By posting this, I am probably risking damaging the opinions of other’s towards me. But I feel that this may be something worth discussing, and it is something most of my friends know about.
I’ll admit to it. I have cheated on a significant other. Of course I do not condone this sort of behaviour, there is never a good reason to cheat. The only “reasons” are merely excuses. Cheating is a terrible thing to do to a significant other, even if they weren’t very good to you.
With my personal situation, I had been dating this guy for a little over a year. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of dating someone who was not good for me. Before we dated, he had developed a huge crush on me and resorted to hard drugs when he developed depression from me turning him down due to our age difference. At the time I was 17 and he was 21, and I was very scared that he would kill himself. To keep him from further hurting himself, I gave in and dated him.
At first he was very grateful that I was dated him and treated me very well, always trying to make sure that I felt loved. He even quit smoking when I was present. But… after a few months, I began noticing some odd behaviours. For one, he would constantly demonize my ex-boyfriends. Granted, I certainly had reasons to dislike my exes, but he went out of his was to further sour my opinion of them. He was laid off from his job and refused to look for work, instead he went on Welfare and became addicted to World of Warcraft.
Eventually those little flaws turned into serious problems. Despite the fact that he had quit doing drugs, he wanted badly to get back into smoking pot. I had always been extremely uncomfortable around the drug, but he forced me to join him in doing drugs with him (never stronger than pot). He began refusing to spend night without me and would become very angry whenever I said “no” to anything he wanted, but never allowed me to do things I wanted to do. He also prohibited contact with men and began monitoring my text messages and Facebook conversations. If we were away, I had to be constantly texting him from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. In a nutshell: he became a smothering, controlling, paranoid ass.
Towards the relationship, one of my exes suffered a devastating breakup with someone he had been dating for a year and a half. while we had been going through a falling out, I decided to become his friend again and help him through the breakup. We began talking frequently and got to be close friends. And finally, I had someone I felt comfortable discussing my relationship problems with. I expressed my fear of breaking up with my boyfriend at the time because of his history of suicide attempts, drug abuse, and violence. He gave me amazing advice and assured me that even after the breakup, he would be there to help me deal with any issues in the aftermath. I ended up becoming physically involved with this person because of this bond of support we had developed and because in my mind, me and my boyfriend had completely broken up.
Finally, it happened. He threatened suicide, attempted suicide, claimed to be a transgendered woman, claimed that he would support my transitioning(when beforehand he had been very verbal about his opposition regarding transitioning), claimed that he could forgive me if I cheated on him. So I just told him that I didn’t love him anymore and that I was not taking him back. Within days I had completely ceased contact with him because he attempted to manipulate me into taking him back by describing suicide attempts and similar messages.
Sorry for being so long-winded. Just had to describe the situation. But anyway, after I ceased contact he began stalking the message boards I frequented and discovered that I had cheated on him. This is when I discovered how spiteful and petty he was.
First he sent messaged to administrators on a popular message board that I happen to moderate under a name he created, claiming that I said horrible things to him and his “friend” and that it was my fault that I destroyed their “home away from home”. From there, he immediately began telling all of his friends and all of our mutual friends about how I had cheated on him and brought him to attempting suicide. Of course, most people wither didn’t believe what he said or already knew that he was borderline abusive.
A different friend of mine happened to move in with my ex. In the time they lived together, he was told of all the “terrible, nasty things” I had done. I was a slut. I stole expensive items from him. I was his fiance and my friend stole me away. And along with with the incident regarding his attempt to take away my position as moderator on a message board, he looked for other ways to ruin my life. While we were together, I played World of Warcraft with him, and somehow he found out my account information and stole my account, one of which I invested over $100 and hundreds of hours. Not to mention an incident I just recently found out about in which he saw me and my new significant other together and had to be restrained by his friend to keep from stabbing my significant other.
I have been cheated on before, and I know just how bad it hurts. One boyfriend started dating a girl before breaking up with me, and the other just fooled around with a few other people while we were dating. Ironically, the inspiration for this blog came from a conversation with both of those cheating exes about the person I cheated on. Despite having been cheated on by them (and as a result, suffering the worst depressive episode of my life), I currently maintain great relationships with them. I was never vengeful and hardly even spoke negatively about them with other people. One of them was even cheated on by the person they dated the longest.
Now, whenever I complain about the petty behaviour of the ex I cheated on, I have often gotten the response, “Well, you did cheat on him.”
Yes. I cheated on him. That was a shitty thing to do, I’m not hiding that fact. But does this give my ex an excuse to give me so much hell, when every other person I know has taken their own experiences with cheating with significantly more grace? Do I deserve hatred from him and our mutual friends? Is his behaviour just, or is he just batshit fucking crazy?
Bleh. I don’t like writing about my personal life. It feels dramatic in a way that I don’t like. I just felt the need to defend myself , in a way. I’ve done my hardest not to discuss how bad my relationship was with this guy because I want to be the bigger person. I’m just getting sick of hearing crap he has been telling people about him when the only thing I ever did to hurt him was cheat, in every other aspect I was a good person. I don’t like being demonized when I know I don’t deserve it.
