Illustration by Scott Drummond
I never set out to cheat on my boyfriend. But everything was in place for a perfect night. The weather was unseasonably warm and I was out with a new guy friend. I was wearing my ribbon-tie strand of purple pearls and the alcohol was free-flowing. And when I woke up the next morning in his lofted bed, I felt almost no guilt. Memories from the night before gradually re-entered my mind, but not of what I'd expected: playing a heated game of "Slug Bug," meeting the guys from his scholarship hall, wolfing down Wheel pizza together. Cheating aside, maybe it had been the perfect night.
Fast-forward to fall break, a few weeks later. My boyfriend, the one I cheated on, and I were standing at a bus stop waiting for a ride back to his new apartment in northeast Philadelphia, a place I'd never liked and where I knew I'd never feel at home. I had spent the last 20 minutes well, three days, to be honest — hovering between exhaustion, devastation and nausea. I kept wishing the bus would come so I could put off the inevitable conversation, but the bus didn't come, not until I'd 'fessed up. When I finally got the courage to tell Kenrick that I'd met someone else, he closed up. My relationship was over. I had known it since I stepped out of the cab from the airport three days earlier and saw him sitting inside the Fox &
Hound, a bar down the street from his work. He was surprised to see me because I had arrived a day earlier than expected, and I was surprised because kissing him confirmed all my fears about the visit: I felt nothing. In the three months since I had last seen him, I had fallen completely out of love. And in the three weeks since I'd cheated on him, I had moved on to someone new.
This wasn't the first time I had cheated. Minor incidents, though they were all "just kissing," had led to the demise of other relationships, too. A Lambda Chi at a party during work week, a guy I'd met in Kirksville (I let him buy me pancakes at 4 a.m.), a baritone from my choir at a friend's birthday party (my boyfriend was in the next room). The last of these was more than two years ago, but I still remember every transgression and what it did to my relationships.
“Once a cheater, always a cheater.” I’ve turned this phrase over and over in my head since my current relationship began in October 2004, before the other had even ended. My boyfriend and I laugh now about the way we got together, saying we would have ended up with one another even if I had been single and looking, but a question nags at me: What made me cheat? Was I stuck in a rut, trying to get dumped instead of doing the dumping, or
was it just something dangerous and new to spice things up? All my cheating episodes have had two things in common: guys who weren't my boyfriend and lots of alcohol. But up until the last time, my reasons for cheating were childish and all different. I've never really been single since my freshman year of high school, and I would act on impulse when the urge to be single would arise. Before, cheating was a temporary fix for problems in my relationships; I had no feelings for those guys. I have to work to even remember their names most of the time.
The guilt of having cheated again hit me before I left for Philly, but it took fall break to help me understand that this time was different; it was something people in long-distance relationships often experience. Kenrick and I had been apart from each other for more than a year—the bulk of our relationship—and I hadn't seen him since the Fourth of July. When I met Kenrick in the summer of 2003, I still had a couple years left of school and I thought I could survive on bimonthly weekend visits until after graduation, when I would to move to Philly and be with him. But it's now my senior year of college, and I have changed. What I need from a relationship has also changed. I now need romance, a best friend and someone who can face the future with me—in person. I didn't want to
wait until after graduation to be happy. And as early as that first morning he and I woke up together, when we stayed in bed until well after noon talking as though we'd already been together for months, I knew it wasn't cheating as usual for me, and I wasn't going to write it off as a one-night thing.
Sometimes I'll remember how badly I hurt Kenrick and get myself worked up, and my boyfriend asks me whether I have regrets about our relationship. It's hard to explain. I don't have regrets that I'm with him; I'm happier than I've ever been in a relationship. But I often wish I'd found a way to get my timing right, whether it had been breaking it off with Kenrick when things went wrong, not when someone else came along, or just being honest with him immediately. I'm not proud of being a heartbreaker. I now understand the consequences of cheating on someone and that my heart's not the only one involved. But after the many mistakes I've made, I'm learning to trust myself; the constant fear that I'll screw up again isn't good for any relationship. And though he's experienced my cheating first-hand, my boyfriend now trusts me not to do it again. That has to count for something.
pworthy@kansan.com
03.10.05 Jayplay
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