My mistake from the beginning was that I believed in someone who I knew was a cheater. A man I knew was a liar. I trusted what I wanted to be true instead of what I knew to be true.
If you’re having an affair with a married you need to think long and hard about what’s real and what’s fantasy. I have spent a great deal of time living in fantasyland. I trust too much. I believe what men say is true and sometimes it isn’t. And, I learned the hard way that if he will cheat with you, he WILL cheat on you.
Ten years into my happily ever after I began to suspect he was cheating on me. I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know how long he would have stayed with me continuing to cheat but it became obvious that I had to take action. The betrayal was a weight that I had never experienced before. It took me quite a while but slowly I made up my mind to end the marriage.
First, we went to a marriage counselor. He went once. I continued for weeks. I had to overcome my guilt. It was just as overwhelming as his betrayal. Why did I feel guilty? The reason was I didn’t want to admit to my family and more importantly my children that I was wrong about this man. I felt like I was betraying my children by making the decision to divorce their father. I took the children to counseling and quickly established that they knew what was going on. They were stronger than I was even aware and that if a divorce was in their parents’ future they would be able to cope.
There was no turning back. I made my decision. I filed for divorce and life as I knew it would never be the same. But it went on.
He moved in with the other woman and soon thereafter realized he still wasn’t happy. I remember him saying to me one weekend when he came to pick up the kids that I was like the girl he knew in high school again. He could see that I was happy and he wondered why he was still unhappy. I told him it was because I was free from the pain of worrying about him. I asked him what his problem was. He said, “new woman same problems.” What he meant was he still had to grow up, go to work and figure out how to pay the bills.
I realized that he gave up everything we had because he thought the grass was greener on the other side. He betrayed our family because he didn’t want to be a responsible adult. To him, I had become a nagging wife. In fact, that was the advice he gave me for my next husband. “Don’t be a nag.”
That relationship didn’t last but he did remarry and I remarried and we both divorced again. He cheated too. I still lived in fantasyland.
Then I did the unthinkable. I fell for a married man. He was a co-worker and a friend and miserable in his marriage. I could relate. Poor guy. He was married to a “crazy woman” and so “unhappy.” I felt sorry for him. It was refreshing to know that sometimes it’s the woman who is in the wrong.
He needed my help.
He needed my love.
He needed me.
We had worked together for two years and were very good friends. No one ever suspected we had become more. It was easy to “date” because we were always together anyway. There were plenty of company events. It was easy and natural go to lunch together or out for dinner and then back to my place.
It felt right and I felt like his girlfriend. I knew he was married but I convinced myself that he was doing the right thing and ending it. After all, I had ended my unhappy marriage. I felt that this time the grass was greener on my side. I was determined to help him through this terrible time in his life. Sure I’d wait a little while so he could sort things out. I understand that it takes time to end an 18-year marriage but it would be better for everyone in the long run. As his girlfriend, I would be faithful and patient.
In a way, it was fun to be the other woman. Ashamedly I must admit that was part of the attraction. This time, I was the fun one. I was the one he couldn’t wait to see. I was the one he really wanted. But I was also hurt when he left me and went home to her. I could tell when he had, had sex with her and it felt like he was cheating on me. He assured me that it was just for appearances and he tried to avoid her as much as possible.
It went on a couple of months and then she suspected. By this time though he was prepared to leave and he told her everything. She called me after that and gave me an ominous warning. She told me that I could have him. He had wasted her life. He would do the same to me. He only wanted me for my money. Knowing that I certainly didn’t have a lot of money I was further convinced she was crazy and ignored her. She filed for divorce and he moved in with my children and me. I told him from the start that we would be getting married. I didn’t want to be the “girlfriend.” His divorce took 18 months but eight weeks after that we got married.
My fantasyland was complete and I was head over heals in love. We spent many years married before I realized he was pulling the same crap on me. He cheated!
Of course, he did. He’s a cheater. He preys on women who believe his lies. He preys on men too for business deals. No worries for him, though. There are plenty of princesses still living in fantasyland.
Looking back, when I felt like he was cheating on me by going home to his wife. He wasn’t. I was cheating myself by believing in a fantasy fed to me by a charmer who told me only what I wanted to hear. I spent 16 years with him. He betrayed me and devastated me financially. In the end, I realized that the warning his first wife gave me was true.
My mistake from the beginning was that I believed in someone who I knew was a cheater. A man I knew was a liar. I trusted what I wanted to be true instead of what I knew to be true.
Don’t live in fantasyland. Wake up Sleeping Beauty. If he cheated with you, he will cheat on you.
Thank you for this article. Exactly what I needed to hear!
These articles truly have opened my eyes. I’ve tried to tell my daughter for years and she wouldn’t listen and now she wants me out of her life completely. She married the man she broke the family up after she learned she was pregnant : and this has damaged his wife permanently and emotionally. How can you trust the man you cheated with and be truly happy I just don’t get it. If he cheated with you why wouldn’t he cheat on you
YOU CAN’T! A cheater has proven they’re capable of cheating…they were able to carry on the facade while lying to their partner’s face on a daily basis without flinching. They thought only of themselves with NO REGARD for the person they claim/claimed they love, with NO REGARD for their children’s only other parent. To them cheating was not only an option but a solution.
The cheater may swear up and down things are different with you,swear he/she has no desire to cheat, that the situation was unique, behavior unusual. But so what? They’re still capable of cheating, they have experience doing so & what happens when the day comes the interest has been lost, the boredom sets in, the right opportunity comes along?
Always on guard watching for clues..He’s been working late a lot, “thats what he told her when he was with me!”
He’s been unreachable for 2 hours, “He wouldn’t answer his phone when he was with me”.
These thoughts are almost CONSTANT, always on-guard, always that fear.
I feel the day will come that they will cheat. They will cheat and then justify it to themselves. And it will be a while until you find out, if you ever find out.
Thoughts of this ruin the relationship, TRUST is essential, without it you’re doomed.
I just ended a six year relationship. I dated this man for six years. The first three years, I would see him at lunch, after work, rarely on the weekends. He worked two jobs and was a single dad. I worked, was going to college at night. Sometimes I would get a gut feeling things weren’t right and I would ask him. He always had an answer. He worked every other weekend, the weekends he didn’t he spent with his kids. I was so understanding and I would brush my gut feelings aside. He would tell me I was the only one, he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Three years in, I get a phone call from his girlfriend of six years. He had been living a double life, lying to both of us. I truly didn’t know. Looking back, I should have seen the signs and listened to my gut. I left him, but he came back, asking for a second chance, promising to never hurt me again. I loved him and caved. I basically stepped into her shoes. I became the babysitter. Two months after promising to never hurt me again, he’s texting a female friend of his to give him what he wants, sex with him isn’t a trip, it’s a journey, send him naked pictures. She wasn’t interested, she played along because he worked on her car. I was yelled at by him. She was a friend, it was a joke, didn’t mean anything. Then I find out about the dating sites, they didn’t mean anything, the porn, he had been watching porn since he was a kid, it was something he enjoyed. Anyway, a lot of what you said hit home. I never trusted him. I was always on guard, I was always looking. like I hadn’t seen enough right. I think after being on the other side of the fence, when you are in the relationship, you start seeing how he was with you. An hour or two here or there. You can’t get up with him, he won’t answer his phone. We spent an hour or two here or there. So of course, been there, you know that sign. I became friends with the mother of his children, not the girlfriend he cheated on with me. She told me how he had been a serial cheater with her. Took her to work, dropped her off, took another woman to her bed. left her waiting for him to pick her up after standing in the rain three hours. This man always left me waiting. A quick trip to the store would take hours. Yes, it would take him an hour in Walmart to buy doughnuts. And you know his response to me was always anger. In the store, staring and smiling at women, I would say, I saw you, he would say I can’t even go shopping. They don’t just justify to themselves, they make you feel insecure, jealous, paranoid. And I got told that a lot to. I thought at 50 years old, he would outgrow it. He had been in the streets a long time, thought he would know he had something special. Nope. They want the relationship for the comfort, the clothes washed, kids watched, or dumped on you, cleaning. But they crave the excitement of the chase and conquer. They are damaged, and they cause damage to everyone that cares about them.
so here’s the thing. Him, John cheated on his wife both times in both of their serial marriages-married, cheated divorced, him, begging, crying, “Please take me back, I love you, I promise I will never leave you.” And she did, marry him again, and again he began cheating and again, she divorced him. Now, the last one he was cheating with, while still married the second time to wife number one, was Irene, a married woman he met at work. Her husband, several years older and ill, had some bucks, so instead of following through in her filed divorce, he advised her to stay married so she would get EVERYTHING. And she did, because her hubby died while the married-to-others pair cohabited for five years in her soon-to-die, hubby’s house. That is until the soon-to-die hubby said, “You can’t live in my house, married to me, with a cheating, married man. So the Johnguy gigoloed while Irene carried him. The Johnguy was pretty much a financial failure, not because he was uneducated, (MBA), and not because he wasn’t smart enough, but just because he was a lazy, unambitious sort. So Irene carried him, and carried him, and carried him. And his two sons into manhood, and then down to one grown son, unemployed and pushing 30 years old. And did he lie and deceive the single women about his singleness as he pursued them, all the while gigoloing at Irene’s? Always. And did he cheat on Irene? You betcha! And how do I know? Guess.
Cheated-on who become cheaters is the strangest dynamic and only deserves one response-You get want you deserve. Wallow in it.
Karma, what goes around …!
these narcissistic people create chaos and mayhen in the lives if those around them
i take comfort after reading this article that i am not the only one that has been mislead by a narcissist
Liz, thank you so much, for telling it all. I, also met (a high-school classmate) a married man, feel for him, and got involved physically … on and off, for years. Mind you, at the very beginning, he led and said that he had been divorced for 5 years. I trusted and believed that lie, even when my gut started telling me something was not right. I believed him when he told me that I was “the only one” for him. Six year’s later … He just got divorced (MAYBE) almost a year ago,and … He is STILL showing or the same crappy wannabe “mac-daddy” compliments and phoney promises of “love and commitment.” After listening to his last self-centered speech about how his life’s plans … I realized that I was not once-mentioned, except as a crass afterthought. Yesterday, I turned myself off … for the first time, I treated him just like I treated every other polluted soldier that left me hanging. I treated him like it was nothing personal just business, and told him that I knew whatto do, now. It felt a little empowering,to hear him question what I was gonna do, as I wished him a good day at work, said “bye-bye”and hung up the phone before he could say ‘bye.’
I still hurt, a little. But I feel better … less tangled-up … Free!
Thank you, Liz. You bolstered my confidence in knowing that I did the right thing.
I don’t have much sympathy for cheaters.
Me either!!
This is me! I’m living it right now. Once a cheater always a cheater!
Please contact me if you have any questions or need help. [email protected]
Thanks to dwight for referring me to this guy who helped me get through my partner’s facebook inbox and uncover the hidden stories in my relationship , i’m so happy to have gotten to the bottom of it . If you would be needing his help , reach him via mail at [email protected] . Thank me later
Just been through a breakup with a guy who has cheating tendencies, 2 weeks since I broke up with him. If I could go back in time, when I first caught him chatting to his “ex”..actually sorry, she’s still his gf coz I dont actually believe now that he even broke up with her in the first place, fkn liar- I’d have probably told him to go fk himself and would have messaged her too, to let her know what he was doing… Guys and girls, if you ever meet someone who’s JUST come out a relationship and they seem to sweep you off your feet quickly, make them wait a long time, make them prove that they aren’t just the type who jump from one person to the next, always looking for greener grass..
This is my life!
Point taken, but over generalized imo. IT would be more accurate to say *may* instead of *will* cheat on you. I’ve met two types of people: cheatERS, and people who cheated (once) and learned.