Break Up & Divorce

On being cheated on. And how I got over it.

This is a rather personal MyTake. I write not as a victim, but in retrospect as a observer to my own relationship. This happened about three years ago. While the memories don't haunt me anymore, they build up a heavily unpleasant feeling. The effects of being cheated on can vary from person to person along with how seriously vested they were in a relationship. For me my relationship was about two and half years old. I would consider it as serious even at that age, one does not simply last for more than two years without knowing what your partner really is. We started dating when we were about sixteen years old. We had to move away from each other for our different disciplines at different schools. So we had no choice but to have a long distance relationship.


My story begins on the day of the incident. My girlfriend was having a freshers party in her college and she was feeling tipsy on the phone already. Our conversation went like this


Her: Hon, I'm so shitfaced right now.


Me: Without me? Any of your pals still on their feet?


Her: Why? So you can hit on them?


Me: Yeah, give her the phone already.


Her: I'll fucking kill you if you so much as say hello, Shiela? She-ela? Sheeeelaaaaa? My boyfriend wants to say how pretty you are, talk to him.


Her friend: Hello.


Me: Hell-


Her: I heard that!


Me: Hey listen, could you do me favor and escort her back to her room? She doesn't have good tolerance. She'll sleep immedeately if you put her to bed. How much had she had?


Her friend: Four beers. Yeah, she's pretty much all over the place. I'll put her to bed. Don't worry about it. She'll call you in the morning.


Four beers is bad, my girlfriend can't hold her drink. I'd told her not to get drunk today of all days. The next day was the inauguration ceremony. She'd have to collect her syllabus and study material for the semester. She's gonna be pissed.


I had no idea how things could get so fucked up in the next Twenty Four hours. Once I woke up next morning I texted her to call me as soon as she woke up. As I myself had school that day I went ahead and attended a three hour long discourse on power electronics. As soon as the class was done, I checked my phone. No call. No text. It began worrying me so I called back. I must have called her over forty times that day, after class, at home, in the evening. Something was wrong.


I called her friend instead to get her whereabouts. She told me that my girlfriend missed the inauguration but attended the first class onwards. I felt relieved. But why wasn't she picking up. I asked her friend if anything had happened yesterday. She sounded reluctant but assured me everything was fine. We said goodnight and hung up. I called her one more time, it was unusual, we spoke everyday, no matter how bad. Although it was taking a toll on my patience, But I'd figured that her first day at school must have been very tough. I texted her to call me back waited uptil an hour after midnight, texted her goodnight and slept.


The next day she called me and I had to hide the contempt in my voice for having been ignored the whole day the previous day.


Her: Babe, I'm sorry, just had a lot on my mind yesterday.


Me: You ok? What happened?


Her: Its just... Nothing. Forget it. I'm sorry. I miss you.


She felt guilty. But why? She'd ignorned me and blocked me for days together before for telling her I wouldn't go to the same school that she did, but it was rare for her to be like this. Her voice was trembling. She felt very guilty as if she was gonna cry.


Me: What happened? I wasn't gonna let this slide. She was hiding something.


Her: Its nothing. I told you. Its nothing. Can we just talk? Just please... Let's talk.


Weren't we?


Me: I am, but you don't want to.


Her: What did you eat for lunc...


Me: Don't change the subject. You're hiding something. And you're apologising.


My heart is going to explode, I know what's coming. My fingers are going cold. Please anything but this. How could I have not seen it. Its adding up, she was drunk, she didn't call me, she went to school but missed inauguration, her friend was hiding something too. Shit, my senses are numb. I don't want to hear. I don't want to know. I'm lying to myself. I've been too smart for my own good. Of all the times, my brain jumps the gun and gets it right, now wasn't the time. Fuck.


Her: I slep...


Me: I know, who was it?


The fuck am I saying? Why the hell do I even want to know who was it, why? Why? WHY?


And silence. It must've been an eternity.


23x17=391. 23x18=414. 23x19=437. I need to hang up, I need think about something else I can't. Her voice snaps me back to reality.


Her: An exchange student. Listen...


Her voice is tearing, she's crying, I say nothing. I'm too dumbfounded. A one night stand....


Her: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We were drunk and we were talking and then one thing lead to another.


Seriously? Is that all the fuck you can say? One thing lead to another? Right.


We've never had sex before, we agreed that we'd do it only we got married even got those fucking chastity vows. Now you tell me, it took four beers and someone you'd just met to give it all up. You bit... I can't say it, I shouldn't say it. It was a mistake, it might've been. I need to listen to her. It hurts, damn it hurts so much. My legs feel like ice, they're frozen.


Her: I'm so sorry. I need you. I need to see you. Sure you do but I don't want to, I can't face you.


I've had enough, her voice hurts, I don't want to hear. Need to stop.


Me: Stop. Just please stop.


She begins apologising again. Fuck it, my temper isn't gonna hold out.


Me: Shut up, Just SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP!!


Silence and her occasional sobs, I'm drained, I've no strength to continue. I hang up.



I feel weak, so weak. I must've grown fifty years older. My knees give away and I hit the floor. My eyes start to tear up. Must not cry. Boys don't cry. But shit, it hurts. It hurts so much. I'm not safe, my walls are collapsing and my guard is gone. I cry, it must've been an eternity since I cried. My tears are warm, my body is cold. I crawl into fetal position. My knees to my chest and my arms around them. I need warmth, its a wintery hell. Perhaps I'm in hell now. Why? Why did she do it? Why? I trusted her so much, so very much. I loved her so much, we were so great together, Its growing colder. But the questions only grow louder, resonating in my head like they want to burst out to find the answer.


And then what? Will the answer soothe my pain? Will it undo this moment in my life?


Questions? Questions everywhere. Questions I don't want the answers to. Our minds are not programmed to accept grief. We are programmed to addict and indulge. The mind only seeks for pleasure. Heck, I'm even counseling myself, weird right? My phone is ringing, aeroplane this bitch. Shut up, my mind yells. My senses are abandoning me. 23x65=1495, 23x66=1518, 23x67=1541, 23x68=1564....... There's no light. Everything fades away.


On being cheated on. And how I got over it.



I wake up, I'm in the middle of a road. She's standing right in front of me like she was watching over me. She bends over and kisses me, her hair smells like lavender. Smells like the first time we went on a date. I won't forget that day. She grabs my arm and pulls me up.


Her: We need to talk.


Me: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...


Her: Its ok, I know. I wanted to see you. She smiles. Cheater. How can you say no to that smile?


Me: Tell me why. Tell me shy you did it. Don't say you were drunk and you couldn't tell a stone from a meteor.


She gazes at me softly, almost playfully. And for a moment its all right. I forget the turmoil. I'm calm. But I'm still waiting for her answer.


Her: I'm not the one who can answer you. I'm sorry.


Me: What do you mean? I'm suprisingly calm.


Her: The person who can answer your question is over there.


She points at a long table cleanly laden with tea, pastry and other delicacies. There is Hat at far edge having a throne. Alice In Wonderland. Great. A shadow appears from the distance, a familiar figure. Its.... me. He sits down at the throne.


Me#2: He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.


And then he looked at me as if awaiting my reply, his gaze locked and his posture frozen. He was quoting Of Human Bondage, it was Maugham's words. I've to choose? I choose her. Not a second thought. A whole bunch of me show up


Me#3:If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.


Rebecca, Maurier.


Me#4: To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.


Les Miserables, Hugo. My head is burning. I know where this is going.


Me#5: The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.


Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald. There is no plan where we will end up together.


Me#6: Love loves to love love.


Ulysses, Joyce. There is no us anymore, I'm breaking, I've to make it stop.


Me#7: Now I'd like someone to tell me there is no drama in real life


Dumas.


I'm alone again. I'm at crossroads. Now what?


On being cheated on. And how I got over it.



She appears from behind and points at the road which I had been long travelling.


Her: That's the only road I can go. I can only go back. I'm sorry but any other road you choose. I cannot come with you.


So this was the answer? Yes, this was the only answer.


Me: I cannot head back, you know that. I tell her with a smile, you cannot fight fate.


Her: Ah... Yes. So is this goodbye?


Yes


I just stare on, she knows my answer. She always knows. A lonely tear rolls down her cheek. I lean in and we kiss one last time. We kiss goodbye.


There's light. I open my eyes.and smile again.


Fin.


Obviously, a large part of this dream is constructe. But that doesn't mean that the dream did not happen. It did. I felt the inclusion of it would make a long story short. My encounters with her in the coming months have been pretty much intepreted here. That's that for my story.


Here is how I coped.


1. I blocked her after a few months on every social media block, I also forbid our mutual friends from inviting us to the same events or mention our wherabouts about each other.


2. I watched all the Top 250 IMDB movies.


3. I abstained from entering another relationship for a year.


4. I went on a road trip and crossed off 8 things from my bucket list.(I have 70)


5. I laid of cigarettes and booze. Best decision I've ever made.


6. I randomly approached people and asked them to be my friend. Suprisingly, many of them said yes.


7. Went swimming in the middle of the ocean. Scary. But shows how much you ought to value life.


8. Books, books and books. Read any book I got my hands on. Classics, Text Books, Music Sheets, Playboy, Porn Mags you name it.


9. Had a near death experience.


10. Never spoke to her again.


What I learnt.


1. Cheating is gender neutral. There is no rule that a man cheating hurts more than a woman cheating. Pain is pain. Don't judge people.


2. Worst punishment for a cheater? Leave them the hell alone. Never look back, just leave them behind. The more you keep contact, the only person who gets hurt is you.


3. Unlike men, women cheat for far simpler reasons, three major reasons. Maternal, a woman might choose an immature 'bad guy' because she feels the need to protect him.


Materialistic, a woman might cheat because she might find another man more responsible and finacially well endowed than her partner.


Attention, two types of women here, the ones who genuinely lack proper love and attention and those who just can't have enough. The latter being the most troublesome type.


4. Life goes on, please do not generalise your experience. Just because one person breaks your heart does not mean you lash out at the world and never trust anyone again.


5. Change. Ask yourself, do you love yourself the way you are. If you're not, change is the most obvious thing. Do not reject change, you cannot win.


6. Please speak for yourself, do not say or write anything out of imagination. Express from experience. You might do more harm than good. Like this noob writer's MyTake I read about some promiscuous girl she just assumed stuff about. She said 'Fuck Society'. Sigh. Someone's been watching too much Mr. Robot.


7. If you don't love yourself. Don't expect it from anyone else.


Thank you for reading this long ass MyTake. Ciao.


On being cheated on. And how I got over it.
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