Posted on 11/07/2017 1:15:39 PM PST by drewh
When I was a freshman in college, I thought I met the love of my life. He was cool and fun and sexy, an older frat guy who was good at beer pong and knew exactly how to make me laugh. Within weeks of our first meeting, he became my official boyfriend. Within six months, we moved in together. Another six months later and we were engaged.
It was a whirlwind romance by any definition except for the fact that I cheated on my boyfriend three times. Despite the heartache it caused, my experience with infidelity taught me a lot about love, relationships, and growing up.
Before college, I had been a serial monogamist. Since my first schoolgirl relationship at 14, I had several long-term boyfriends, and was never single for longer than two months at a time. I lost my virginity the summer before high school, and after that, had been sexually active with my subsequent partners. Despite my "experience," as my friends and future boyfriends would call it, I had no idea what it was like to be in a serious adult relationship that is, until I went off to college.
That's when I met the man I would date, get engaged to, and inevitably cheat on. That's when I learned what a real romantic relationship was.
The beginning of my relationship with my college boyfriend was like a fairy tale. We were inseparable: He walked me to class, studied with me in the library, ate meals with me, and slept over nearly every night. We partied together on weekends, got to know each other's friends, and started talking about The Future. I was 18, and although I had been in what I had considered a "serious" relationship before, this was the first time I had the freedom to explore what I thought an adult relationship was supposed to be like love, sex, drama and all.
The first time I cheated on my boyfriend, I wrote it off as a foolish mistake. I was drunk at a concert with a group of friends who found some cute boys for us to hang out with. After a half-dozen 20-ounce beers, a couple of joints, and a few sexy country songs, could I really be help accountable for my drunken actions? I loved my boyfriend, after all, and I knew we were going to be together forever, so what was one stupid mistake?
Even though I tried to write it off as insignificant, a week after I cheated I fessed up to my boyfriend out of sheer guilt. His face crumpled as I admitted, as he had suspected, that something did happen the night of the concert I didn't want to tell him about. His eyes burned with anger when I tried to tell him the same excuse I had been telling myself: I was drunk, and it didn't mean anything.
Eventually, he did forgive me, but after cheating, there was a distance between us that no amount of time seemed to be able to close. Something had changed in our relationship, and it wasn't just broken trust on behalf of my boyfriend. It was an uneasy feeling in my gut and a tiny voice in my head that said, But what if you did mean it?
Something had changed in our relationship, and it wasn't just broken trust on behalf of my boyfriend. It was an uneasy feeling in my gut and a tiny voice in my head that said, But what if you did mean it?
The second time I cheated on my boyfriend was no drunken mistake, and both of us knew it. After partying with friends, I ended up at a former crush's house and quite predictably, one thing lead to another and we slept together. The next day, that uneasy feeling in my gut had some company: pure guilt, and an overwhelming sense of being a truly terrible person. The voice got louder too, and started to say more: You did mean it, and this won't be the last time this happens, either.
When I cheated on my boyfriend for the third and last time, he wasn't actually my boyfriend he was my fiancé. Despite the bumps in our relationship, a combination of our feelings for one another, a heavy dose of hormones, and the idea of finding happily ever after kept hurtled us towards a disastrous engagement that would only last seven uncomfortable months.
A month before it all fell apart, I cheated on my then-fiancé with another former crush, and even before our lips touched, I knew I was doing something wrong, but that I wouldn't regret it. I needed this infidelity to get me out of my relationship, something I knew deep down needed to happen, but something I was too weak and too immature to do on my own. So I cheated again and it served as one last sign that not only were my fiancé and I not meant to be, but I was not mature enough to really be with anyone.
That's the biggest lesson cheating taught me: that fidelity is an exercise in trust and maturity, one that not everyone can perform. I certainly couldn't at age 20, and it showed me that not only was I not ready for a serious monogamous relationship with my ex, but that I was not ready for a serious monogamous relationship at all. I may have felt like an adult, but I didn't have the relationship experience, communication skills, patience, or empathy to embark on a forever kind of love I so desperately wanted to have. I was selfish, uncaring, immature, and too caught up in the idea of what relationships are supposed to be, rather than what my relationship was actually like.
Cheating ripped away the false narrative about my relationship that I had created we were in love, and with love came pain and drama and instead illuminated my love, or lack thereof, for what it was: hurtful and ugly and so necessary for me to become the faithful person I am today.
Cheating ripped away the false narrative about my relationship that I had created we were in love, and with love came pain and drama and instead illuminated my love, or lack thereof, for what it was: hurtful and ugly and so necessary for me to become the faithful person I am today.
They say once a cheater, always a cheater, but after my experience, I can say that phrase is patently false. Cheating on my boyfriend multiple times taught me invaluable, albeit painful, lessons in love and relationships, on adulthood and maturity, on growing up. My actions showed me that relationships take a lot of work, not just together, but within oneself. It can't be forced, it can't be rushed, and it can't be half-hearted. When it is, people yourself, your partner, your loved ones get hurt.
Cheating taught me that kind of hurt never quite goes away.
And genital warts, and oral cancer.
she needs to focus on getting her sister off the dope first. forget men for now!
“No. It means you are a ho.”
I laughed.....
Oompa Loompa
Doompity Doo!
I wouldn’t hit that
And neither should you ...
She left out how many STD’s she has.
At least 5, I’m sure.
One thing Sluttina forgot to mention: cheating isn’t mainly about sex, it’s mainly about LYING and breaking trust.
May Sluttina fall madly in love with the true Love of Her Life, and may he cheat on her and break her heart at least three times.
Hey, NP - we almost went one week without the good ole boys of FR posting the usual all American women are whores routine, lol! Guess the freep-a-thon is over.
You know...she’s very popular.
shes got a lot more men to meet before she finds Mr Right now! plus she aint the ripest cherry in the orchards anymore...
“Sounds like she cant keep her legs together for ANY man.”
Sounds to me like she was looking for a good schtupping and after three tries realized she really does have a good man.
Nope...you missed one over the weekend. I did my best on it, but you know what I got back. ;^)
Sounds like something a cheater would say.
Daddy's a drunk. Sadie's a slut.
Start there gal. It takes a decade of support groups to unravel your own puzzle. Get hopping. Come on now. The earlier you begin the better.
Great story.
Methinks it’s an example of all factors lining up well, when normally they don’t.
More like “first impression coincided with real content of character discovered later”.
Having morals and rules once meant that most people, even those with raging hormones, refrained from bed hopping/hooking up/having sex until they were married, or at least until they were engaged.
Most people did NOT move in with someone else, just because they were "dating" and before the Flood, when I was in college, no males, except one's father, was allowed in a girl's room, to help with moving in or out at the beginning or end of the school year.
Now there appears to be NO rules at all and THIS is the result of that.
Indeed
You’re right and Happy B-Day WD.
Snoot ;o)
They are trying to make the ‘Sex in the City’ lifestyle normalized in colleges to 18 year olds...SICKENING
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14 year olds, before high school. That’s when Miss TMI lost her virginity. Played around throughout high school, serial monogamy. Nothing wrong with any of that, according to her, just part of growing up.
Not everyone is ready to be married before 20, or has found the right person. But that doesn’t mean the norm should be screwing around until you do. (Hint: cool, makes you laugh, frat boy, beer pong expert are insufficient husband credentials. Hint: hot, easy, and apologetic when she cheats are insufficient wife credentials.)
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