Confessions of a cheat - my healing story
I’ve been unfaithful to a lot of men in my life, particularly when I was younger, particularly when I was drunk and particularly when I didn’t know how to communicate. For years, I kept it quiet. Pretending I didn’t, pretending I wouldn’t, pretending I hadn’t.
But the truth? I had and today I understand that every time I was unfaithful to someone I was with, I was most of all was being unfaithful to myself.
A decade later, this one sentence was the light bulb moment that I needed to go deeper - to ask - what the f**k is going on here? Why did I do these things? Why am I hurting others and why am I betraying myself constantly? And what does this mean?
Today, this is what I learnt.
If we cheat on someone, whether it is physical cheating, emotional cheating, short-term, long term or something in between, we are not being true to ourselves about who we are, what we want, what is driving us, or how we truly feel and what we need.
When we cheat, we ignore, we suppress, and we do things that are not in alignment with our highest selves - beings of love, truth, consciousness, connection & communication.
Therapy helped me to understand what was going on here. That my childhood wounds were driving this activity - that I needed things from others that I never felt that I got from my family unit.
I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it too. I wanted loving stability from a partner, someone to make me feel loved, cared for and adored - but I wanted the excitement from the eyeballs of others. The text messages that appeared telling me how much they wanted me, because they couldn’t have me, the glances from across the room.
I wanted to be loved consistently and longingly - but I also wanted people to think I was fun, cool, sexy, attractive, pretty, and more. The life of the party. Never the boring one.
I wanted someone to choose me - so much so, that I lost myself time and time again giving myself to people who did not deserve any part of me, whilst neglecting the one person that really did choose me.
I would downplay the importance of love and care that I was receiving at home, with the men that I lived with, and tell myself that I deserved to have fun, or this was part of life.
But most of all, I would stay silent in situations where I should have shouted. Shouted at men to get off me, shouted at my partner to give me more, or shouted at myself to stop repeating the same old cycles.
Instead of going deeply inwards, to ask WHY, WHY, WHY is this happening - I would look outwards, thinking, WHO WHO WHO? I didn’t even realise WHY was a question at that point. My life was a constant cycle of being in long term relationships but having men approach me from the outside world - and I just didn’t know how to handle it.
Instead of having a conscious conversation about what I needed or was not getting, I would end up in situations getting attention from elsewhere.
I thought it didn’t affect me - that I could brush it off and keep moving - but one day, I was caught red-handed by my boyfriend - and everybody knew. It was the talk of the town. Everybody spoke about it, pointed fingers and whispered as I went by. The first week at University. I obliterated a 4-year relationship and had no friends to support me whilst I watch it go down in flames.
I broke someone’s heart into smithereens who didn’t deserve it. He then went on to ruin relationship after relationship after that.
A ripple effect, in the worst possible way. It was a nightmare.
I remember the pained anguish on his face as he broke down, telling me how much I had hurt him.
I remember that he was physically sick when he found out. That the girl he was in love with, could do that to him.
For me?
I stayed silent. Pretended it wasn’t happening.
I didn’t know what else to do.
Today, this situation f**ked me up so badly that I’m pretty sure it’s how and why my chronic pain disorder started.
Intense pain and total suppression. Inwards, into my body. Suppressing emotion downwards so that my body could do nothing but scream outwards with all of the emotion I was avoiding.
But today? This pain has been revolutionary.
I understand it is talking to me.
It’s been a major part of my healing.
I realised:
Lots of people cheat; it is not a good or respectable thing to do but I wasn’t the world’s worst person and the only person who had done something so terrible;
The frequency of the cheating was a lot - and this means that it wasn’t just a one-off drunken mistake. It was something I had to look deeper into;
The cheating wasn’t worth the shame and the deep, dark awful narrative I internalised about myself about what a bad, defective, awful, hated person I was. I spent a lifetime running away from it, trying to make people love me - without understanding that, it didn’t make me defective all along. Shit things happen - it’s how we learn from them and ensure they don’t happen again is what is most important
That my actions were driven by childhood wounds - a need to be loved consistently by a partner to fill up what I felt was missing, but also a need to be validated by other men and people around me, because I wasn’t able to fill myself up;
That a lot of the situations were sub-25 when my brain was not developed fully - and my rational decision making, mixed with major alcohol, meant that I was never making choices in my best interest; did you know every cell in our body changes every 7 years? I’m not the person today that I was then,
That I was good at keeping silent, keeping these things under wraps, and thinking I could get away with it. Because I did, so many times. Silence is not the answer. Silence is dangerous. Silence and shame are a killer combination.
That I really needed to learn how to communicate with others, as well as learning to care, love and look after myself, in order to set the foundations for a healthy relationship.
Most of all this situation taught me that I was never taught to communicate. None of us are.
I did not know how to have difficult conversations
I didn’t even know how to ask myself what I was feeling
I definitely didn’t know how to say to someone
“I love you, but this isn’t working for me”
"I love you but I’m not sure this is right anymore - but I’m scared to be on my own”
“I want attention from other people - and I don’t know why”
Today?
My healing has taught me to go deep into these wounds.
Deep into my childhood
Deep into the pain
To ask myself
What needs healing?
What did I not get that I’m trying to get from others?
Where do I need to go?
So I can show up for my next partner with consistency, reliability, love, openness and
Ultimately?
FAITHFULNESS.
And that space?
The place where people don’t want to go?
I went there
So no one, including myself, has to ever be tarnished by this type of pain again
The confidence I have gained from going on this journey has been unparalleled
The fear of pain and wrongdoing, minimised
The joy of connection, love and trust - maximised
All I know today? Is that infidelity can be avoided by a conscious connection - not only with your partner but also with yourself.
