(Yes, S.B., this is for you…because we’re tired of your cell phone going off 30 times every morning!)
Oh, the subjects that come up over lunch with a friend! Her live-in boyfriend has accused her of cheating and, honestly, she’s fed up. This time, it’s all because she didn’t respond immediately to his fifth control-freaking phone call of the day, which came during a lunch meeting where we all had to have our phones off and pretend to pay attention to the guest speaker. By the time she called back, he was livid. She’s not cheating on him; there is no one new—but his past as a cheater and his trust issues and insecurities are driving her away, and I suspect that it won’t be long until she’s actively looking for someone who won’t put her on the defensive at least once a day.
How do I know she’s not cheating? Because I know all the signs. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know the patterns, the ordinary hints that—taken altogether—signal trouble. I also recognize the one sign that is a sure-fire giveaway, though it may be that only empaths will know it when it happens.The sad truth underneath:
If you’re reading this because you suspect your guy or girl is cheating on you, then you have trust issues. They may or may not be warranted, but bottom line, you have trust issues and the damage is already there. You can either heal or deal, but there is already something dreadfully wrong in your relationship, even if you don’t recognize it yet. Frankly, it’s not likely to get any better because once you start looking for proof of cheating, you’ll eventually find it…even if it takes you years to drive them into someone else’s arms with the constant nagging and doubts. If your lover is cheating, whatever your definition of cheating is, then deep down you already know and just need the physical proof—or if they’re not, then it’s such a reality to you that you will most certainly manifest either the cheating or the same outcome as the cheating.
The other side of it is that, I believe, if people are cheating and want to get caught, they will be. If they don’t, they won’t. That might not make sense at first glance, but I’ve seen a lot of people cheat who didn’t want to disrupt their cozy homes and they took extreme care to keep up their secret lives. I’ve known because I witnessed their activities on a business trip. The ones who got caught? In every case, they really wanted to get caught, even if they didn’t realize it. They were unhappy in their relationships and looking for a way out, and it was easier to give their mates a reason to end the relationship than to come out and say, “Hey, this isn’t working anymore!” and take the adult role and leave. So they play games with their mates and with themselves. They leave subtle and then not-so-subtle clues, often subconsciously sabotaging their relationships to break them up. My former circle-mate, “Betsy,” is a prime example of that, so I’ll use her lack of inventiveness in my illustrations.
How to tell? It’s all about patterns—mundane ones and energetic ones. But that will be Part II of this series.
Leave a Reply