Cheater's Lament

Lucy said that she doesn't understand why people cheat. She said that there's no point in cheating, if you don't want to be with your partner and want to be with someone else, then just end your relationship. Otherwise, don't cheat. We also talked about whether you should tell your partner if you cheat. She says that it serves no purpose, it doesn't make it better for either of you, and if you're not going to cheat anymore, then just stop, you don't need to tell anyone.

I agree that telling your partner won't do anything other than make you feel better. I'm not sure what advantages there are to telling your partner. If they find out, they'll never trust you and your relationship will never be the same. Then again, I feel like your partner should be entitled to know that you are a cheater and decide whether they want to be with you based on that information.

I used to agree with Lucy about the not cheating thing. I didn't understand why someone who is in a happy relationship would cheat, so the cheating must indicate that something is missing from the relationship. Maybe not something big enough to end the relationship, but it would have to be something serious enough to make someone go so far as to cheat.

Then I met The Other Guy. I can't quite place what it was about him that made me feel that way - maybe part of it was that he was so much like me and it was my narcissistic tendency to want to love myself? Whatever it was, I felt like there were sparks between us, and I had that tingly feeling that you get when you know you have a crush on someone. I briefly entertained the idea of being with him, but dismissed it not long after, as I thought it wouldn't be worth it.

a) I didn't want to risk everything I have with MrMan5.5 for what could really be a bad experience.
b) A mutual friend tells me that he's not all that nice anyway.
c) I'm not that conceited to even think that he would even be interested in me in the first place, as we barely know each other.

I spent 2 hours lying in bed next to MrMan5.5 trying to work out what was missing in our relationship. Other than laughing at the silly faces he makes when he sleeps, the only thing I could come up with that we're missing was 20 nuggets, and I have QC and Sparks for that. Maybe it's because things are going well for us at the moment, but I feel happy when I'm with him, I miss him when he's gone, and I don't wish he would do x instead of y when we're together.

Still, I felt that we have an honest relationship, so despite everything Lucy said about not telling, I decided to tell MrMan5.5 about TOG. This is probably as close as I will get to cheating without actually cheating, and to be honest, Lucy was right. It didn't make anything better. In fact, I felt worse, because I hadn't even thought of TOG in ages until Lucy brought up the cheating thing. Obviously, MrMan5.5 got upset about the whole thing. He told me that if I wanted to see what it was like with TOG, then I should give it a try.

That wasn't really what I thought would happen. I'm not sure what I wanted to achieve by telling him. I didn't think it would make me feel better, and I knew he wouldn't be happy about it. Maybe I just wanted to see what would happen?