My first boyfriend’s parents cheated on each other.
If you’re guessing that this affected our relationship you’re absolutely right. He absolutely broke my heart because he absolutely would do anything he could to avoid dating anybody too seriously.
I can’t lie when I say I’ve romanticized monogamy like a white girl on Instagram. I bathed in the daydreams of weddings and dreamed of some normal suburban house with 2-kids and a relationship I knew would never lead to cheating because I would never let that happen.
So when I got cheated on in a 2-month relationship, naturally I cried.
“This wasn’t supposed to fucking happen”.
The problem with exploring different kinds of relationships is that everything is seen through the frame of monogamy.
And why wouldn’t we? Most of us only know a world of people getting engaged, married and then wonder if they’ll be one of the poor people who end up getting divorced. If they do get dealt these horrendous cards, we sympathize with them but also blame them. There has to be something they did wrong to deserve it, right?
It occurred to me not long ago while watching a polyamorous couple on YouTube that there are relationships where people don’t feel like they’re on edge all the time. Which isn’t to say I like monogamy or not, I just think it’s interesting. I think it’s interesting that we’ve essentially created a world in which relationships are not about exploring the world together, but instead, falling in line.
The problem with having relationships of discipline and scarcity is that you’re constantly tampering down all of your feels. Don’t say this for fear of ruining the relationship. Don’t do that because she could think that you’re going to stray. The world is filled with more no’s, than go-ahead-have-fun’s.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot. What truly, at its core, is cheating?
Is it just lying? Is it actually sleeping with someone else? Is it the same for everyone? Because I’m inclined to think that — at least in my experience — cheating hurt me more because of the deception. They made the choice to hurt me.
Jealousy is a very different thing.
That’s all on me, honestly. Life is filled with jealousy. But the thing about jealousy (if we’re being super duper honest here) is that it’s entirely about us. Never about them. It always stems from some sort of issue we have with ourselves.
I’m single and planning on staying that way for a while so I don’t have a dog in the fight, but I do think the state of relationships are depressing. I think there’s a segment of us still chasing our fairy-tale lands. Someone taking the knee. A walk down the aisle. A bouquet. Photos.
Humans are not dolls.
We do not like boxes, we do not like restrictions and we certainly do not like feeling trapped. Yet, somehow, monogamy became accepted as not something that is an active choice, but a blueprint. So there’s that inevitable moment when it fails you and you’re only left with yourself in the mirror like I was.
Staring back at the reflection and wondering where the hell it all went wrong.
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Originally published on P.S. I Love You
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