All Wrong, No Right.

I would like to state for the record I have dated 20 men. 

4 of them have hit me.

Not a good percentage. I did not grow up in a household where this was normal. I still don’t understand it.I have just learned to avoid it.

My ex-husband never laid a hand on me, even when I ripped out a chunk of his beard in anger.

This will be important later.

In my universe, there has been much talk of cheating as of late. I have been in every position, driver’s seat, passenger seat and locked in the trunk of the car.

One of the men I dated punched me in the face repeatedly when I said these words. “I have not cheated yet, but I am about to, we have to break up”. He hit me before that too.

Still felt better than cheating would have.

Nature or nurture, we all lean heavily towards cheating or not. Perfect example, I posted something about putting sprinkles on the shit I did (cheating) and received 2 opposite responses, one woman trying to help me justify it, one saying don’t sugar coat it.

Every cheater and mistress think their situation is a unique snowflake.

It’s not.

I loved the same man for 26 years, longer than his wife has been alive. It still did not make it okay for us to talk to each other the way we did. We had to stop talking. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but it was also the right thing.

I was in a situation where I had a sisterwife, Utah rules, so hubby got all the cake. My eventual cheating was still not justifiable. But I did. I slept with a personal trainer, 9 years my junior. See how typical this is becoming? He was an ex from when hubby and I had split for the 50^thtime. The worst person I could run to. But I did.

Little Lover had enough about 3 months in and started asking me to leave the farm and move in. I wouldn’t. He dropped it eventually. At least he stopped talking to me about it. What he did instead is ensure hubby found out, indirectly. No honour here “hey, I am in love with your wife, I don’t like what you are doing to her, let her go”. Nope, he told his gossip mongering friend who happened to be an acquaintance of hubby. This started the fight that led to the beard pulling and my expulsion from the farm. Although at the time, I didn’t know it. I found a live-in nanny position instead of moving in with the lover.

There but by the grace of God go I.

Cut to July this year. I am friends with ex-hubby again, and the ex-lover. They still hate each other. I was invited to and attended my ex lover’s wedding. It was awful. I mentioned it to ex-hubby. He says “I know, why would you do that to yourself, are you okay?” I sat in mildly stunned silence. “How did you know?” Turns out ex hubby got a phone call while I was AT the wedding from the same friend who ratted me out in the first place.

Tumblers started clicking into place, painfully slow. I yelled at the ex-lover for letting his friend hurt my ex-husband. Ex-lover threw a tantrum, wherein it came out that he had somehow believed I was being physically abused by hubby.

Okay, wait. You ‘love’ me, but you thought I would get beaten if we get found out, and you made sure he found out. Why?

So I would get hit, I would leave, and be his.

Not bunny boiling, but manipulation on a grand scale.

I haven’t spoken to him since that day, nor will I ever.

I still feel like an idiot. I defended ex-lover and my actions for years after the fact.

I was just a dumb little puppet but I handed him the strings.

Nothing about any of it was ‘right’. It was a whole lotta wrongs stacked up like the end of a round of Jenga all wobbly and full of holes.
No great love story ever contained the phrase, “and then he threw her under the bus”.

I am not a cheater by nature, I am really bad at it. I could say my hand was forced, or my vagina really, but there is always a better way. The only way I can make peace with it is my adamant resolve that I won’t do it again. 

Getting punched in the face for being honest still felt better than the karmic disaster that came from lying.