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Something i’ve learned as an adult and something i’ve struggled to accept is the fact that adults don’t have all the answers! I don’t know about you but occasionally as a kid I remember being told “this is adult stuff” and shoved off into another room because I was ‘too young for the content’ of the conversation being had. I always figured that when I was finally an adult they would have to take me seriously and they could never be told ‘you’re too young’. Plus I could get the hell out of this nightmare of a childhood and do what I wanted. As an added bonus this life would finally make sense, right? Because I was an adult and adults know things, right? Absolutely not it turns out so i’m feeling ever so slightly ripped off about the whole thing to be honest with you.
One such ‘adult’ delema that has been on my mind lately is the is the topic of infidelity. In recent months I found myself in a casual relationship with someone. Someone who has a someone at home.
While no one, especially me likes the feelings of betrial asssociated with finding out your significant other has been unfaithful, I guess the question has to be asked, “Knowing the facts, why was I still willingly to be the other party and to do the one thing that has hurt me in my own relationships in the past?”
This may sound strange but I descovered for me at least, that it depended on the cirumstance. So is that true or am I simply finding a way to justify my behavior at the end of the day?
While I think the guy that blatently lies to his loving partner, maybe even accuses her of cheating on him while he is the one doing the wrong thing is the worst kind of human. His attempts to fulful his need for self-love or better described, unrequited sel-love, because let’s face, does he really like who he sees in the mirror is soul destroying to even the strongest person. So is there a difference when it comes to infidelity?
Yes, I think so!
So this particular person was different to the one described above. He was almost shy to begin with and seemed nervous although this was not the first time he had done something like this. While our interactions were only for a breif period in time, most of that time wasn’t spent in a physical sense. I am begining to get the feeling he was searching for someone he could be intimate with that did not try to change him or control him. Someone who accepted that he was a middle age man with a life of his own and just like the rest of us trying to find where he fits in life but had struggled to find that thus far.
He much like myself was tired of being the ‘object of someone’s affections’ and had also found a long list of ‘wrong partners’. Partners who initially seemed like a good choice but ended up turning us into raving lunitics. Rather than stay and have the fight we run away because at the end of the day life is too short to be unhappy and honestly that is all that we are looking for. I don’t know if it was me bringing it out in him or what, but right from the very start I found him to be brutally honest about how he came to be in that moment with me. He was open to critacism and felt a lot of shame surrounding his behaviour. The overwhelming feel of vulnerability stood out to me and I remember saying to him as he dropped me off the first time, “You do know you are not as horrible of a person as you think you are”. Why? Well at least in my experience with him I found him to be respectful and kind, sweet and always made me feel beautiful. For someone with a wandering eye and known as a bit of a ‘player’ he managed to I always make me feel like I was the only woman in the room. The most surprising thing was when I asked him the quesiton, “do you think you could ever see yourself not cheating on your partner?”. The answer I got was “I probably wouldn’t cheat on the right one”.
So begs the question, how many men and women cheat simply because they want to be close to another human being? One that doesn’t make their life a living hell? I can speak from recent experience as after 3 weeks I got tired of someone trying to conrol who I spoke to and where I went. It had me running into the arms of this particular person and for that breif time I felt a sense of calm and even safety in a way which had been missing from my life in that sort period of time. At that moment I realised how this person got to where they were in life and left me asking the question,
“Is there a difference when it comes to infidelity and do we punish them both in the same way?”
DIARIES FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 