DEAR [REDACTED]/READER, I AM A CHEATER
Welcome to my journey towards integrity, recovery, and reconciliation.
I cheated.
I lied.
I hurt you.
I had absolutely no excuses.
I am a grown ass man, with a fully formed pre-frontal cortex.
I should have known better, at six fucking years.
Out of every living soul you ever came across,
You said I was the closest person you ever came to calling retarded.
Me.
You would not even call a fucking rock retarded.
I think you genuinely wonder if I am mentally impaired.
Because what I did was so incredibly stupid,
devoid of any common sense,
or regard for you,
my supposed most precious and dear person.
I was supposed to be someone you could trust.
You were supposed to be able to trust me more than any other living being.
You were nothing short of amazing to me.
You built your life around me.
You would have given me the universe if you could.
The way you sung
“wait, they don’t love you, like I love you”
and meant every single damn letter,
contagious ass smile,
and energetic bounce.
How you sung it without failure,
whenever you could, even on your most trying day.
Because I was that important to you.
And yet, I could not even do the bare minimum of honouring your trust.
I know you don’t feel much sympathy for me right now,
but if sympathy starts to rear her head more,
you tell her to give you some damn time.
Because there is no downplaying what I did.
Because you do not deserve to be hurt like this again.
You were the furthest from deserving any of this.
You do not have to stay with me.
If you left, I truly would never blame you.
But please know.
That I am beginning to see.
And I am doing my absolute damndest.
To understand myself and what I did.
To better understand you and how badly you were hurt.
To know this cannot happen again.
To clean up my mess.
And to remember and reflect,
On all the ways I hurt you.
But also, all the ways you taught me,
how mature,
and how beautiful
you were,
are,
and will be.
You were my better half.
I hope I am not being too dramatic.
But I feel the gravity of the situation cannot be understated.
Again, I would seriously not blame you if you wanted to end things.
But If you give me the chance,
I will do absolutely everything,
To show you that I can become,
the person you always thought I was.
And much, much more!
What you just read is what I would have preferred to have written to my dearest girlfriend, [redacted], as opposed to the manic mumbo jumbo, mostly truthful but desperate mess of a letter I rushed for our 6th year anniversary last week.
It’s been 60 days since I disclosed to, [redacted], my actions, and 150 days since I downloaded, explored, and enjoyed using Grindr. Now you might be thinking, “You and your girlfriend feel all those things and all you did was use Grindr?” Yes, and I did not even meet, like, or communicate with anyone.
But let's be absolutely clear about this:
I crossed a line.
I lied about an intimate matter, and acted behind [redacted]’s back.
I broke a sacred commitment I made to [redacted].
And in doing so, I broke [redacted]’s trust.
This is cheating. Period. This took me a while to understand. Dr. Rob Weiss, therapist, author, educator, and founder of Seeking Integrity treatment programs, defines infidelity as such.
“Infidelity (cheating) is the breaking of trust that occurs when [one] keeps intimate, meaningful secrets from [their] primary romantic, partner.” - Out of the Doghouse
Please recognize that the above definition is not concerned at all with the manner of how cheating occurred. In today’s complicated world, the lines between infidelity and sexual exploration are very much blurred.
Consider any of the following scenarios:
Flirting with a stranger
Fantasizing about others
Subscribing to an OnlyFans
Watching porn
Downloading a dating app
There is frequent debate about whether the above scenarios qualify as cheating. Here's the bottom line. Something qualifies as cheating if its sexual or intimate in nature, and you do it when your partner does not want you to, unbeknownst to them, thus breaking their trust. If your partner is totally safe with your subscription to various OnlyFans creators, then so be it. But if she has expressed her discomfort in you subscribing to an OnlyFans, and you go behind her back and do it anyways? You are a cheater. Plain and simple.
What I’ve learned is that cheating is as much about the lying, the secrets, the lies of omission, the manipulation, than it is about the act of cheating itself. Partners are hardly concerned with the manner of how their trust was broken, but simply that it was.
Dr Weiss has a fantastic metaphor for cheating which I believe illustrates the relationship between broken trust and cheating. I’ve done the liberty of putting it into a 4chan greentext.
If you did not understand what you just read, Chad is a football player who purposely lost a game just to make a quick buck. The team may never be able to trust Chad to receive the ball again. The team is not concerned at all with how Chad threw his game, but only that he did, and broke an unspoken rule each teammate committed to when joining the team. So I hope you can begin to see why [redacted] was hurt so badly. And why so many partners around the world feel the pain they do.
If you are reading this and you’ve done something your partner would not want you to have done, I would deeply reflect on the pain you could be causing them. It is with utmost disappointment, when I say that I believe that cheating is all too common, and that many of us men are likely not worth trusting.
This Substack is dedicated to the following.
The Men: Men, we just have to do better. We have to hold ourselves accountable. We have to hold each other accountable. We have to understand the things that drive us to do unspeakable things. We have to understand how those things hurt those around us and those we love. I believe we, and society, suppress, bag, and discard the questions we should be asking ourselves and our peers, about integrity, impulsivity, empathy, vulnerability, intimacy, and sexuality. I plan to explore and write about these topics.
Me: I need to do better. A few more things you should know about me.
I only came out as bisexual two years ago. My acting out was partly an exploration into my sexuality. This is not an excuse, but something to resolve. I owe it to, [redacted], to better understand who I am, who I will be, and if she should be concerned with that person. In other words, for our relationship to continue, the both of us must be confident that I can comfortably live with the fact that I will never be able to have sex with a man.
You should also know that I am an addict, primarily of pornography (though I consider myself to have an addictive personality, and have previously relied on the tingle of nicotine, and euphoria of cannabis). While not an excuse, my addiction was a factor in me downloading Grindr. I tried extensively, over the course of last year to quit pornography (by myself), and failed miserably at every step of the way. I’ve learned that I need the support of others if I’m to have any hope of undoing the wiring in my brain from 20+ years of watching pornography. I started my recovery and joined a 12-step program just this week.
From here onwards, I’m making a dedication to live with integrity, to understand myself and my sexuality, to make amends with my partner, and to be sober. I started this Substack to document my journey. I’ve found that sitting down with a clear mind and sincerely writing my thoughts helps me to tackle and understand my issues. I understand that I’m likely to stumble into the same clouds of doubts and poisonous thoughts which have led me to my current situation. I hope that this conscious reflection reinforces the things that I learn. Plus having a distilled transcript of my innermost thoughts will be good to look and fall back on.
The Betrayed: This is dedicated to all the partners out there who have had to tolerate the most profound pain imaginable, committed by their closest confidante. This happens all too often, and yet, you did nothing to deserve it. I also believe, with proper communication, honesty, and empathy, infidelity is easily preventable. I hope this blog can give you some perspective into how your partner operates, how to prevent betrayal, or maybe how you can help them, or yourselves.
My Partner: Lastly, my love, I am so sorry. This is my earnest attempt (not my Substack but my whole journey), at making things right and putting my big boy pants on.
I hope you have the strength to see me as redeemable. And not just redeemable but capable of being better than I was before. The same goes for our relationship. So this is for you.
I love and miss you lots.