On cheating, untouched sparks and being whole
I’ve not always been even a semi-decent person. In hind sight, the baggage I carried from growing up, consumed everyone around me. That therapist, so long ago now, saved them - saved me from just accepting that was the way I was programmed. I taught myself the ever important lesson of re-programming. I adapt and change as the terrain requires.
It made me successful without compromising the core of who I am. There has to be some purity inside you, something untouched, that you can draw upon that is uniquely yours. Perhaps this is why I’ve never gone back to having a slave with its unforgiving totality. What it did to her. What it did to me.
Now, I always stop just before the killing blow. That moment before I lose something of myself by taking from them what should never be removed. Maybe I know I’d enjoy it. Maybe I’d find a new reason to hate myself.
I used to cheat on N. With N and Taylor, together, I cheated. It was rather like collecting trophies, as bad as that sounds when you are dealing with real people. I’d pull them in, fuck them up and then fuck them until that day came when they expected something from me. Some commitment, some token of my affection that was outside of the bedroom. Then it became time for a new lover, or I’d retreat to the women that foolishly still loved me - knowing what I’d done.
Later on, years later on, without any woman at my side, I discovered what I really thought about it. Having embraced that, I conquered my jealousy. It was no longer an issue of what -she- was off doing, but what I was doing. That day I embraced the idea of commitment and was finally free of that demon that plagued me - doubt.
I came to realize that the cheating wasn’t about the sex. The pre-disposition to cheat was already there in my head - just waiting for the opportunity to spark it to life. When it did, the high was a temporary thing. It filled nothing inside me. The pleasure was like water over my skin - that evaporated soon after the sex was done.
The women? They were as empty as I was. Seeking something from me that they should have found within themselves. I’m sure the high was just as temporary. The half-life you live, when you are utterly drained of your own spark, is hollow. An ache.
For me, that was the source of my cheating. I could blame it on my partner, as most cheaters do, but the root wasn’t in N’s anger, or Taylor’s emotional excess. It was the echo inside me that I never managed to fill.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
“There has to be some purity inside you, something untouched, that you can draw upon that is uniquely yours.”
Mm hmm. Something…unsullied.
elise
September 16th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
“Now, I always stop just before the killing blow. That moment before I lose something of myself by taking from them what should never be removed. Maybe I know I’d enjoy it. Maybe I’d find a new reason to hate myself.”
You call that internal spark ‘purity.’ I’ve always thought of it as the will to survive. I like your word better.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
It may be wishful thinking but I hope someday that you are able to fill that echo, that it’s not too late.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Thank you for sharing this.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Recently heard quote that seems aprops here: “The day I need a man to complete me, I’ll reincarnate and return as a jigsaw puzzle.”
Thank you for your openness. I think you’ll find it healing in it’s own way. A bunch of people I run around with say that we’re only as sick as our secrets. When we share them, they loose their power over us.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:10 am
I used to have a saying, ‘There’s nothing a man can do for me that I can’t do for myself’.
When I met my partner, my submissive nature unfolded like a flower. I now know that there is something a man can do for me………being his slave is not one of them, but being his submissive is’
September 25th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Thank you.
I have often wondered what caused the men in my life to cheat. None of them were ever introspective enough to ever come up with an answer, or if they did, they certainly didn’t possess the balls to tell me. I still think it is the former, not the latter, because all I ever heard was, “It wasn’t about sex! Really!” but the explanations stopped there.
I have long wondered. A parasitic thought that wouldn’t leave me alone… is it ME? Is there something inherently cheatable about me? Perhaps I am too trusting? Foolish? Naive?
I always thought it was their own inner echo, but I was never sure if that was because it was something I just wanted to believe.
Hmm.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Thank You for this piece, truly. That ‘hollow’ feeling, from days gone by, was a ripe reminder that the hole in my soul had become a canyon…yawning with revelations, and reeking of evasions and self-delusions; Illusions of being enough; of having, doing, and being everything we ‘both’ needed. Laughable, i know…Dreams of adolescense. A Fool in love, in the middle of insanity, enduring…suffering. What it did to me…lost in his darkness, fearing loss, feeling only pain, questioning my own motives; becoming…Forever Changed. Sometimes it hurts more to stay. Therein lies the emptiness, the hopelessness, the deepest kind of pain; life-changing pain…albeit the ‘blessing’; We grow, we gain strength, we mature, and i no longer take his infidelities personally, so the ache i once felt from feeling inferior, or ‘less-than-enough’, has evolved into a healthy perception of what i need, want, and refuse to live without. There are those of us who change, and then, there are some who are ‘creatures of habit’ and there will never be enough to fill the void; containing their fear of being human, therefore vulnerable to hurt. For the person who is incapable of introspection, insight, nor empathy, there is never enough…of anything, to sate the hungers. We must look inside the reflection, honestly, before we truly see.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Now I know what’s good about blogs.
Thank you, D
Thank you all.
Chris (I don’t even feel like using a “handle” here.)