I am a woman, intelligent, independent, and beyond all else, full of love for those around me. I am also a woman who has been cheated on; who at one point felt that she was not worthy of a man who would remain faithful to her. I will say right now that I absolutely abhor cheating. It leaves behind it a wake of trauma, misery, and confusion that will last for years to come, and in some cases forever.

I was cheated on at 19 years old. I was in a relationship with a boy a year younger than me. I refer to him as a boy because he could hardly be referred to as a man given his actions. I was going through a really tough time in my life, striving to discover my identity, and how I fit into the world. I thought this boy was similar to me. I felt like we fit together somehow. Like two pieces of the same puzzle, we just seemed to make sense to each other. At least that was what I thought at the time.

There were days when we would lie in bed naked, just looking at each other. We talked about the things that were important to us, the things that upset us and made us feel vulnerable; what we wanted out of life, and what we wanted to give to the world. We would sit and listen to music, staring at the wall or the ceiling, totally blissful. At least I thought we were….. All of a sudden my paradise began to crumble, bit by bit, the walls and the ceiling that I had been staring at for months, were sagging and falling in on top of me.

It began with little things. We were living together at the time, but neither of us drove, so he began to hitchhike into the nearest city in order to visit his friends. I thought nothing of it in the beginning, I wanted him to see these people, after all he had known them before me, and they meant something to him. Flags started to go up when he would leave with the declaration that he would be back around 8 or 9, which was late for dinner but not so late that we could not spend the night together. I would sit watching tv, or doing dishes, and 8 would come and go, and then 9 was gone as well, then 10 and 11…. I would go to bed wondering if he was having a hard time catching a ride home, worried that something had happened to him, and hoping that he had just lost track of the time while having fun with his friends. He would stumble in around 2 or 3, drunk, and climb into bed with me wrapping his arms around me, pulling me in tight against him. At first it happened infrequently, and then once a week, and then several times a week. Instead of coming home at 2 or 3, he would show up 3 days later and would not have called once while he was gone. I was upset, and ready to leave him. That’s when I realized I was pregnant. It’s also when she started calling.

I knew immediately, without a doubt, what was happening the first time I picked up the phone and she was on the other end. If there had been any doubt, it was eliminated when she asked if I was his little sister. My heart sank, and every fear that had crossed through my mind in the past three months engulfed me. Some of my fears I wished had been true, because they would have been easier to deal with, others because I wished them upon him. When I confronted him, he lied to my face and said she was just a friend he had been hanging out with recently. He tried to kiss me as he took the phone from my hand, and rushed into the next room, whispering his conversation into the phone.

I spent a week contemplating the situation. I knew I was leaving him. I just had to decide how to broach the subject in a way that would let me circumvent the slew of lies that I knew would flow from his mouth like water. He knew I was pregnant. We had discussed the situation and he had left the decision of what was to be done up to me. I wondered if it was because he cared as much for his own child as he obviously did for me. I wondered when and why he had decided to cheat on me. I had been picked on throughout most of my youth, and had fought the idea that I was as unappealing and unlovable as I had been led to believe. I told myself that I was intelligent, and pretty; at least I did not hate what I saw in the mirror. However, I suddenly found myself questioning whether or not all of those people had been right all along. The boy who I had fallen in love with, who I had confided in, who had confided in me all of his hopes and his dreams, who I had comforted when he cried about his own insecurities, and had insisted that I was the only person he felt had truly loved him, had cheated on me. He didn’t care about a future with me, he didn’t care if I was carrying his child. How could I possibly be so horrible an excuse for a human being, that he would do this? And seemingly, feel no guilt over it.

Eventually I left him. I had an abortion, and tried to move on with my life. I moved across the country to be closer to my older brother, and to try and reinvent myself as the person I wanted to be. A strong and independent woman, an attractive woman who lived, not for others, but for only herself, to BE herself, embrace herself. Unfortunately what I discovered was a deep seeded distrust in everybody around me. Not only did I still feel unattractive and unlovable, but I felt that everybody who told me otherwise was lying to me, that every smile was false. And I feared that I would never know the truth again. After a time I started to regain my confidence; I began other relationships, and being the type to fall hard and fast, devoted myself to my partners early on. However, the second that I thought I glimpsed deceit, the moment that my partner’s actions appeared suspect, I would tear through my memories trying to discern any possible signs of an affair. I began to distrust everything that they would say; I questioned every hug, every kiss. “Is he kissing me to distract me, to convince me that he loves me? Is he doing it because he feels guilty? All of my relationships ended the same way. I would allow the fear of an impending disaster to grow so large that I had to escape before I ended up suffering through it again, or before having to face the distinct possibility that I was truly a mark for those who wanted an easy lay, while they continued to fuck around and look for the person they were actually interested in.

And then I stopped looking. I moved back home, stayed with my parents, hung out with my younger brothers, and reunited with some old friends. It took me a while to begin to feel comfortable with people again, even my family. I pretended that I was happy and confident, but in the back of my mind I had this lingering fear that they were not being honest with me; that they thought I was some loser, and were just too kind to tell me how much I really bothered and annoyed them. I loved them though, and I refused to run from them, they made me happy. All of a sudden I was spending almost every day with them. My close friends and I were beginning to confide in each other again. We would hug and hang out and talk, listen to music, encourage each other to be braver and better, to try new things. We reassured each other when we were intimidated, or being self critical. I began to start believing that maybe these people really did care about me, and perhaps I wasn’t really a target being waved in the air, inviting and deserving of abuse.

I ended up in a relationship with one of my close friends, and again I was scared. Only this time I KNEW that he really did like me. It didn’t matter if we slept together, or if we dated. He enjoyed my company, and I enjoyed his, we cared about each other, and wanted happiness for one another.  But I was sure that it was going to end, and badly. So I ran, and immediately jumped into another relationship. A rocky one. One that I stayed in far too long, for fear of beginning a pattern of never committing. I was convinced that if I did not stick it out, and left to try and find something better, I would always be searching for the next best thing, leaving nothing behind me but a trail of heartache that would equal my own.

I am single now, with two children from my last relationship, and I am not looking for another. Not now anyway. I am confident now that I am beautiful, and worthy of love and respect (though I do have my off days). I am confident that I can fully commit to a relationship, and have the communication skills and determination to work through the hard parts. I know that not every man cheats, that my friends truly love me for who I am, neuroses and all, and that there will always be people there willing to support me when I am on shaky mental ground. However, regardless of what I know and of what I believe, I still have those moments of lingering distrust when I question everything and everybody around me. And I panic for a second, praying that my world never again begins to crumble. Because I may be stronger, and I may be wiser, but I am not entirely sure that I could make it back out of that hole a second time.

I have noticed a disturbing trend while speaking with my single friends recently…. It seems that while they constantly express their elation at finally being free from their last relationship disaster, they are all too eager to jump into the next one. “Now Emma!” you say, ” Why are you being so pessimistic? Who is to say that their next relationship won’t be fantastic, and end in happily ever after.” Well, I am. I do not consider myself to be pessimistic either. I watch these people who I love,  as they are sucked into the relationship trap over and over again. I see them protesting their need for a partner, and then impulsively jumping into bed with the next person who says so much as “Hello” to them. I don’t consider my friends to be stupid people, but the mistakes that I see them making, and the one that I made for so many years is this: They are equating the end of a relationship, with the opportunity for another one. I mean, sure the commitment is gone. But no, you do not have to fill the empty spot in your bed. You know who should be in your bed? YOU.

The biggest cause for failure in relationships, as far as I have seen, is that the people in them don’t know who they are, or what they want. I mean, how can you possibly communicate what you want if you don’t even know? It’s just not possible. People seem to be completely disconnected from themselves these days. I think it starts in high school, when most of us are made to feel like we are completely sub par human specimens. We strive to prove ourselves in all kinds of ways; whether we are attempting to prove our individuality, and that we don’t care what others think, or conversely, desperately attempting to fit in, or fly under the radar of peer criticism. From there we become the casualties of our new and uncontrollable sex drives. We are drawn to the opposite sex, and often shocked when they respond positively to us. When we are not focusing on our throbbing sex organs, we are moving forwards in our career paths, trying to stabilize or establish ourselves as independent individuals. Some of us begin careers, and others have children who will be the center of their attention and focus for years to come. What we DON’T do, is stop, and think about who we HAVE become, and who we WANT to become. We don’t know what we like, we haven’t established our standards for what we want, and expect, from our friends and family members, from our partners. We haven’t considered what we are willing to sacrifice for love, and what we are immovable on. So often people give up things that they desperately want. They suffer through tremendous disrespect; they live in relationships that are completely unstable and unbalanced, either for fear of losing their significant other, or for fear of being single.

What I want to know is, “What is so scary about being single?” It gives us a chance to catch up on all of the things about ourselves that we have been completely missing out on. Things about ourselves that we didn’t even know existed. Do you know how many women I know who have been having sex for 5 years, for 10, for 20, without discovering their G-spot? What woman can you think of that does NOT want to know where their G-spot is? The sad thing is, so many of us just figure, “Meh, sex is ok now, I am more concerned with making my partner happy.”  WHAT?!?! What are we THINKING? You know what will make a great partner happy? Knowing that YOU are happy.  You know what will make you happy? Seeing your partner happy, and knowing that the both of you are helping each other move towards all of your goals and aspirations, not away from them. The only way to be able to ensure this, is to take some time to figure out what they are, and who YOU are, and what you are looking for, BEFORE you jump face first into the next relationship with no foundation, and no expectations outside of the hope that the other person doesn’t end up being a complete asshole.