01 — Cheating is Not The Worst
Question: what’s your relationship deal breaker?
Person: Cheating. I can’t stand a cheat.
That conversation up there befuddles me. Always.
I never understand how cheating is ranked as the worst thing a partner can do to you.
See, there’s a million and one things a shitty human can do to you and cheating is not top 10. I doubt it’s even in top 20. Let me list a few.
- Sell your joint property without your knowledge and run off with the money. (I know someone who did this.)
- Repeatedly try to kill you for fetish reasons. (I also know a couple here.)
- Rape your child.
- Soak all your clothes in water the morning you have an interview or a life changing meeting.
- Drop your PS5 in water out of anger.
- Cut you off from family.
- Physical and emotional abuse.
- Consistently gambling family funds.
Maybe I’m weird but I don’t see how I’d pick any of these over not being cheated on.
It’s like saying that dying is the worst thing that ever happened to anyone. (Another interesting thought of mine.) In Aladdin, when Jaafar became the genie, he said something: there are things far worse than dying. A living corpse is certainly worse than a dead one.
Many times, we parrot the people around us without really thinking about what it is we are saying. And, I think this is most common among young people. Married folks and older folks usually know better. A lot of shit will happen so that forgiving a cheating partner won’t be the hardest thing. There are so many challenges to ride through together in a relationship and a third wheel isn’t always the best reason to throw everything else in the trash. It may end up being just one of those things.
When ticking off red flags, infidelity is not the be all. Look out for other things, please.
This is by no means a defense for cheating. It’s more an urge for open mindedness to the realities of relationships and the ‘shittiness’ of people.
