The One Who Cheated On Me

I was a naive seventeen year old when I was in a relationship with an older woman. She seemed genuinely interested in our relationship and enjoyed being around me and my friends, even travelling over an hour to just be with us for a short while sometimes. It was not a serious relationship at all and we were both fine with that. I was still going through my “Love isn’t for me” phase back then. I started to enjoy being around her to be honest.

It’s always the things you don’t see or hear that are the most important pieces of the puzzle and that’s exactly what that relationship taught me. After we broke up a friend of mine confessed that a friend of my ex’s actually told him to warn me off of her because she was not a good person. He felt like he would have been speaking out of place and that I wouldn’t appreciate the interference so he chose to keep quiet. That didn’t bother me too much because I didn’t have any emotions invested in the whole situation so I didn’t waste much time thinking about it.

For some unknown reason the ex felt like it was a great idea to contact me and admit to sleeping with several men while we were dating. That stung! I felt surprised that she cared so little. I was actually hurt that I meant so little that it wasn’t even worth remaining faithful in our relationship. I guess I felt like an idiot for thinking that by being a good girlfriend myself that I would be rewarded with the same treatment. I blamed myself and felt ugly. I felt like faulty goods actually. I thought I must have missed some signs. I wondered was that the fact that I hadn’t slept with anyone before and wasn’t willing to sleep with her to blame. I also wondered why someone who claimed to be a lesbian had cheated on me with guys. I hated that I had thought of our relationship as “just fun” but she thought cheating on me was more fun.

Sure, it was far from serious, but it still hurt to be cheated on not once but several times. When I asked her why she did it she simply said “Because I could and it was fun.”

That whole experience made me realise that not every woman, whatever age they may be, will care as much as you do. It also showed me that cheating is all too common and it can happen to any of us for any reason. So many different things motivate people to be unfaithful and, no, it’s not your fault that you were cheated on. The young dreamer within me back then had not yet seen women as just as capable as men at being ignorant to the emotions of fellow ladies. I think a part of me even hoped that women treated each other with the care you’d place on fragile glass. Everyone is capable of hurting you. Too often we forget that. It was a hard lesson to learn but at least I learnt it quite early in life. I know that being cheated on hurts when you aren’t invested in the relationship so I’m sure it would be absolutely heartbreaking if you are.

Let’s Speak About My Obsessive Ex

Today I’d like to tell you all about the confusing, angst ridden ball of fire that was my girlfriend back when I was sixteen. She seemed great at first but everyone does. We met face to face but barely spoke, got talking online a few days later and suddenly I had a girlfriend. I was excited about the new relationship despite the fact that it was sort of long distance with her being almost three hours away which feels very long distance when you’re sixteen.

It turned out that she was a seriously selfish, self obsessed liar with no respect for me at all with no desire to show affection unless someone else seemed interested. She invented an eating disorder that she never actually had as well as lying about some other pretty big stuff. I think she enjoyed the attention that came with these lies but the lying cost her a lot when her friends found out the truth. I think it irritated me most that she had a job and I didn’t yet I was the one expected to pay a small fortune travelling to see her just for her to act like she couldn’t care less if I was there or not. If another woman was talking to me on Bebo (yep, Bebo was the big thing back then) she had to jump in and make her presence known by commenting with “Hey, how’s my girlfriend today?” or something equally intended to mark her territory. She told everyone that I was a great girlfriend so everyone thought our relationship was going brilliantly. Everyone except me. If I had any problems she ran a mile and didn’t want to listen but I still spent hours listening to her issues that ended up being totally fictitious. If I was randomly in her area she was always too busy to spare a few minutes for me. Needless to say that relationship didn’t last long but she did try to remain present in my life popping up every few months.

Years later she was mere background noise that I barely paid attention to anymore. I should have known that something was bound to trigger her possessive nature again and that something was my marriage. A few days before our wedding my wife got a friend request from her and before she could decide either to accept or decline she had also received a private message. This message went like this “Hi, I’m alesbianspeaks’ ex – girlfriend. I hope you’re happy with her and treat her right, like I never could, she definitely deserves it.” I would have perceived this message to be a lot more thoughtful if it wasn’t so self pitying and if it wasn’t also followed by a private message to my own account asking if I was sure I wanted to marry “this person”. She feigned interest in our wedding and the clothes we had chosen to wear before she gave up whatever she was trying to do. I didn’t allow her to penetrate my thoughts further over the days after this communication because, honestly, she was nothing more than my past to me and she belonged there. She wasn’t the worst and I accept that there was some good times with her too but I never had strong feelings for her so leaving her behind was the obvious thing to do. She hung around for another few months virtually before she decided it was time to unfriend me. Her presence didn’t bother me – I think I was beyond caring. Maybe she stayed for a while because she wanted to see if I really seemed happy. I don’t know.

Staying friends with an ex is a complicated issue that is everyone’s own decision to make but some old flames are more hassle to keep around than they’re worth. It’s okay to say see ya around to your past and move on because moving on is essential in life. A big mistake, in my opinion, is to allow an ex to control your future. Nobody should have that power except you. I don’t know anything about her life anymore and that’s perfectly fine by me. I just thought I’d tell you all about her to show you that it is easy for someone to retain power over you if you allow them to and you can only really move forward when you stop allowing this to happen.

Take care,
Best wishes,
Alesbianspeaks