I recently learned that a very dear friend is in deep trouble in a relationship. Her live-together boyfriend of 10 years is cheating and has been for some time. Natch, my husband and I were discussing this. Mulling it over and trying to figure out why this happened (so sad, as they are one of our favorite couples).
My husband postulated that perhaps the relationship had gotten so bad that the boyfriend started in on the affair with the intention of sabotaging his current relationship --- effectively INTENDING to hurt my friend. In the same breath he pointed out that the boyfriend was the type to not want to hurt anyone. Hmmmm. In my simple girl brain, either you do something this major knowing that it would hurt your current girlfriend (virtual wife), or you don't do it. Period.
It made me think seriously about how love and the notion of committment intertwine. And, of course this has resulted in me thinking back on some of my major relationships and how I might have played unwittingly in someone else's plot to hurt their S.O. in order to free themselves.
In the instance I was thinking of, I was the affair-ee. My boyfriend was the one cheating on his wife. When I started in with him it was long-distance. I had no idea he was still very married. When I discovered he was married, I thought they were in the process of ending it but learned later they were not completely separated. I moved out to California under this pretense.
Looking back, I realize that while he said the words "I love you" he never really endorsed my moving. He just passively let it happen. He supported me in terms of how good the move would be for my career and how smart I was do it, but now I realize he must have been sweating bullets for the inconvenience it would cause the situation.
To say I was blinded by love is to underestimate my very one-sided view. During the years that ensued, he steadfastly repeated "I love you" -- and truthfully made me feel that way by the amount of time he spent with me --- but he also never in anyway mentioned hopes of a future with me. His commentary was always about the present and I got very little, if anything, about his past.
I can see my friend doing this now. The person she is with is a fabulous person. Engaging. Smart. Flirty. Fun. She accepts him as the flirtatous person he is and never takes offense when he hugs someone a little too long or kisses one her girlfriends on the lips. Dating and living together so long, of course they got asked whether they would ever hit the aisle. She was always, "I hope its soon." My observation of him, when these quesitons arise, is that he was always openly ambivalent --- sort of a "why change things" body posture.
Back to me for a minute. After 3 years, I discovered that my never-divorced boyfriend was carrying on with someone else (I had been ignoring calls from friends in two states reporting his dating antics --- I just "trusted" that the events were innocent lunches, etc because I was so certain of his LOVE for me. HA HA!). Distraught the day after my breakup (I booted him), my manager came over to ask me, "why so glum?" Guess she heard me sniveling. I shared w/her the situation. Her response.? "He's a coward."
Coward is an interesting choice of words. Once you've told someone you love them, isn't it reasonable for the recipient of this news to think that you would come to them with any issue before acting on it? Is it cowardly to choose NOT to honor the person you said you loved by telling them, "I'm just not that into you" before you gallavant off to greener pastures? Or is is simply passive agressive, as my husband sort of described it. Rather than dealing directly with the situation, you do something that will cause the change you want (e.g., get you out of the relationship) because you cannot be honest enough with yoursef to say the words? Even more fun, passive-agressiveness usually ends up in forcing the responsibility of getting out of the relatinoship onto the other person. Sort of like farting in an elevator. You know who did it but the person who didn't do it MUST choose to stay or leave. Or is having an affair just merely CRUEL? How can you tell someone you love them one minute and then cheat on them knowing you will get caught.? Does this person who does this get OFF on hurting the other one?
I can see my friend's boyfriend mouthing the words that I once heard come out my boyfriend's mouth on one of the few times I asked him whether or not he ever intended to get a divorce from his wife. He said, "I'm not a fighter. I'm a lover. I don't want to hurt anyone." But in the way that he was conducting his life he was causing EXCRUCIATING emotional pain to two people he supposedly loved! My friend's boyfriend is doing this now. Can they not see how selfish this is? Or do they get off on the distruption it causes (distruption = attention = love)?.
Oddly, to this day, I wonder about myself. The thing I feel the worst about - weirdly - is that my mis-interpretation of someone spending time with me (a lot of it) and saying specific words like "I love you" repeatedly, actually culminated in some poor woman "discovering" that she was loved no more by the one person she walked down the aisle with. I will never know if she was devastated or relieved. Did I actually provide a service to them by being the cause for release (for him and for her) OR did I simply participate in someone's plan to knowingly hurt someone else? This is the thing I cannot reconcile out of my past and it makes me sad not to know for certain.
As for my old boyfriend and my friend's current boyfriend and all the women that fool around with these kind of guys, I guess my end conclusion is that cheating is a bit of all three: its cowardly, borderline cruel and deeply passive aggressive to HOPE to be caught by some unsuspecting trusting person who loves you. I think it is far better to wound lightly --- "ugh, I'm just not that into you anymore"--- than to scar permanently. In a weird way, by not sharing the truth you know, you dishonor your own feelings of once having loved the person you are currently betraying. What a way to disconnect from yourself, huh!
Which brings me to my next thought to mull. When you cheat, do you love yourself MORE than you love the people you are cheating on or with? OR do you hate yourself more than the people you say you love because you cannot even come to terms with telling yourself the truth about your feelings! At the end of the day, does ANY of this justify hurting someone else intentionally? To me, this is simple. The answer is NO.
stick that in your freudian and smoke it!
[this is good]
Posted by: handtalker | 01/28/2009 at 05:25 PM
glad you thought so. thanks for checking in. what do you think on this topic?
Posted by: Sherpagirl | 01/29/2009 at 08:11 AM