Unwitting Surrender

Like this, but far less adorable.

I slipped into subordinance before I even realized I had relinquished any control. He seemed innocuous. A broken soul I could nurse back to health without putting myself in harm’s way as I had once, twice, thrice before. I was smarter this time around. And the him was more wounded. Hardly fit to take control of his own life let alone mine. But before long the wounds gave way to subtle manipulation. A quieter domination I wasn’t prepared for.

I never felt trapped. My identity seemed to remain intact even as I made room for a vastly different existence than the one I had envisioned. I was strong enough to carry my life and help him discover his own. I clung to the idea that “every sinner has a future” and I could bring light to his. Everything his brokenness demanded I gave. Not realizing each attempt to stitch him back together was draining me.

It wasn’t until I tugged at the one lie my dignity wouldn’t allow me to ignore that 18 months of deception began to unravel. I quickly realized his brokenness was strategic. He was smarter than I thought. Or I was dumber than I cared to admit. Motivated by narcissism, each crack he revealed was a conscious choice to disarm. This is not to suggest that every fracture was lie. He’s genuinely a damaged individual. It’s simply a different brand of disease. One far more infectious than I was prepared for.

Now weeks and months after the web came undone, he desperately fights to maintain some semblance of control with lies that grow more flagrant with each ignored call. And it hardly seems fair. Haven’t I suffered enough? Granted I’ve suffered as a result of my own decision to let this individual infect my life. But I also made the decision to ask him to get gone. Form of blocked Facebook pages, filtered emails, changed locks, new phone numbers and now a potential move.

Each attempt at contact feels like a violation. Each decision I have to make as a result of his predatory behavior feels like I’m ceding ground. I’m backed into a corner without the freedom to determine basic aspects of my life trajectory for fear his path will strategically cross mine. I’ve banished his physical presence but he gets to preserve his hold. 

He continues to invade from thousands of miles away. I continue to surrender.

He gains ground when I go to extremes to block contact. I wave a white flag when I read each message that manages to slip through. I forfeit with tinges of guilt and lingering compassion despite the fact that the circumstances that warrant compassion are likely blatant lies.

Of the hundreds of emotions I’ve experienced in the past three months, I’ve found those I most deserve to express are those I have difficulty embracing. I’ve seen the wolf beneath the wool and I’m still fighting the instinct to dress his wounds when I should be nursing those he inflicted on me. I deserve to be angry and the very fact that I question that anger with each pathetic line he gives me about his reformation and inevitable demise adds to the conflicted mess.

It’s a strange type of conflicted. With one clear path free of his existence. He has earned his place as a memory and nothing more. It seems the only way to lock him there right now is to retreat. Even if a stronger person would be able to reclaim her ground by any means necessary, I may have to regain my strength by going under it.  

Hear No Evil See No Evil Post No Evil

Last week Cheaterville.com was in the “news” for a sketchy ad they had designed to apparently warn the celebrities of the Toronto Film Festival against stepping out on their significant others between indie screenings and Q and A sessions. The concept of the site is similar to the original intent of Dontdatehimgirl.com, before they gave over to pressure (and, seemingly, human decency). Basically when someone feels they’ve been wronged by a cheating spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/unusually close pet, they take to the site to rant in horrific detail about the transgressions of the trollop/whatever the male version of a trollop is. Best of all they get to include pictures and a detailed description of the cheater including height, weight, location, ethnicity and sign—the FBI doesn’t have files this extensive.

CHEATER! Of course he is; look at that vile facial hair

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before this site goes the way of Don’t Date Him Girl and Don’t Date Her Dude and whatever other potentially libelous sites have fallen before them. In all honesty, it’s mildly amusing to think someone who committed such a terrible offense could be called out so publicly. But that’s only on a surface level. Upon contemplating the potential affects a site like this could have, the punishment doesn’t really fit the crime. Yeah, cheating sucks. But oftentimes the cuckold/whatever the female version of a cuckold is says a lot of things when the wounds are fresh that they may regret in time. But ranting on these sites is like letting a herd of kittens loose in the wild; you aren’t getting those suckers back (aw). And you aren’t going to unsay anything on the Internet.

Plus there is the fact that you can basically post whatever you want regardless of whether or not it is rooted in truth. Even if the defamed party implores them to remove the post they won’t. They simply instruct the individual to go directly to the person who posted it and work it out with them. 

So if vindictive little Sally gets ticked off at Susie, she can fabricate a story about Susie’s trampy little heart and post it on the site. Or perhaps Susie turned Broseph down one time too many, so he decides to get back at her with a particularly unsavory and untrue post. (Man, poor Susie is developing quite the unearned reputation.) Granted there is paragraph after paragraph of legal language that is supposedly designed to prevent such lies from being posted. But honestly, if a person is willing to post detailed lies (or sordid truths for that matter) about someone on a site designed to completely destroy their reputation, are they really going to stop to wade through the legalese? And how much is that going to hold up in court if someone does decide to go after them?

I’m sure they’ve got that all worked out with their lawyers. After all, the site’s creator wouldn’t be stupid enough to risk his reputation as upstanding dot com businessman, right? Whatever, he explains it all here by comparing the site to Facebook. In the same interview he defends the site as a tool to empower cheat victims. (He does, however, fail to defend his choice of publicity shot, but to each his own I guess.) And there may be something to this, but I don’t know that plastering someone’s face alongside their transgressions necessarily translates into power for the victims. It seems more like the perfect way to sink to revenge.

In addition to all this there is the clicker count that shows up every time a name is searched for. In my mind, this creates suspicion even if a cheat hasn’t been reported. “Why has this person been searched for? Is there someone else he’s seeing who checked? Did he cheat on someone and they searched to see if he cheated on someone else, but didn’t take the time to set up a profile?” So on and so forth. In reality, chances are it was just a curious someone like me poking around by entering various friends’ names (sorry Jesse, Matt and Josh, you will be happy to know your records are clean though).

Then there’s the creepy way the site’s advertising creates paranoia with billboards like “65% of Adultery Victims are Women” and  “7 Out of 10 Spouses Cheat: Don’t Worry Yours Isn’t One of Them.” So basically even if you don’t find your seemingly doting lovekins on the site, chances are he still is cheating so you better keep a close eye on him.

I understand the anger and wanting to publicly warn others about some of these scummy people. But, I don’t think the skeeviness of the cheaters outweighs the skeeviness of the site itself. Because while cheating is a terrible no good very bad thing, airing it all over some site that brags about being mocked by Gawker is sketchy and trashy as hell. So don’t do it kids. Just announce it on Facebook like a classy adult.

The Itch

Our attention spans are getting shorter in every regard, including romantically. A study released last month made the observation that the one-time seven year itch has inched it’s way closer to three years. Granted this study came as an effort to promote Hall Pass, so it should be taken with a grain of salt (as any study should), but it’s still disconcerting. The article speaks more to the staling that naturally occurs rather than directly about the cheating that has become a symptom of the itch. This I understand. Relationships will ultimately become familiar and it will take a concerted effort to (for lack of a less cheesy phrase) maintain the spark. But I feel like it’s at this point where that real love stuff everyone is always babbling about comes in.

I am far from an authority on this matter (obviously), but I’ve been lucky enough to witness it in my parents. There have been times when their relationship strays from perfect, but they come back around to that strange phenomenon of a love truer than that flutter that occurs in those first month, two months or three years. They’ve struggled sure, but they push through to the other side of imperfection to something more. So I guess what I’m saying is I refuse to believe that the itch has to be scratched by someone outside of the relationship.

I know plenty of  people understand that this is the worst possible idea for anyone who wishes to actually stay in the relationship they’ve been committed to for the past seven (or three) years. Hell, the 3-year Glitch study itself listed a number of perfectly legitimate ways to foster a healthy relationship after the new love glow has lost its luster (though, to be fair, I can’t imagine many people would admit to total strangers that they’ve cheated). But I have seen infidelity destroy enough relationships (in some cases it’s decades of covert cheating that is more likely ignored than actually hidden) to know that there are also plenty of people who justify the infidelity as an easier short-term solution to meet their own needs rather than the needs of the relationship.

I often wonder what happens inside of those relationships up to and including the period of time where the individual strays. As the 4-Way article points out, I think many people who aren’t satisfied with their relationships jump outside before they even take a moment to deal with it from the inside. It’s easier and less sticky that way. At first. Ultimately the lying and betrayal will come back to cause a bigger mess than the offending party probably ever thought was possible.

It seems like this would be obvious. But for some reason it doesn’t seem to be to those in it. I think we often expect our significant others to just know what we need. Especially after we’ve been with them for long enough for the bloom to fall off the relationship. I’ve fallen into this unrealistic realm myself. After all, shouldn’t that be the perk of emerging from the honeymoon period? He’s not as romantic, but he now understands me. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) with the ever-evolving nature of human beings, communication is still required no matter how well we know the individual with whom we’ve become one. And who knows, in the process of communicating our needs, we may uncover a way to scratch that itch that doesn’t involve the demise of our relationships. 

All’s Fair in Love and War: Thievery

In the history of romance it has always been understood when a person is married, engaged or in a relationship he or she is off limits. They belong to someone.  For nearly as long as this unwritten rule has reigned, audacious thieves have been challenging it.  There are even articles and Wikihows devoted to spelling out tactical approaches for relationship robbers. Despite the constant attack on this unspoken understanding, it has not waivered and the efforts of the thief are generally frowned upon by the whole of society. But is this fair?

A friend of mine recently met a girl and fell heels over head and then back again. But as many of the most enticing individuals are, she was taken, engaged, months from the wedding. Not willing to give up on this perfect girl, he decided he would be a better match for her than her absentee fiancé. He took it upon himself to prove this to her no matter what it would take, up to and including cheating. In his mind, her future husband didn’t deserve her so he was free to snatch her up. His justifications were fairly standard: “The guy is a dick. She is simply with him because she doesn’t know how to end it. She would be so much happier with me.”

I began considering these justifications. I have never been in the position of the thief.  If I’m attracted to a guy and I find he is taken, the possibility of a relationship is completely taken off the table in my mind. On a couple of occasions, I have been the girl caught in the middle of a boyfriend and the guy who is convinced I belong with him. Knowing how I mishandled the situations from the other side, I don’t know why any guy would want to pursue a girl tied to another guy.

I strung it out for months. Spending time with my boyfriend and the guy who was chasing me, knowing exactly what his intentions were. Though I never technically cheated on my guy, there was nothing innocent about my behavior. I felt neglected by my boyfriend and relished the attention that is often lavished upon the pursued. If my boyfriend was busy one weekend, I had no problem hanging alone with the would-be thief. My boyfriend knew what was going on, but he never let on. After ultimatums from the bandit and tearful conversations with my boyfriend, I made the decision to end my relationship. It didn’t work out with the thieving individual, but I wouldn’t change the end result. However, I’m not proud of the web I got sucked into. I’ve since apologized to the jilted boyfriend, but still I’m pinged with guilt when I recall how everything unfolded.

Whether she intends to or not, if a girl is at all interested in the guy who is not her’s, she will likely hurt both individuals. If the current boyfriend is a sucker he will ignore the signs that his girl is considering straying and be completely crushed if it ever comes to light. In the interim the thief will put copious amounts of time and energy into a relationship that may never come to fruition. And if it does come to be, how does the winner know that she really wants to be with him and didn’t just view him as a logical out from a relationship she didn’t have the courage to end when she knew it needed to be over?

Of course the character of the thief is called into question as well. He isn’t cheating, but is it acceptable for someone to take something that doesn’t belong to them? I understand the free will of a person makes these situations different from breaking into someone’s home. But does the responsibility of moral behavior rest solely on the shoulders of the prey? In addition to wronging the significant other, it seems the tactics required to successfully pull off the robbery are by nature manipulative. So ultimately the pursued the girl becomes a victim of his subterfuge on some level.

I’m sure there are situations where the clandestine relationship turns into something wonderful and the two love birds fly off into their unorthodox sunset. Still, it seems that a relationship that sprouts from confusion, betrayal and sneaky tactics doesn’t have the ideal foundation. 

The Cheater Phenomenon

You can stop groaning and sighing because this post isn’t inspired by Tiger Woods’s epic infidelity. It was spurred by the absurd anecdotes I’ve recently heard about faithlessness in new relationships, long-term relationships, marriages, etc. In this week alone, a friend of mine found out that his aunt had been cheating on his uncle for years, he then discovered that the uncle had also been habitually cheating for years. He also discovered that his brother brought a married woman home with him after realizing that his girlfriend of four months had been unfaithful. To top it all off the girl he had been seeing for a few months told him that she was cheating on her boyfriend with him.

It seems in the past year nearly everyone I know in a relationship has either cheated or been cheated on. Shouldn’t we be approaching a point in our maturity where we can control ourselves or at least be able recognize when we are unable to control our desires and be honest with both ourselves and our significant others. I know it might be difficult to tell your significant other that you feel something is missing in your relationship. But that conversation is going to be ten times easier than the conversation you will be forced to have when you get caught cheating.

I also don’t understand how someone who has been cheated on can be a part of the transgressions of infidelity being committed against someone else. One would think that someone who truly understands the pain that accompanies unfaithfulness would never want to aide in inflicting that pain on someone else. Still, I know people who have been cheated on that don’t think twice about hooking up with someone in a relationship.

There are so many theories, factors and opinions when it comes to infidelity that it makes my head spin (hence the non-sequitur nature of this post). One thing I do believe for certain is that cheating is a sign that you don’t care enough about the person to be with him or her, and that person deserves better than you.