Cheaters Never Prosper

At first, I would laugh about it when I asked him. Jokingly, I would shove Mr. Safety in the side and ask him if he was 'stepping out' on me. It was my sophomore year of college and Mr. Safety broke up with me to figure out what he had wanted in life. We were only back together for two months before I realized something had changed about him. 

It wasn't like the movies. There was no tell-tale lipstick on his collar, perfume on his t-shirts, or coming home late from going out 'with the boys'. It was rather a nagging feeling in my heart that the man that I loved was hiding a big heaping load of infidelity behind his back. 

Well, infidelity stinks and no matter how you try to get around it, it always comes out in the wash. So I joked about it. I did my usual incongruent coping method of making everything funny when it is truly tragic and a bit twisted. I would ask him if it was someone I knew and then I began getting fixated on a female friend of his who had a thing for flirting with him. This went on for two years until one day we sat in the car fighting about something I can't possibly remember when he finally screamed the truth at me. He cheated on me. He had given up his virginity to another woman on a whim when we had gotten back together two years ago. 

I screamed.

It's a funny feeling when the truth comes out and hits you right between the eyes. You always know its there, but it's a whole different ball game when you see it racing towards you from the pitching mound at 90 mph. My heart stopped and I couldn't help but let out a scream. I had held that scream in for two years and it was finally free. I was free to express all of the pain at the bottom of my stomach from carrying around a secret that was never really a secret in the first place. 

It was never really a secret because I knew Mr. Safety like the back of my hand. When we became an item I memorized his every movement, thought, and body part like a book. I felt whatever he was feeling each day. I thought his thoughts and I woke up each day wondering how I could make his life better. I dedicated the extra space in my heart to him. He was my man and I planned on being the best woman I could be for him. There's nothing I loved more at that point in my life than to please Mr. Safety. 

You are probably wondering at this point if I stayed with him or broke up with him right then and there. Well, I took a bit of a break from him. I admit, I was a bit ashamed that I couldn't pull a sista soldier moment and end our relationship right then and there, but we had been together at that point for almost four years. You just don't walk away from someone after four years of love and affection.

I thought I was tough. I thought I was one of those women who could snap her fingers and walk away from a cheater. After all, cheating is the most horrible thing a person can do in a relationship... right? Wouldn't the truth make it hard not to resist the temptation to walk away?

I didn't walk away. I didn't walk away because I loved Mr. Safety more than anyone I have ever dated. The four years we were together seemed much more important than his one night stand. During the age of "Independent Woman" and "who-needs-a-man-anyways" I did the unspeakable by embracing a man who had broken four years of fidelity and trust. Had I become one of those sappy women so many independent sisters disdain? Did my actions condone what he had done in the back of an old beat up SUV? Or worse, had I broken the age old proverb, "cheaters never prosper" by allowing one to have his cake and eat it too?

I don't have all the answers. We cheat at almost everything in life. Frozen TV Dinners, maids and even our spell checkers on Microsoft Word encourage us to take the easy way out. We as Americans are often typecast as lazy, but is that just because no one wants to admit that we are cheaters as well?  

In the end, I find that cheaters may prosper for a short time, but in the end, they often hurt those they love the most- themselves. 

Short cuts
P. Manolos

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