Honest Cheating…Cheating Honestly…what?

Oh come now, you didn’t really think those two words went great together now did you? I mean, it might make sense if you put on a pair of rose-tinted glasses and then bang your head against a brick wall a couple of times. But seriously though, how often do we try to justify cheating in relationships? Can it be justified? Even if we found a million reasons in a grain of sand, how often does it really work out for us? Don’t worry I’ll wait…

I was speaking to a friend a couple days ago, and she was telling me about her “situation-ship” (whatever that means) with a guy that she was in love with. She spoke at length about the chemistry between them. She understood him better than anyone and he understood her better than anyone. He told her how much he loved her and wanted to be with her. They definitely seemed like the “perfect” couple, except, they weren’t. On further probing I came to find out that the guy was actually married. I mean, common sense dictated that she should run in the opposite direction, right? Well, I guess in this particular situation, common sense didn’t really prevail. Somehow she had managed to convince herself that they would be able to have a life together after he had sorted out the dilemmas of his ongoing marriage and left his wife. At least that is what he had promised her…over a year ago.

“Future-faking” much?

It was amazing that despite information to the contrary, she flat out refused to accept the possibility that she was getting played and that Mr. Assclown was never going to deliver on that promise. Sometimes I hate being the devil’s advocate but being a good friend dictated that I tell her the truth no matter how distasteful it sounded. She told me that I didn’t know him as well as she did, and you know what? Fair enough. But if we’re being honest, I didn’t think she knew him as well as she thought she did either.

While I firmly believe that “hope” is the quintessential human emotion and the source of our greatest strength, it is simultaneously a profound weakness that we all share. I say this because hope can sometimes cause us to abandon logic and reason as we fight desperately to be right. Believe me, I get it. While we might recognize on some level that what we’re doing is wrong, that irrational side of us latches on to information that would only confirm our unhealthy beliefs about what love is, and what relationships should be like. That being the case, it becomes easier for us to get carried away and ignore contradictory information because we don’t want to explore the possibility that we might have been wrong about someone. We don’t want to accept the fact that we made a bad judgement call. I know that most, if not all of you reading this, can relate to that experience.

I think it is important for us to understand that just because someone is in a relationship does not necessarily mean that the person is capable of commitment. Cheating is not an action that can be dismissed out of hand because there is NO circumstance that exists that would justify the need to do it. None.

Cheating is a passive aggressive move that indicates emotional unavailability and commitment issues.

Of course we know this. But over the years, social media and some of these toxic podcasts have concocted and circulated this nonsense ideology that since men are biologically “wired” for promiscuity, it somehow absolves them from the responsibility of maintaining a healthy and monogamous relationship. Now, women are being engineered to believe that it is okay for a man to cheat due to some whimsical biological predisposition and as such, should manage down their expectations in order to facilitate this boundary-busting and shady behavior. I mean…seriously?

No one is ever “driven” to cheat. It is only but a ploy to avoid responsibility and owning one’s role in their flatlining relationship. I can go into all of the reasons why men cheat but perhaps we can tailor that discussion for another post.

What we should not be doing is internalizing other people’s shady behavior, then deciding to attribute moral virtue to them absent of the work needed to attain it. Decent and loyal people do not cheat on their partners. Period. With that being said, answer me this:

If someone is messing around with you behind their partner’s back, what makes you think that they would be loyal to you? If someone is so comfortable lying to and deceiving their partner and themselves, why on earth would they be honest with you? What makes you think that you could be the exception to their rule of shady behavior? What makes you so special? Newsflash -

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN HONEST CHEAT!

It is oxymoronic to say the least, and pretending otherwise would only make us sitting ducks for serious heartache and constant disappointment. We need to be able to take what we are being given at face value and take action, rather than hiding out in ignorance, “betting on potential” and using the “nobody’s perfect” excuse to rationalize our continued investments in these toxic and pointless relationships. Yes, I’ve been down this road before and trust me when I tell you, nobody is going to sabotage their stable relationship to pursue you because they always believed deep down that you were “the one” for them. Right person, wrong time? Stop it. The biggest mistake you could make in these situations is thinking you’re that special. You’re not. Nobody is.

All the future-faking and manipulation tactics aside, it is not really about us wanting what we can’t have. It is about us harboring these pipe dreams that it is possible for us to have a healthy and mutually fulfilling relationship with someone who had to deceive their partner in order to be with us. It will NEVER work, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that it can. It is important for us to keep our feet grounded in reality and understand that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then guess what? It’s a frigging duck! Same goes for a cheater.

Your thoughts?