Last But Not Least ...Cheating

Last, but not least of the three most popular vices...cheating.
Taxes, tests, partners...just some of the things we cheat on.

Different reasons, different goals & different outcomes if you get busted.

Bypassing discussions of the IRS, I did try to cheat on exam in high school. I labored over my cheat sheet... the size, the contents, where it would be kept. So much info on such a small slip of paper. By the time 5th period rolled around & it was time for the test, I found myself not in need of my cheat sheet. I may not have made an A, but I passed & luckily didn't get busted with my incriminating evidence.

I have never cheated on my partner, nor any fellow before him. I did, once, break up with a boyfriend because I was allowing myself to become seduced by another. I felt terribly guilty through the break up, but quickly got over it when I found out he had been sleeping with another girl for 3 mos.

In college, I found myself amazed & sickened at the number of married men that came on to me. I met them at school, at work, at friends, out & about. Some I knew briefly, some I had known for years. At first, I thought it was just a side effect of being a SLB, then I began to take it very personal. I didn't dress like a sex kitten, didn't act like I was loose, didn't flirt...umm, even with the guys I did like...so, wtf?

So, I opened dialogue with those in pursuit of an affair.
'Interesting, are you saying you'd like to be with me?' (you or perhaps anyone else willing)
'What motivates you, here?' (my ego, self-esteem, power & sex)
'Why me?' (I'll never know if I don't try)
What I found was that the answers were as varied as each man.

One guy, a co-worker, told me it was a numbers game...that if I rejected him, it's cool, some other girl wouldn't...that he'd always cheated on his wife & always would. She'd caught him a couple times & he'd ease back but she'd never leave him.
Some tried to convince me that it was me. That I was so open & honest & easy to talk to... that they didn't feel like they could communicate that way with their spouses. Huh. If it is 80 degrees outside & you get a cold chill, you feel cold, it doesn't mean that it IS cold...it just means you feel cold....maybe your getting sick, perhaps you should talk to your wife.
One told me that he was feeling insecure in himself... that he'd felt like he'd gained weight & lost his 'touch.' He wanted to make sure he still had it.
Another told me that it started when women began to come on to him, for the first time in his life. Yep, he grew up, got married & started a family before any woman ever came on to him. He couldn't turn her down & then the whole thing turned into an on-going ego-feeding ritual... always having to replace one mistress with another.
I got to hear it all...about how one fellow felt incompetent because his wife seemed to painlessly juggle so much more than he in life, about how another thought he wife had cheated on him when they dating, about how one felt the kids got all of the attention & he was left to take the trash out & mow the yard, about how there was the work crew & they all did it, about how another never meant to, how he was drunk and how another said it just happened.

All of them admitted to having had previous affairs & all acknowledged that they would probably continue to...I guess I'm not so special as to just make all these men whacked insanely in lust or love with me to make them want to do such things so far removed from their typical character. (duh!)
All of them professed love for their partner.

temptation.
opportunity.
ego.
self-esteem.
peer-pressure.
self-worth.
insecurity.
power.
I beleive they all loved their spouses...it's just my definition, and probably their spouses, of how one exemplifies love differed.
Somewhere in my studies on the topic, I came across a statistic that I have always clung to. Although stats are always skewed, this one was that an estimated 80% of all marriages that do not result in divorce encounter infidelity at one point or another.

Interesting & Beleivable....at least, in my little world.

My parents, whom I love very much & who love each other undoubtedly, have been married over 50 years. When they were younger, my Mother had to deal with my fathers' infidelities a couple few times. It seems that when times were good, he cheated. When they were bad, he drank. It took him 20 years or so to outgrow this & I know that he's grateful that my mother never left him. When I was a young girl, my mom & I would talk about it (I'd beg her to leave him) She'd say his life wasn't so easy either & that she had bigger problems to worry about. As an adult, she tells me how she had to talk to him about his commitments & his family, his children, his choices & about how she did leave 2x before I was born, going to her parents. Her parents lectured her on commitment & sent her back home to work things out. Times have changed, but both my parents are grateful to still have one another.
I was engaged once in my twenties for a very brief spell. I was young & dumb & thought my life was out of a story book. He was young & dumb & thought his life was right out of the soap opera's... cheating on me with 5 or 6 different women. Needless to say, I dumped him & he persued me for another year but I could never go there again. The betrayal shatterd my storybook life & I vowed to never live with my head in the clouds again.
I thought I would never get married.
Serial Monogomy...an American reality.
Just before I turned 36, I suddenly found myself getting married. Six months into my marriage, my DH was having affairs. Knee-jerk reaction? Get a Divorce Quick! Anquished over reaction? Get him to acknowledge it, discuss the motivation, the goals, the reasons, the reasons behind the reasons...see if we can work it out, see to it that if we can't that we can both walk away more enlightened & better prepared to have a more healthy relationship next time around. Step one, the hardest step...getting him to admit it, took a year. We've been married 3+ years now.
Had I not had my story book dreams squashed when I was younger, had I not been hit on by so many married men, had I not had a mother, an aunt, a sister, a friend (or few), co-workers & such who'd gone through it themselves, both men & women, handling it their way...I wouldn't have found the way I wanted to handle it.

Cheating...it happens.(It's hard)
If one cheats the IRS, they fine you, penalize you & sometimes prosecute you.
If one cheats on an exam, the teacher may fail you & maybe have you suspended or in detention
But if one cheats on their spouse, the reactions are as varied as the reasons.

People leave, they divorce, they sue each other, they argue & become abusive, they become jealous & obsessed, they become insecure & introverted, they lash out with an affair of their own, they brush it under the rug, they even murder... they destroy each other financially, emotionally and/or physically and some of us ...
accept that it has happened, try to understand the hows & whys, work towards not letting it happen again and vow that should it re-occur that somehow both parties will exit the realtionship wiser, stronger & better for it.