When I Tell Her I Have Cheated
Eventually, the question always comes up. Have I ever cheated? And I always give the same answer: Yes.
Then, from there, the follow-up questions breaks off into one of two directions. Either she wants to know more about the times I cheated or she wants to know why I cheated. To both questions, I try my best to answer without over-explaining, but rarely do I ever avoid falling into such a trap. Because I’m a natural talker, I always end up giving the who, what, where, when and whys of what happened. And usually that is when suspicion begins to creep into the mind of the woman who asked me the question.
I suppose there’s a reason to be suspicious of any man who so willingly cops to their past mistakes; who says, almost brazenly, “Yes, I cheated.” I don’t blame any woman whose expectations or enchantment with me comes back down a little bit closer to Earth when I tell her I’ve been unfaithful to women from my past. Shoot, I almost expect this to be the case.
But when I tell her I have cheated, when I admit I haven’t always been the best man or even a good one to women from my past, I expect an open mind to the possibility that I won’t do it again. Maybe the benefit of the doubt is a little bit too much to ask, but how about the benefit of some understanding, not towards past indiscretions, but rather, the understanding that the past is the past.
I understand an admittance of guilt does not make me any less guilty, but I don’t admit to cheating so that I can be viewed more innocently. I admit to my past mistakes because to do anything less would be just another set up for more skepticism. I cheated, and when she asks me if I ever cheated, I give her the answer she expects to hear, because if I didn’t, she wouldn’t believe me anyway. The other reason I don’t hesitate to answer with an unequivocal “Yes” is because I’m not ashamed of it. Talk to a man who has served time for a crime they committed, and you’ll understand what I mean. Once you’ve been caught doing something wrong, there’s only consequences for the truth moving forward.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m extremely sorry for anytime I ever cheated, but how I resolved that always will remain a thing between me and the girl I cheated on, not the girl I’m talking to about the girl I cheated on. I’m ashamed to no one else for what i did to someone else, and I think it’s that attitude I carry with me that seems to rub some women the wrong way. They mistake the comfort I take to admitting my mistakes to mean I will do it again, as though my past speaks for me, when really it only speaks for itself.
When I tell her I have cheated, and I don’t bat an eye when I say that I have, this does not mean I am completely comfortable with ever doing it again. It means, I’ve been there, done that, and no, none of it was pretty at all, but it was all so…then.
To this day, I feel the question of whether or not I cheated is a setup question, one of those reasons women go fishing for when they’re looking to cut me off either at that particular moment or later on down the line. And though I do completely understand why a woman would want to hesitate to get involved with a man like me because of the other times I cheated, I hope she understands this: When it comes to trouble and guys like me, there’s no running away because there’s no place that far. The only thing there is, the only thing there ever will be, is the truth and how we deal with it moving forward.
