to fill the void and provide my sense of worth. One night in Florida, after getting too drunk, I lustfully kissed one of them (which I did tell Kenny about), then felt terrible. It didn't stop me though: several months later we were in Vegas where most of the crew went out to the strip, but I stayed back and laid closely on the couch with one of the guys. But hey, we didn’t kiss or anything, it was fiiiiine.

Fate, Fate…

Here is where Leo — the unstable and artsy, original Minnesotan who I was destined to be with before Kenny and Craig — comes in! My first real job was at a McDonalds, where I never wanted to work, but uff da was I glad I did! If I never took that job, he wouldn’t have come into my life. Leo ran away from home and left his phone and a note at our store; I stumbled upon it in the office and snooped a bit. Okay, I snooped a lot and texted him a couple times after the phone was sent home to his parents. A month later, after he was found in New Mexico and returned home, we connected and I was convinced it was fate!

We stayed in touch on and off. Eventually — once I'd served my sentence selling magazines — I went home, saved some money, bought a car, saved more money, and moved to Minneapolis to be with him. That’s something else I totally gloss over when people ask me why I moved there. I was embarrassed to say I did anything for a boy, but in reality, most of what I ever did was because I was chasing a boy.

A month after moving there, I met the ever-strange and crafty Craig on the strictly platonic section of Craigslist and we started to get really close. I stayed over at his house one night, too drunk to drive home, and he invited me to sleep in his bed rather than on the couch. I’d innocently slept in my friends’ beds before, there’s nothing wrong with thaaaat. Oh, the things we tell ourselves when we know something is wrong. A week or two later, I slept in his bed again (just slept), as if once wasn’t enough.

We’d go dancing at First Avenue or Insert Coins, and those were my opportunities to innocently get really close to him because...it was just dancing! After a couple months of fighting with desire and making excuses, I cut off my relationship with the original Minnesotan and started something with the new Minnesotan: my true soulmate!

And More Fate?

A month before I would leave Minnesota the first time, Eric — my charming and devious ex-boyfriend from twelfth grade — messaged me on Facebook, which tended to happen every two or three years during my most shaky and vulnerable times. It was St. Patrick's Day, not long before I’d move back to Minnesota, and I was supposed to hang out with him. He never got back to me so I went to the brewery on my own.

On the drive there, a cunning coyote ran across the highway, and if you don’t know this about me, I love looking into spirit animals and symbolism. The day Eric disappeared again, a new trickster came into my life via Facebook messenger, Clyde.

We met a few years prior at a friend’s birthday party and he was enamored by me — told our mutual friend that he was in love! We never hung out or talked after the party, but he randomly messaged me through Facebook on the day of the coyote. “How serendipitous,” he said, in regards to the timing of me moving back to Minnesota in a couple weeks. Fate, man!

When I moved back, my intention was to be with Craig, but if all else failed, at least I’d have Clyde to fall back on, so I needed to make our friendship happen. We were friendly for the first few times hanging out, and then one night while walking around a warehouse area of Minneapolis, he tried getting physical with me. I told him no several times and pushed him away, but I knew what I really wanted and so did he. He kept persisting until he ended up driving off angrily because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. I felt bad.

The next time we hung out, we ate at some arepa restaurant and before saying goodbye, we hugged for a while, then I pushed him against a tree and jumped into his arms. (No kissing, so it was okay.) The next time, Craig went on a trip to the Boundary Waters with his friends and I had Clyde over. We laid on the futon together listening to music, hugging tightly, and that was the last time I saw him. We were going to hang out the following day, but I ghosted him because I felt horrible for everything I’d done and wanted to do up to that point.

When my birthday rolled around, in a conversation about having friends over to celebrate, Craig asked why I had quit hanging out with Clyde. I told him it was because he wanted to be more than friends and I didn’t. He felt so thankful for having such a loyal girlfriend, he bought me flowers...fuck.

But it was okay...he was cheating on me, too, and...we didn’t kiss or have sex, right?

Self-Love Deficiency

I used to condemn cheaters and say I would never ever cheat on my partner — I’d leave them before I cheated! Have you ever said something and then went against your word? We’re all a little hypocritical at times, aren’t we. So why did I do it?

Ross Rosenberg, a psychotherapist who specializes in Codependency, would say it's all about Self-Love Deficit Disorder. I never learned to love and cherish myself until recently (still learning!) and it turned into bad patterns and habits of always seeking outsiders to provide those feelings for me. I was so afraid to acknowledge my inner darkness, and that has resulted in a whole lot of self-deception.

I couldn’t get myself to write and post part two of the earlier mentioned blog post because I said part two would be all about how I took that relationship experience and turned it into finding and bettering myself, but I had barely even started! At the time, deep inside, I felt like a fraud and could never figure out why. You can’t eliminate your inner resistance, guilt, and shame when you don’t know their sources. Now I know, and it feels like I've truly begun this journey.

Fate wasn’t finding a soulmate in those guys. Fate was the lessons I'd learn from abandoning myself and my values with them, almost falling into that pattern one last time, hitting the bottom, and searching for a way up and out. I’m still finding my way.

Always a Cheater

They say “once a cheater always a cheater” and I refuse to believe it. It’s true that many people may never change, but for each person stuck in their ways there is another person doing their best to heal their inner wounds to be and do better.

Always a cheater if you’re constantly on the lookout for outsiders to provide your sense of self-worth. Always a cheater if you don’t wake up and acknowledge the reasons why you cheated in the first place. Always a cheater if you are okay with never changing your ways — and I’m not!

Do you relate?
Care to share?

Comment below and let your truths set you free...