Love After Cheating
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Not necessarily.
I think, and I could be wrong, that people who do this just don’t value their rrelationship / respect their partner enough not to cheat. It’s selfish.
But there has to be a reason to cheat still, right? Like not respecting is one thing, but even then that comes into play once you decide “I WANT to do X and don’t respect them to not”
I don’t really think there has to be a pre-existing reason. They feel a certain way in the moment when the opportunity presents itself, and they go for it. In that moment, their partner isn’t that important.
You keep asking doesn’t there need to be a reason… what makes you ask that? What do you want to hear that the reason is?
I have cheated on boyfriends in the past, but I would never cheat on my husband. I’m more mature, yes, but also I would never do anything to mess up this relationship or hurt him.
I guess I’m trying to convince myself that the reason she cheated is because of something other than not loving me. Because we can find a way to move forward if she at least loves me, doesn’t see me as a second choice. So I want the reason to have been like “wanted a break from a routine” or “the thrill of breaking a rule” or even “it’s possible to love two people at the same time, to want to be with BOTH of them”
I think most likely, she loves you, but doesn’t love / care about / respect you *enough* to stay loyal. Again, if she was telling you this was a huge mistake and she can’t believe she did it, and never will again, that’s at least a positive sign that she feels horrible about it and it’s a one-time mistake. But that’s not really the message she seems to be sending. Do you really trust her? Would you feel the urge to look through her phone? Would you worry if she was out without you?
You’re right I think over the course of this conversation I have moved less from we will be together to “I want to be able to remember this relationship and think she did love me, even if not equally, even if she also loved someone else”
You deserve to be with someone who makes you feel sure every day that they love you and you’re their first choice. That’s not bullshit. It’s kind of the minimum. If you’re in a relationship where you don’t feel loved, don’t feel like their top priority, and they’ve cheated, that is not the right relationship, and you should move on.
Feelings aren’t a finite resource that are divvied out across people. (eg. You don’t need to love your first child any less when your second child is born.)
Actions ARE finite, however. When she acted with her ex, it’s possible she was in love with BOTH of you. Or, maybe more in love with you, but caught up in lingering emotion she hadn’t fully processed yet about her ex. Her feelings weren’t really the issue here.
She chose to ACT on her feelings in a way that hurt you. She could have chosen otherwise even if she “felt” she was in love with both of you. For you both to come back from this, you’d need to know why she acted that way and how to know she wouldn’t act that way again, even if she loves you now. It should be her responsibility to be falling over herself to assure you it won’t happen and offer transparency into her actions so you can believe her, and it doesn’t sound like that’s what’s happening.
I think Kate said it best when she said this is not about not loving you – it’s about not loving you enough. And Prognosticator also puts it nicely – she chose to do something that she knew would hurt you. In that moment made a choice. She either didn’t think of how her actions would hurt you, or and this is possibly worse, she didn’t care about how much it would hurt you and she did it anyway.
You couldn’t have known she would do this – and don’t assume that all people will do this to you. You deserve better and you deserve someone who is going to treat you with kindness and respect.
LW, you really seem like you are rationalizing her crappy behavior. The most important thing to you seems to be that she loves/loved you. What does that even mean when she falls in and out of love so fast? Don’t put your self-esteem on this one person’s behavior, especially when she demonstrates very poor character. “I saw my ex and fell in love again, then I saw you and fell out of love with him and back in love with you.” — ?!?! WTF?! First of all, that’s not how love works, and secondly, you aren’t some object she can take on and off the shelf on a whim.
Let’s say you get your wish. She cheated to break from routine or to break a rule or whatever. (Again, people with decent character do NOT do this.) What’s to stop her from doing that again? “I saw some dude, so …” She gets hot for some other guy and then cheats? and her excuse is that she “fell in love” or wanted to break a rule?? Come ON.
The reason she cheated? Because she wanted to. Period. Is that acceptable to you in a partner?
Did she dump the ex or did the ex dump her? Therein lies your answer, in light of her cheating with him. If she dumped him, then cheating with him is probably a strange sort of nostalgia, like she liked his performance in bed in a way that isn’t a part of her relationship with you — she wanted one last shot of that and the opportunity arose, but she broke up with him for a reason and knows that overall they were and still are a bad match. I he broke up with her, then I suspect she is longing to get back together with him. Either way, she doesn’t have sex with him if your relationship is hitting on all cylinders and the two of you have made an agreement to be exclusive. What if there was no agreement to be exclusive and you just assumed it was implied?
