There are only a few messages you can receive that will make your stomach drop: “Your DoorDash order has been canceled,” “Hey, can I call you?”, and the infamous “Hey girlie…” text.
I was deep into a year-and-a-half-long relationship when I opened up an Instagram DM from a girl I didn’t know, informing me that she had seen my boyfriend hooking up with another girl in a parking lot on his college campus.Â
He was my best friend and the one person I told everything to. We confided in each other and spent our time together doing things close friends would do: recapping our work days to each other, watching movies and getting snacks, gossiping, and getting into long, deep conversations about whatever was on our minds at the moment. Everyone told us how much they envied our relationship; the way he treated me, talked to and about me, the trips we went on, and how close we were to each other’s families. The way we were around our friends and family was the way we were in private, too — affectionate, giggly, flirty, and we just worked well.
I was two and a half hours away and sick with COVID-19, and in a matter of minutes, my entire reality changed. After sitting in shock for a while, I grabbed my car keys and drove to his dorm that night, despite feeling the worst (in every sense of the word) I’ve ever felt. The entire drive there was spent in silence — I couldn’t listen to anything else but my own thoughts, which were already so loud. I didn’t know what to expect when I saw him — there was so much anger and hurt coursing through my body, but all I wanted to do was talk to him. When I got there and we finally talked, he apologized, and I ended up forgiving him.
I thought about being cheated on day and night; when I was driving, showering, cooking, cleaning my dorm room, about to fall asleep, and especially when I was around him while we were still together. The baggage of being cheated on was heavy, and it no doubt left a permanent mark on my psyche.
The aftermath of the cheating was the worst part: The shock, the trauma, the staying, the forgiving, the leaving. At this point, I was 20 years old and carrying the burden of utter heartbreak and emotional damage, and expected to stay on top of not just my personal life, but my studies as well. I was doing terribly in my college classes because I couldn’t focus — I had to retake algebra because I failed the final exam (which was, evidently, a little under two months after The Incident).
I thought about being cheated on day and night; when I was driving, showering, cooking, cleaning my dorm room, about to fall asleep, and especially when I was around him while we were still together. The baggage of being cheated on was heavy, and it no doubt left a permanent mark on my psyche. This ended up becoming a cycle that I stayed in for nearly a year until I finally got the courage to break up with him when he cheated on me again two weeks after our two-year anniversary.Â
When you’re deep in the thick of a breakup, and you’re dealing with the emotional aftermath of being cheated on, there isn’t much that brings you hope. You can’t imagine pulling out of it — the darkness of your head space and the constant ringing of negative thoughts — so the most you can do is take it minute by minute. For me, “day by day” wasn’t manageable enough. Minute by minute was key.
But there comes a point in the healing process when things start to click. It might not feel profound, or magical, but it happens, and you just have to be willing to accept those new thoughts. Once they start, they don’t stop. My “aha” moments come at the most random times — I could be doing this, writing an article, or even taking a walk; other times, they’ve actually come from the man himself, telling me that I was the best girlfriend he had ever had and that there wasn’t a thing I could do differently to change the outcome of everything that happened. And he’s right — I’m a catch.
The reason why being cheated on is so shocking and feels like nothing makes sense is because no part of it actually involves you. You are an innocent bystander, dealing with the repercussions and destructive damage of a bomb that went off right next to your feet. The first place our mind goes when we get cheated on is always “What did I do wrong? Am I not enough?” and that is the one train of thought that will keep us running in circles.Â
You could do everything right; be at your partner’s beck and call, make them breakfast every morning, or even be a world-renowned multi-millionaire, it doesn’t matter — if they have the capacity and will to cheat, they will cheat.Â
The thing is, there is no rhyme or reason to being cheated on — there’s no way to avoid it or concoct some sort of secret recipe to keep it away. Beyonce was cheated on. So was Princess Diana. Eva Longoria, too. Christina Milian and Gabrielle Union. You could do everything right; be at your partner’s beck and call, make them breakfast every morning, or even be a world-renowned multi-millionaire, it doesn’t matter: If they have the capacity and will to cheat, they will cheat.Â
Here’s what I’ll tell you about cheaters (and there’s a lot, so take notes): If somebody in a relationship has the desire to cheat, and actually goes through with doing it, they are taking a shortcut to receive short-term satisfaction. They are willing to risk an entire relationship and somebody else’s emotional well-being to feel validated by an outside source, whoever and whatever that may be. If their physical size matched their actions, they’d be so small you could step right on them and smush them to smithereens.Â
So what does this all mean for you? Regardless of how you decide to move forward, you have to sit with your feelings first and assess every angle of the situation. This is the hardest part and takes the longest. It’s also the part I avoided for so long after my ex-boyfriend cheated on me that first time. I was too afraid to break up with him and deal with the emotional trauma by myself, so I stayed until I eventually realized that I was going to deal with it anyway — whether or not I was sleeping alone at night.
They weren’t kidding when they said time heals, so just trust that this experience will make you stronger and wiser. It did for me.