Either You Want Me Or You Don’t

Summer is almost over, as well as the time for you to enjoy the last holiday of the season. Hopefully, you have that special someone to share and enjoy the long holiday weekend with.

Isn’t it good to know that you and the woman or man that you love are engaged in a trusting and monogamous relationship? Isn’t it also great to know that it is ‘just the two of you’ without lies or outside infiltrators? I am sure that it is even more exhilarating to know that you and your boo are in a dyad and not a triad!

But wait a minute!  We know that in 2013, for too many couples, the above is the exception and not he rule…IT’S A FAIRY TALE! There is something inside of many of you (men and women) that keeps you from being honest, open, true, and loyal to your mate. In other words, cheating for many of you seems to be a way of life. And you have every excuse in the world as to why you should engage in a situation of infidelity, rather than engaging in a healthy relationship that involves fidelity! And don’t believe the hype! It is not easier to cheat than it is to be loyal…YOU CHOOSE TO CHEAT and cheating is a burden and a liability!

You often enter into relationships with others hoping and expecting that your relationships will last forever and a lifetime.  Along with love, we expect loyalty, fidelity, compassion, commitment, healthy communication, and above all, relationships that are the envy of everyone. In other words, you want relationships to die for.  Not only do you enter relationships to have the aforementioned, you also expect (and rightly so) that your relationships will only exist between you and your mate. You expect a dyad and not a triad. You expect a relationship where two is a couple and three is a crowd!  You basically want a monogamous relationship and you don’t want to share your mate with anyone else.  Why should you??? You deserve to have and expect to have healthy relationships!

However, monogamy and fidelity are many times the exception, rather than the rule. Our expectations of ‘just the two of us’ are often shattered by the reality of the existence of three of us in the relationship, rather than two of us. As a matter of fact, most infidelity in relationships didn’t just start during the relationship; cheating was probably taking place before you entered the situation. It just escalated to the next level.

If you were being cheated on, you probably knew the truth all along. However, you entered into a state of denial (and I don’t mean ‘da Nile’), believing that the longer you stayed with your philandering mate, the greater the chance that the cheating would stop. You were constantly hoping and believing that your mate would change. As a matter of fact, you foolishly thought that you could change your cheating mate.  As a cheater, the more you get away with cheating the more you will cheat!  Why stop??

Women you must stop believing that you can change a man or make him over. PEOPLE DON’T CHANGE…THEY GROW!!! As women you often try to justify the reason your mate cheats, as well as the reason you stay with a cheater year after year. You also tend to blame yourself for his infidelities. Come out of your denial and recognize that his cheating has nothing to do with you, but it has everything to do with him.  CHEATING IS A CHOICE, and he chose to cheat! If he didn’t cheat on you he would’ve cheated on someone else!!

Further, as a woman, you are more than likely to forgive your mate for cheating on you, without consequences and without demanding that your mate develops and engages in an action plan to redeem himself. Men, you are not as forgiving when your mate cheats on you. You tend to believe that your mate is your possession, and you see her infidelity as a betrayal, and your infidelity as a right!  The bottom line is that cheating is not right in any relationship, whether you are a man or a woman.

Also recognize that cheating is not just a result of you sleeping with someone outside of your relationship; cheating is also indicative of you lying and betraying your mate, whether it’s involving texting, emailing, talking on the telephone, or other forms of communication with another individual, without your mate’s knowledge of your involvement with the other person. Cheating is you living a lie! Your emotional involvement with someone else outside of your relationship is just as dangerous as your physical involvement with someone else outside of your relationship.

Cheating is cheating and there is no excuse for it!  It is time for you as a woman or man to stop accepting acts of infidelity, betrayal, and outright deception in your relationships. To live with cheating is to live with a lie. When you live with a lie, you are a lie; you don’t even exist!   

Men and women cheat for various reasons. Cheating is nothing new, but it doesn’t mean it’s okay.  In order to understand your philandering ways, you must come to recognize that although cheating is a problem, it really is not the problem!  A greater problem is how you became involved in cheating in the first place. You have been in denial about your cheating for some time. In essence, you must come to understand why you cheated, or why you continue to cheat. If as a cheater you don’t understand the what, the who, and the why of your cheating, you will cheat again.  But, in all actuality, you DO know the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ in the reason for you cheating…YOU! Therefore, it is imperative for you to go back and assess your pattern of cheating in order for you to confront your cheating behaviors.

Here are some of the reasons mean and women chat:

Five Reasons Women Cheat

1.     Many women cheat because of their low self-esteem.   With low self-esteem you continuously seeks validation and approval from others, especially men.  You are unsure of yourself, not as satisfied with yourself, including your physical appearance.  You need to know that someone else sees your beauty and that men find you attractive.  If your mate does not validate you, you will seek validation from other men who will say what you need and want to hear, while temporarily making you feel beautiful and worthy…allowing you to feel good about yourself.  This cheating is a crutch and not a cure for your low self-esteem.

2.     Some women cheat in order to gain control.  If you believe that you have no control in the situation that you are in with your mate, due to abuse, disrespect, and a lack of recognition and equality, cheating will give you a false sense of security. If you are this woman, you will often have affairs to show your mate that you have some level of control in your life.  Even though you were abused and disrespected, you claim victory by cheating, which you believe is the ultimate form of disrespect. Again, you created a crutch and not a cure.

3.     Some women cheat as a form of payback. You are still hurting from your mate’s infidelity.  You also have difficulty forgiving him and you believe that you have to show your friends and family that you have not been defeated. As a result, you punish your mate for his infidelities against you.  It comes down to, ‘two can play this game.’  ‘You cheated on me…I will show you that I can cheat on you!’ But in this game, no one wins, especially you. Cheating is truly a choice and not an option.

4.     Many women cheat because they believe they are smarter than men.  You believe that men are not as smart, don’t know how to lie, don’t know how to cheat, and can’t keep up with you. And you are probably right!  Therefore, cheating becomes a game that you believe you can win. Anytime a game is being played in a relationship, both of you lose and nobody wins! As a matter of fact, your relationship is no longer a relationship; it is a situation.

5.     Still other women cheat because they cannot and do not want to or are afraid to commit, because of a lack of trust in men.  As a woman, men have hurt you too many times in the past.  Therefore, you have decided that you will not be hurt again. Hence, you decided to ‘beat him to the punch’ and cheat on him before he can cheat on you.  And if he decides to reciprocate the behavior, the pain won’t be as harsh…you cheated first.  You sabotage an opportunity for a potentially healthy relationship for fear of it working out.

Five Reasons Men Cheat

1. Most men cheat because they CAN cheat.  The average man cheats because society gives him permission to cheat. Cheating for most of you as a man is seen as the American ‘rite of passage’ and an American privilege. Here again, cheating is a choice, not an option!

2.  Many men cheat because women allow them to cheat. Many women believe that men are God’s gift to women (and they are not God’s gift to men). Further, many women are so desperate to have a man, and many women believe they can’t find a man. They believe they have to put up with a cheating man.  As a result, many women are willing to share a man, allowing you to cheat, just to say she has a man.  Her adage: ‘a piece of man is better than no man at all.’ And just because your mate is weak and insecure, it doesn’t mean that you have to take her up on her weakness and engage in cheating. Cheating is a choice and not an option.

3. A lot of men cheat because of their ego, believing, ‘it’s a man’s thing.’  You have a need to make other men and women believe that you ‘have it all together,’ based on the number of women you can include in your harem, and the number of women you can conquer and brag about to your friends and family members.  The more you cheat, the more arrogant, cocky, and secure you become in cheating.  Even though you believe ‘I’m the man’; in all actuality, cheating makes you less than a man!

4.     Some men also cheat as a form of payback. You have difficulty accepting the fact that your mate has cheated on you.  As a result, you have difficulty forgiving your mate and you become bound and determined not to lose.  Therefore, in order for you to feel as if you have won and your mate has lost, you cheat. Again, cheating is a choice and not an option; it is a crutch and not a cure!

5. There are men who cheat because cheating is the behavior of non-commitment their fathers modeled for them.  You probably grew up in a home with a cheating father or no father at all.  Growing up, cheating was the norm rather than the exception in your home.  As a result, you took on the characteristics of your father, who showed no respect for women and no commitment to women (especially your mother).  Even though you like being with women (especially sexually), you are never fully committed to one woman!

In reality, cheating doesn’t have to exist!  Cheating is a choice and should never be an option in a healthy relationship!  If for one reason or another you find your relationship going awry, it is important to remember that cheating will NEVER fix your situation. Cheating is crutch and not a cure!!!

If you don’t want to be with the person you are with, be man or woman enough to leave!  Leaving might hurt for a minute, but there will be even greater hurt for all concerned if you stay, especially for children. The only one who seems to benefit from a cheating situation is the cheater.  But, the reality is, even the cheater loses. It’s hard for you to see the reality of your cheating ways when you are in the midst of cheating. And if you cannot deal with your philandering, or if you don’t know how to stop enabling your philandering mate, seek professional help.

If you are in a relationship that allows cheating, you are no longer in a relationship; you are in a situation! You don’t have to cheat and you don’t have to be cheated on! There is a choice in the matter! And if you believe that you have to cheat, remain alone and decide to stop stepping on and breaking the hearts, minds, and spirits of others!  Cheating truly is mind over matter. If you mind the relationship you have, infidelity will not matter to you!