You’re not stupid because someone cheated

This post originally came out in 2016. I wanted to take a few moments to update a few thoughts about it. The additional thoughts are in blue and underlined in case you can’t see the colors well. Sorry in advance that they will look clickable and not be clickable 😉

The creepy 2nd cheater

She makes me think of this book I read where a creepy neighbor dresses up as a woman so he can spy in people’s windows and not be caught. You would have to know reading this that the “she” reference here is to the second woman my ex husband cheated with. I wanted to explain a bit to you how creeped out I was by some of her actions. It was a start to a bit of empathy I felt for her as well. Most of us humans are the same when we boil it down to basics. We want to be loved, some of us just go about it in really jacked up ways. It’s about this vibe of mental illness (*This was documented in a court case against her, not my opinion.) mixed with probably learned narcissism and the world view of a three year old that it’s all about me. At the same time, I recognize that we have similarities, we both want to be loved, loved in a way to know that a man would love us enough to forsake all others, to focus on us, be patient, kind, thoughtful, and cherish us. The difference is how we try to go about filling that desire and/or how we interpret that desire. Lately I’m realizing even more, the issue is externalizing how we feel loved. Some humans have it, feeling loved comes from inside ourselves. Click here to read a bit about ways to start loving yourself more.

Lies and more lies

The painful part is that someone can look you in the face and bold face lie to you. Over and over. The first time this happened, it was like my brain went on auto replay of the past 7 months of my life figuring out all of the inaccuracies and intricate details of the lies I was told and the lies I believed. There is nothing like trusting someone to find out what an asshole you have been for believing them. Let me be clear here, I’m not calling myself or anyone who has been lied to an asshole, the meaning is that I felt like a royal, top of the line, grade a asshole for believing some of the stupid, idiotic lies that my husband told me during the first affair. I really did feel this way, but I let it go. It took a bit of time. You can let it go too. This post talks a tiny bit about checking your feelings.

Queue the reverse code review

Going through that process felt to me like an endless loop of my brain reviewing software code looking for glitches, finding a glitch replaying the code until the glitch was explained. It was a terrible feat to get myself out of that and also to allow it to happen to some extent. The second affair didn’t bring that on as much, for one because he got better at what he chose to lie about and when he chose to screw around during the day or other times he was “supposed” to be gone. Plus, after the first time around, a part of me died toward him anyway, it’s like I could check out easier.

If you are reading this and feeling like you identify with being a dumbass let me tell you this. You are not a dumbass. You loved someone. You trusted someone. You thought he or she had your best interest at heart. You were wrong, they didn’t. It doesn’t mean you are stupid, it means you were lied to by someone you loved. Plain and simple, stuff happens to everyone. This stuff hurts. You can get through it and come out of it better if you choose to. 

For the love of the kids

Then there are the kids, you look at them and you see how much burning love they have for their father and you think, I can make this work. It can work, we can be one of the couples who “makes” it even though he cheated and lied. Years go by and you let yourself accept a standard that isn’t you, a standard of life that you would not have previously accepted. I fooled myself into believing we could make it better. I was wrong. We were not meant to be one of those couples who makes it work and learns from an affair. Special note to those couples – I congratulate you for doing the work and being open to perceive your partner in a new light, with fresh raw honesty. I think there are many people who learn and become more real post affair. I did. My other half did not. While I can reflect upon my own behaviors that were not perfect in marriage, it’s true that I needed to find my own line of what I would accept and tolerate.

Talking about it

I think there is a stigma sometimes that I am too open with my story. I have become less needy to be open. Thought you see me posting here LOL! Close to the time it all went down, I felt like I needed to talk about this to too many people. It’s been nice to back off of that or even omit it all together because it really doesn’t matter anymore. Part of what was driving that was likely a combo of needing to heal, wanting to “be right”, maybe falling into victim mode a little, and wanting external validation that I was right for not having him around. Eeek. Well, the good news on this is even if it was all of those things and more, I still learned from each. It’s almost like married people don’t really want to stay close to you when you were cheated on. Like it’s contagious. Perhaps it is, who knows, well, I’m sure we could search and find someone who does know! I felt a little alone because I felt like I didn’t find someone who said “me too”. Unfortunately, since then I have had others coming to me to talk about their own pain in this realm. I do not mean it’s unfortunate that they talked to me about it, rather that it’s unfortunate it happened to them. Talking with them, helped me even more though because it felt good to provide some support for times I know can be a painful endeavor. We are all just humans doing the damn best we can. Shit happens to us, we react in some way, good or bad, and we move on. We either hold on to what happened like a dung beetle holding fast to a fresh find or we let it go like the dandelion seed blown by the wind. Either way, hopefully we learn.

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