When a Friend is Betrayed and You’re a Cheater
What do you say to make amends?
A phone call. “Random” I think low-level annoyed. I look at the screen to see who it is. “Mike*” reads the screen. “Random” I repeat. I was getting ready to wind down after a long day and would have rather a text. It rings again and I pick up.
“Can we talk?” no hello.
Whatever it was it didn’t sound simple, even through the sound of evening traffic I could hear a waver in his voice.
“Yeah, yeah. Sure.” my earlier annoyance was replaced with legitimate concern “Usual?”
“It’s…” he started “… personal” The long pause between words somehow made this more real.
On any given day, my house is busy with life things going to and fro, tonight was a rare exception of a few hours of quiet. “Is here ok?” I offered.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.” Somewhere in the background a car honked. “Thanks.”
We’re sitting on opposite sides of the couch. We’ve sat here before, watching a movie, shooting the shit , or having a drink.
Today he’s different.
“You’re hurting” I say to him, giving his tears the space to pool. “Take your time.”
“This is hard,” is all he says.
I never find talking about feelings particularly easy. Tears add another level of complexity. Being comfortable with discomfort is something that I’ve been working on.
“Yeah, man.” I pour him some more water. I had offered him something stronger but it’s the only thing he wants right now. “I can see that.”
He cups the glass, pulls it in closer and lets it rest on his legs, his eyes lost somewhere in the bottom of the glass. “I can’t say it,” he whispers.
It wasn’t clear who was doing what, the water’s stillness keeping him from drowning or his stable grasp preventing them both from spilling.
“She cheated .”
I freeze and then freak out wondering if he noticed my blip. I try to channel my therapist’s advice to stay present when things feel like they are going to spin out of control.
“I’m sorry.” Acknowledge his pain, I remind myself. “That really sucks.”
Finding out you are the victim of an affair fucking sucks.
He takes a sip and looks in my direction. I feel numb.
The next twenty minutes are filled with details. Not of the affair. They are details of his experience, a montage of their relationship through the lens of betrayal: his pain, his fears, how his girlfriend feels, what they are talking about, how they are fighting.
All I can do, all I am able to do, is listen and refrain from giving bullshit advice like “she’s no good for you” or “you should find someone who loves you.”
I don’t condone her affair and I can’t control the future.
I don’t know if she is no good for him, or if he’ll be better off staying or leaving, or if he will ever feel loved.
“She knows I’m here.” he says as he stands up and walks his empty glass towards the kitchen.
He opens the faucet and does nothing but stare. The sound of running water fills the room “She said I should talk to someone.”
Affairs are ironic in the way they make you feel both alive and alienated.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” I confess, but the rest of my thoughts are in a much darker place.
“She’s jealous,” he continues “that I have people I can talk to.”
He looks at me again. His eyes, soft, not from tears. It was empathy. “She feels like she doesn’t have anyone to talk to.”
Who do I confess to about my own affairs?
“She’s not wrong” I want to say, but that is a statement about myself.
I don’t have a lot of people I can talk to about cheating.
Affairs, like any transgression, have two parts: a victim and a perpetrator. Like any transgression, social norms require that the perpetrator must make amends to the victim.
There is also an unspoken reality that the perpetrator is also a victim. This is not to say that cheaters are not without fault. We all have to take responsibility for our actions.
I believe we, cheaters, are victims of whatever thing makes us choose an affair as a viable solution. The wound is something that exists long before an affair takes place. It’s a emotional scar that’s never been addressed or healed. An affair peels of whatever has been protecting to let the wound run its course, giving the cheater a chance to make amends.
Because we are victims, cheaters also need a chance to heal.
Self-healing for cheater is making amends through a path of self discovery. This is a lonesome and painful road that I both wish and don’t wish on anyone.
Tell someone that you’re a victim and a cheater… you’ll find zero empathy. Finding someone who will listen with kindness and compassion is nearly impossible.
Why are we victims? I think that affairs are based on generational trauma. This is a much larger topic outside of this piece, so for now, I’ll share this thought: because the journey of an affair starts deep in past, to resolve the why of an affair from a cheater’s perspective is years of self work to unearth past issues and learning to let go of pain and resentment. This is hard, humbling, and frustrating.
In contrast, for people outside of the affair, be it partner or observers, affairs are experienced in the present. Someone did something bad. End of story. One doesn’t have to dig far to see the disgust in people’s responses to cheaters.
We are described as a number of things, none of them being a good person. Self-image and any form of previous identity are destroyed when one finds themselves at the shame end of a public flogging.
Affairs are scorched-earth scenarios. For anyone caught in the storm: family, friends, etc. There are feelings of betrayal, feelings of loss and grief. There is confusion. There is chaos.
Cheating creates uncertainty in the promise of “until death do us part.” For both parties, the betrayed and the betrayer.
“You’re both going to need to find someone to talk to,” I respond. “It’s going to be hard.”
He stands by the fridge thumbing through mementos that litter its door “Is that what we should do?”
An affair splits the “we” of a relationship into its individual parts. Yes, the “we” needs to heal, more importantly, I believe both “I’s” need to reconcile independently with the why’s of an affair.
“You’re talking. That’s great.” I walk over to close the distance between us. “Don’t shut down.” I think of all the times I’ve bottled up my own emotions “Keep on being honest with her.”
I get closer but I can’t bring myself to touch him. “She’s going to need to see your pain. She needs to see this so she can also get better.”
“Don’t let her implode.” I continue, each word feels like a confession of my own journey. “She needs to figure out how to forgive herself.”
Yet my wound still bleeds. I still have yet to learn how to forgive myself.
** All names have been changed to protect privacy.
