I wrote the title, ” Cheating”, at the top of this post a few seconds ago. I’m sure by the end, or maybe even halfway through, I’ll forget why, and change it. That is how my mind is working lately.

I cannot tell you why we as humans do this. I’ve heard lots of theories behind this, such as; people are meant to love, we were meant to procreate, our bodies have these extraordinary capabilities so we must use them, because of lonliness, bittness, anger, resentments, confusion, spite, hate, love, joy, for attention, to be the center of your own world, to be adored, admired, he / she was JUST THERE, I do not know, so and so made me feel special, we were on a break, we broke up the day before, its the father / mother of my children…. I mean… really, the list of “reasons, or excuses” , could go on and on endlessly. I think we just reach for absolutely anything at the moment of truth, any words that might make some type of sense to get us out of the situation we’ve created.

Are there statistics on cheating ?? I never thought to look before now honestly. I have never cared to know the numbers, or the professional theories or exact sciences behind cheating. They may call it chemical balances / imbalances of our brains, our bodies ph, our chemistry… again, I’ve never cared for scientific answers about cheaters. Everyone has their own beliefs / sayings/ phases / phrases/ LIFE. Whatever. My take away from a recent situation I encountered, is that, we all need to live and let live.

It’s like, when your a child, playing in the dark, and you don’t want to look into the mirror after saying her name 3 xs. That is how I’ve always felt about delving into the brain of a cheater. I don’t always want to know what makes me tick, but I almost always want to know what makes other people tick. Something strange / NOT COOL happened to me recently though. I was kind of unwillingly tossed into some else’s personal situation, _{(as an outsider)}, and I basically was able to see from the perspectives of all the active parties involved. I can almost always see from multiple or all perspectives of almost all situations. Hey now, just note; I did not want to be involved in this, mainly because I’m like, more than a decade older than these people, but also because one of the involved is a close part of my family. ^{_{I’ll just leave that right there at that though.}}

I caught myself sticking up for the person who is mostly in the wrong ,- wait did I just do it again? Yep, the sentence right before the dash – …right there see?? "I was sticking up for the one MOSTLY in the wrong", but what is mostly? I mean, they are ALL wrong honestly, _{( I only know this now, after having more years of experience than I wish I had in playing the same roles as them),} but they do not yet know any of that. This is their first time, and I would like to hope, it will be their last time.

Of course, I would never tell someone that cheated, that what they did was not wrong, or that it was okay. I simply just asked ‘said cheater’, how they felt about what they did. I listened to their side, and I said something along the lines of, I know, I get it. That’s because, I do. I can see from all sides, mostly, as I said already. It saddens me to see this happening with such young children adults. Ones that I care a lot about. So now, I’m delving in with my eyes wide open, because I want to know if there really is any truth behind the ” statistics”, or if there is any real one, reason. I do not believe that every single person that has cheated wants to hurt the person they are cheating on. I think yes, that might happen often due to things like; revenge, spite, misunderstanding or lack of communication, plus a long list of other things that may include words like, narcissists. Just maybe they fell out of love and don’t know how to end things ( coward), or maybe their partner has stopped giving them ANY type of love, affection, connection, maybe even stopped communicating. That could be for sooo many reasons, I can’t even go on with the maybes, the mights, the could, should, woulds. Instead, I’m going in.

“It is estimated that if someone cheated before, there is a 350 percent chance that they will cheat again, compared to those who have never cheated. In the same study that states that cheaters will cheat again, they found that those who have been cheated on will most likely be cheated on again.” _{^{Secure Forensics blog}}

That is alarming, but there is more from the Secure Forensics Blog that could give any cheater knots in their belly.

I’m not too sure I believe all of these numbers. This is an excerpt, the ^_first I found today, from ^{secureforensics.com}

– I have to add, that almost every piece of information I’ve found online, is dated 2019. Not that it was long ago or that the numbers could change much, but I would personally like to entertain some statistics from the start of COVID vs before covid.

Now back to the recent event, here is another side. First, lets make some names clear.

We have, ‘said cheater’, then there is the ‘ex’, and we’ll call the one who was cheated on, ‘CURRENT’. OK? Let’s try that.

Now, to perspective #2, the one I would like to someday understand much more than I do now. I will try and show you the many ways this ex will //can be seen.

(Aside from words like, _^homewrecker, Is there an actual word for the 3rd person? The one who may not have someone at home, so they are not cheating, but they do know that the person they are sleeping with is cheating on their partner at home? )

The ex’s side, the one who was enabling said cheater, to cheat. So, just try to follow along, and remember, this goes back a little over a year, when the ex, and the said cheater were still involved in their 2 year relationship.

EX recently posted videos of old pics & videos from their previous 2 year relationship with ‘ said cheater’ , this video was telling a very clear story. I saw clear as day that EX was showing social media a timeline, from when the 2 were happy, to not happy, to over, to sad, and then to “stronger and better“,. I see you. I got ya. SO, after being thrown around the grapevine of peoples phones in various surrounding towns, it finally got to CURRENT. After playing this video repeatedly, CURRENT “somehow” got hooked up in conversation with EX _{( who mind you they have never gotten along even slightly),} ended up meeting up, ^{_{( I always pulled this sort of nonsense)}} and together, they went through each others phones, all the texts, videos, calls, facetimes, messages, you name it, if they had something from said cheater, they showed it to each other. After their long drawn out, detailed, heart wrenching , spiteful little “get together,” / TEA TIME- the 2 took lots of selfies together, AND EVEN ONES with all of the ex’s, ( 3 ) and sent them to ‘said cheater.’ You go girl/girls!! AM I right? I mean, I am, I know I am because once again, I have done the exact same thing as’EX’, BUT, it actually isn’t technically right. How is it right for ‘EX’ to go behind ‘cheaters’ back after doing the cheating WITH ‘said cheater’? One could say, she did this out of pure jealousy and spite to ruin said cheaters life. Another could say, well, said cheater deserves it because they broke both Exes, & Currents, hearts. Do you think EX owed anything to CURRENT? I mean… I don’t owe that kind of information to anyone, anytime I’ve chosen to share that type of info, I end up the bad guy. So…. live and let live.

I DO believe that Current probably deserved to know what said cheater had done behind their back, especially if said cheater wanted to stay with CURRENT and work things out. However, I’m still not sure if I think EX should have done what they did, or not. I know personally, that being in the position of EX, it does nothing but cause more trouble, drama, and problems in EXs life. Especially if the “doting, fun loving”, couple ‘CURRENT’ and ‘CHEATER’ end up together again. Actually no, that isn’t when it’s the worst- the worst case / outcome for EX, would be if EX too, had their own relationship. Which they do not. So EX was not worried about any of their own consequences when they went and told CURRENT literally EVERY THING, every detail, everything, because, EX has no real consequences in this situation. I still don’t know if what EX did was morally correct. Well, I’ve come to find, that maybe, EX is more in the wrong than I thought.

Ex seems to be the one I can relate to the most, Ex is very much like me. I don’t like saying that, but it just might be true. Lets see.

I spent over an hour at a time, listening to both ‘EX’, and ‘said cheater’. Being there for both of them, separately. Unfortunately, I do not know CURRENT very well, nor have I wanted to. I guess I might be biased, but I still do not believe that CURRENT deserved to be cheated on. No one deserves that pain.

Well, that is true, but as the story went on, I learned more things, that I wish I didn’t know.

WHY DID THEY CALL ME?! Why involve me, very literally, yet not want me involved? Cheating is a bad place to go. Its not a good place to stay in either. Is once a cheater always a cheater really true?? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen otherwise. I do think that I believe they won’t be that way forever. But when is enough enough? How much hurt can a person spew to the ones they say they “love” in a lifetime? What will make them not do it again?? I think as humans, we tend to feel, and maybe even get, stuck.

Human nature; We do not like to accept that we will do or not do 1 thing for the rest of our lives. That may not make sense out-loud, but it can be compared to…. say, alcohol . An Alcoholic does NOT want to stop or struggles harder to stop drinking , AND NEVER DRINK ALCOHOL AGAIN until the day they die!! ya know maybe some DO though, because everyone is different, but I know that when someone tells me I have to do something and can only do that, or to stop doing something and I can never do it again, feel it again, for the rest of my life, I don’t want to do a damn thing they tell me!!

the kid needs dough dough’s so ill revisit this later i guess.

01.14.21 @ 9AM

Alright, SO here’s the thing. Not that I would say I invested way too much into the situation, BUT what I might say, is that yesterday, I did waste a lot of time, energy, & thoughts on this situation which is not of my own. Therefore, I can say with complete honesty, I was 100% Blind Sided by the situation about to ensue, a situation I have been over and done with for MONTHS. Not that it happened necessarily because of the whole, ‘ ex, said cheater & current’, situation, more likely because, that’s just the way it goes… isn’t it?

People from our past like to pop out at some of the most ironic of times. Isn’t it ironic? A little too ironic, I think. _{^{haha , I just had too.}}

I can see clearly now, why I was so mentally invested in getting to the bottom of this. So today, I’m trying to shift my focus. I’m done telling their story, however, I’m still trying to understand the WHY behind it all. Not just for the young trio I’ve mentioned above, but for every & anyone involved in one of these overly relatable, cliche, yet highly distasteful situations.

I’m taking a closer look at the, ‘cheater’ & the ‘EX’ , so to say.

I want to know why those 2 players do what they do.

How did they get to this point?

What was the cheaters intention going in?

What was the

Wow, I really dove into the rabbit hole of cheating over the last 2 days, boy oh boy I am not even sure how to decipher through the real and the not real, the opinions that I agree most with, the opinions I cannot even fathom. I’m trying here, I really am.

MICRO CHEATING??? welllll that’s a new word for me. Check out the link ^ attached ^ – I can’t even believe what I just read through!! There are so many ‘ chapters’ so to say, options, on that website! So many writers, bloggers, you-tubers, journalists, stay-at-home-parents, people just like ME, write about this!! Okay, I got you lets dive back into some words and numbers, and I’ll do my best at the end to put some organization/ order in place.

Rewire seems to have a super in depth article, I enjoyed reading through this article by Katie Moritz, actually. It may not be super relatable for all the young-ins, but for me, and probably anyone in long term relationships/ married, it is a good read. Here is the Headline..

As a general rule, micro-cheating is anything that’s more emotionally, physically, or sexually charged than what’s considered kosher in your relationship.Nov 25, 2019 –

Medically reviewed by Janet Brito, Ph.D., LCSW, CST — Written by Gabrielle Kassel on November 25, 2019 – HEALTHLINE.COM

Here is the full Article from ^{_{HEALTHLINE.COM}}

Rather than copy/pasting the entire article here, I’ve gone through, pulled, copied,re-read, and pasted some of what I think is paramount information in the article. I’ve also cited each author, editor, quote, that is on here, as far as I know. The full article can be read Here- 9 FAQs full Article from ^{_{HEALTHLINE.COM}}

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What Exactly Is ‘Micro-Cheating’?

Sure, it’s easy to identify cheating when there’s genital licking/stroking/touching involved. But what about with things that are a little more subtle — like winking, under-the-table app swiping, or knee touching?

“It’s anything that could lead to full-blown cheating in the future.”

TAMMY SHAKLEE LGBTQ relationship expert and founder of H4M

Is this a new thing? Nope! Thanks to our new obsession with naming dating trends and tragedies, we just now have the language to call this behavior out.

Shaklee notes; the most common forms of micro-cheating involve text messaging and social media (*cough* DM slides *cough*), so if micro-cheating seems more common than ever before, it’s because we’ve become increasingly Online.

Is micro-cheating the same as emotional cheating? No, but the two have some overlap. As Gigi Engle, Lifestyle Condoms brand ambassador, certified sex coach, and author of “All the F*cking Mistakes: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life” says, “Emotional cheating is a cousin of micro-cheating.” With emotional cheating there’s zero hanky panky, but there’s an inappropriate emotional investment.

Micro-cheating, doesn’t refer exclusively to emotional boundary crossing. It’s generally overinvesting time, energy, or head space in a person who isn’t your partner, says Shaklee.

What if you’re the one doing it, and you didn’t even realize?

The number one sign that you’re micro-cheating is prioritizing someone else — and their feelings, approval, or attention — over your partner.

“When something good happens, are you telling someone before you tell your partner?” asks Shaklee.

Are you experiencing less attention from, intimacy with, or excitement toward your partner than before? Your questionable behavior may be indicative of dissatisfaction within the current state of your relationship.

If so — and you think your relationship is worth salvaging — it’s time to work with your partner to fix that. If, however, there’s been a noticeable shift in your relationship that doesn’t feel amendable, the solution may be to breakup, says Shaklee.

Remember: Your feelings are valid. “If they blow you off saying ‘it’s no big deal,’ or make you feel needy or unreasonable, that’s a form of gaslighting,” says Engle. And that’s good reason to reconsider your relationship.

The bottom line

What counts as micro-cheating varies from relationship to relationship, depending on what’s been established as cheating. This is why creating emotional, physical, and sexual boundaries (and sooner rather than later!) is so important.

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Gabrielle Kassel is a New York–based sex and wellness writer and CrossFit Level 1 Trainer. She’s become a morning person, tested over 200 vibrators, and eaten, drunk, and brushed with charcoal — all in the name of journalism. In her free time, she can be found reading self-help books and romance novels, bench-pressing, or pole dancing. Follow her on Instagram.

Last medically reviewed on November 25, 2019

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“Last medically reviewed on..” ….. MEDICALLY???

Okay, I need a break from this world. I’ll be sure to follow up when I have my own conclusion to this. Be sure to subscribe to the blog to get updates on stories & follow ups!!

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