Most of the time when you’ve been cheated on you will want to immediately end the relationship that you are in.  If your relationship has been a struggle and you believe that the cheating was only a manifestation of other problems in your relationship like distrust, manipulation, and constant lying then making a complete break is the right decision.  If you feel like the relationship is now over, then trust your instincts.

Cheating will crush you and break your heart, but if you have decided that this is the end then the hard part has only just begun.  First, give yourself time to accept your pain.  Truly feel the pain and let yourself be sad.  Let it all out because you have been hurt and it is wonderful that you are in touch with your emotions.  After some time, try to be calm and analytical about your situation.  Acknowledge the relationship as a whole and include all other aspects outside of the cheating that led to the end.

Here are some extremely important ideas to remember when struggling with the post break-up depression and confusion after a relationship involving cheating:

• Don’t blame yourself. Two people are involved in the relationship…remember that!

• Don’t spend energy hating the cheater. It only gives them a role in your life that they don’t deserve.

• Don’t look back and point out all of the signs that you missed and places where you made wrong decisions.  It doesn’t help!  The past is the past and the mistakes were made and you must move on.

• Do look back reflectively to figure out what you can learn from the situation.

• Don’t be a flip flopper. Trust your initial instincts and stick to them.  It’s going to be tough!  There is no doubt about that.  But you are strong and independent.  If you are broken up, then you are broken up.  Remember that!

• Keep the situation private. There is no need to start a smear campaign against the cheater.  There is more to him than just the cheating and you will get nothing from spreading your private life into the public.

• Don’t put up a wall. You were hurt, but it doesn’t mean that you will be hurt again.  Let yourself love and be loved.  Let yourself trust and be trusted.

Post from: Blisstree

He Cheated, We’re Over, Now What?

Every cheating situation is extremely different, so every situation should be handled with its own set of circumstances.  Most people try to make a strong statement “Cheating is simple.  It is unforgivable,” but I have seen a variety of situations where specific circumstances have challenged this statement.  I am writing a series of Relationship articles about the difficult situation of cheating and how a couple can avoid, analyze, and move forward from this hurtful behavior.

The Definition of Cheating

What is considered cheating?  If you are dealing with someone who has cheated, they may try to stretch the definition to fit their situation.  It is important to remember that the definition that is important to you is the one that you should enforce.  “We weren’t really together” and “At least we didn’t have sex” are all common excuses that rely on fuzzy definitions of cheating to defend their cheating.  The physical act of sex is only one small aspect of cheating.  Sex is the physical evidence that can never be erased, so it usually finds itself at the absolute center of cheating arguments.  Although the visual images can haunt your partner for life, it is not the biggest issue that you need to deal with and it does not define whether or not cheating has actually occurred.

Cheating doesn’t really need to be defined in any exclusive relationship because pushing the limits with someone outside of your relationship is definitely considered hurtful behavior.  If you are in a committed relationship, then be committed.  Don’t engage in any questionable behavior that involves a strong sexual connection with someone other than your partner.  Extensive close conversations or private email exchanges fall into the cheating category if they involve feelings for another person.

If you’re not sure if your behavior is inappropriate, my advice is:  Ask yourself if you would be tempted to lie about the situation if your partner asked about it.  If you find yourself tempted to lie, then you are engaging in inappropriate behavior that needs to stop unless you are ready to move down the road towards infidelity.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

The Definition of Cheating

The Decision to Snoop

There are definitely situations where the decision to take advantage of access to private information is the right decision.  Many cheaters and liars have been caught through reading emails or text messages.  It is a very serious decision to decide to snoop around on your partner and I only recommend this decision if you have other evidence that leads you to believe that your partner has been lying.

This is the most important aspect of this decision:  Do not make the decision to snoop unless you are fully prepared to confront your partner about your discovery and take appropriate actions to deal with the situation.  If you think your partner is cheating, finding the actual evidence is going to be mind-blowingly devastating and you need to emotionally prepare yourself to make decisions that will be the right ones for you and your future.

Snooping is not an action that should be taken lightly.  It should not be incorporated into your relationship as a regular activity.  If you decide to snoop it is because you are trying to find out if your partner has been dishonest with you and you are finally taking a step to discover the truth.  If you snoop once and find that your partner is being truthful and honest, have the self-restraint to not snoop again.  You found what you were looking for, so move forward in your relationship with trust and happiness.

The Decision Not To Snoop

In most relationships, the decision to respect each other’s privacy is the right one.  Snooping involves distrust and trust should be a strong element that exists at the base of your relationship.  If you are curious about your partner’s relationships with exes and friends of the opposite sex, that is not a reason to snoop.  Even if you have access to all of your partner’s private information, you should be happy that you trust each other enough to share that and not abuse it.

Snooping will always make you feel guilty and dirty.  It is not a good feeling to go behind your partner’s back, so always try direct communication and calm confrontation before resorting to snooping.  If you are caught snooping, you need to take responsibility for your actions and understand that you have put your relationship at risk by violating mutual trust.  If you are not caught, you risk developing a bad habit that will emotionally separate you from your partner as you sneak around and hide information that you have discovered.

Please take the issue of snooping in a relationship extremely seriously.  Even just quickly checking your partner’s emails or text messages can open the door to behavior that is hurtful and distrustful.  If you are feeling like making the decision to snoop, consider all of the consequences of losing trust in your relationship and truly consider what you are looking to find.

This behavior can be addictive and can become a self-destructive habit extremely quickly, so consider your reasons and consequences before committing to your actions.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

How To Decide If You Should Snoop

I honestly believed that the idea that someone could be dating more than one person at the same time was something that only happened in movies or to extremely naive people.  But unfortunately I am finding out that it is becoming more and more common!  It’s one thing to have a mistress who is fully aware of her status, but it is quite another to convince each woman that they are in an exclusive relationship.  Married men are taking their rings off when they go out to bars and guys with serious girlfriends are starting new relationships on the side.

It might sound like a lot of work for someone to maintain more than one “exclusive” relationship, but I think the frequency in occurrence relates back to ideas of polygamy and a male desire for multiple women.  A male with low self-confidence gets a great boost from new interest from a woman.  Although they want what is new, they are also unwilling to give up the boost coming from the serious relationship they already have.  So the obvious solution is…why not continue both? I doubt that they fully think this scenario through to imagine how it will all be resolved, but I’m pretty sure the dream scenario involves something like two women fighting over one man.

It’s all quite crazy, but I just wanted to bring up the issue to draw attention to the fact that it is happening more and more.  Intelligent women who have had perfectly respectable boyfriends and serious relationships have ended up falling for these lies and getting into a hurtful and sticky situation.

Don’t be overly cautious or snoopy, but do trust your intuition and use your eyes and ears to catch any oddities that could tip you off.

Image: istock

Post from: Blisstree

Is He Cheating…With You?

I read Ann Landers, Dear Abby, and pretty much any other advice columnist that I could get find back in the day. I’m not sure if it was the advice itself or the people telling their troubles that interested me the most. (Probably the troubles – I am naturally nosey). 

I was reading a recent column that covered a husband having an emotional affair with his boss. The emotional affair has the man – married 25 years – spending most of his time with a boss that he admits to feeling an attraction for. He buys her gifts, they spend off-time during the weekend together, they go out for drinks after work, alone. I get the impression that believing that this affair is merely emotional is wishful thinking. It sounds like that is his way of safely explaining the time spent with the boss. He has it out in the open so wife can’t “discover” it and freak out. Wow. That sucks. This cheater sounds either very devious, very smart, and like a real ass.

This emotional affair, with a co-worker, it’s  the next big thing in cheating. People work together they build bonds, they have a team-mentality, and one thing leads to another.

How do people avoid affairs?  How do you keep your partner from cheating?  You can’t, can you? Either they want to be with you and they want to honor that commitment or they don’t.

Sometimes I think about cheating and I wonder if there’s more opportunity to cheat these days or if people simply have a weaker will, a looser set of morals than they used to have. Or possibly cheating happens at the same rate that it always has.

What do you think? If anyone has anything to say, I’d be very interested in your opinion.

Image credit: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Is It Possible To Avoid Infidelity?

On the day that the video was taken, June 2, the two officers were driving back from Cincinnati, where they picked up a burglary suspect, to their town of Perry Township, 50 miles away. In the video, the female officer is seen checking to make sure that the suspect in the back seat was asleep. The dashboard camera’s red light, that signals that it is active and on, was tampered with, so the officers did not know that they were being taped. An anonymous tip brought the tape to attention.

Have you ever been involved with a co-worker?  Either while single or in a relationship?  Have you been tempted?

When I was very young (19) I was engaged and my boyfriend was away at boot camp. While he was gone, I went down to Southern California to live with my dad for a few months. I worked in a restaurant there and a guy that I worked with seemed to find my engagement a challenge. He worked me day after day, in an attempt to get me to cheat on my fiance, but I never did. One time, after a particularly bad argument with the fiance (we argued a lot an he is now married to someone else – I believe happily and for a long time 18+ years), I thought, hey why not, maybe I should do it just this once. I did not follow through with it, I did not cheat at that time.

People spend a lot of time at work and they form connections with the folks they spend that time with.  Sometimes these connections are a distraction and a way to escape the stress or even boredom of Real Life. In the case of my restaurant boy, I was lonely and young, away from my friends at that time, and this boy was very cute. It was tempting, but cheating sucks and I have rarely even come close to doing it.

I’d like to say that I’ve never done it, but that would not be completely honest and I’ve made a habit of being honest with you readers.  I did make a few mistakes in the past (way, way, way in the past), but they were not with someone at work (which does mean that it was alright). These days, nothing could be farther from my mind. The boyfriend that I have is all that I can handle.

Being in a committed relationship is like a job in that you have to work at it every day. You have to remind yourself what you are there for and reaffirm your commitment. You have to be a good co-worker or you run the risk of a bad performance review or possible termination – I’m talking divorce or breakup here, not death.

“Canoodling.” Isn’t that a silly word? 

Image credit: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Cheating At Work – Cops Caught Kissing

This morning she sent me an email telling me to check her Singlesnet  message box. (She has me check the interesting ones, because sometimes it’s good to have an extra set of eyes and ears.) There were four emails from a familiar screen name, but once she opened them up, she saw that they were actually from the guy’s live-in girlfriend.

The girlfriend left her name and number. Scarlet rang her and apparently they are planning some sort of a sting operation. Scarlet would make a coffee date and the girlfriend will meet him instead.

If I were the girlfriend, I wouldn’t bother. I would pack my things (or his things) and just be done with him. Why bother, why waste any more time on a man like that? Is that really going to make her feel better in the end?

Something funny this guy said to Scarlet, “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”  I guess she forgot to ask the question, “Have you been living with someone for the past 2 years.”  That’s her fault, right?   Sheesh.

Image credit: Michelle Smith

Post from: Blisstree

Scarlet and The Cheater

Seriously?  ”Life is short” and you are going to spend part of it doing something that leads to wasting a large part of it plotting and lying and feeling guilty?  You couldn’t just… I don’t know… eat donut?  Buy yourself something over-priced?  Wouldn’t pretty much anything be a better way to cheat ?

“The World’s Premier Discreet Dating Service” has more than 3.5 million members. There are approximately 8.5 men for every 1.5 women, but due to the “points” system that Ashley Madison uses, they say “…one out of every 10 men actually purchases credits enabling them to contact female members, the probable ratio is closer to 1-1.” 

I’m curious about your opinion – if people sign up for an online dating services that is focused on people meeting up for an affair (sex), then would the Ashley Madison Agency be guilty, in a sense, of pimping or pandering?  If not legally, what about morally? 

There’s even a guarantee - take a look at this:

Under the AshleyMadison.com Affair Guarantee Program, …if you don’t find someone within the initial 3 months after purchasing the “Affair Guarantee” Membership Package, we’ll refund you $249, being the amount you paid for participating in the Program…”

If you’ve got to work so hard that you actually buy a guarantee, then why not just get out of your marriage and openly meet someone?  I’m sorry, I just don’t get cheating.

 Image credit: All Posters.com

Post from: Blisstree

What Is Your Opinion – Online Cheating

Gist of the show – “Men are lonely because they are basically emotionally retarded and the only communication they understand is sex, so wives should do it more. Oh, and men always need to win.”

Duh.

Uh, here’s something to study: why women are sick to death of being married to it or dating it.

Trying to communicate with a husband is, at times for some women (not myself, of course), like beating your head against a brick wall and then realizing that 1/3 of the time it’s a futile effort and he’ll cheat anyway. Oh, and he’s sure to lie about it too.

However, I think Gary Neuman is a very insightful guy and I think it was a matter of translation. I thought his shows on divorce last year were the best shows ever and I doubt he meant for the cheating issue to come off as simplistically as it did.

I doubt he meant to make men look quite as emotionally retarded as we sometimes think they are. Please God, tell me they aren’t that emotionally retarded and we’ve been letting THEM rule the world. Please.

I can’t wait to watch this afternoon so I can find out what he really meant to say.

He’s going to give us 3 ways to Affair Proof Your Marriage:

My guesses?

1. Do IT more.

2. Never complain, require nothing emotionally.

3. Stroke his Ego.

Anyone else have guesses?

Post from: Blisstree

Why Men Cheat, What He Meant to Say