The Secret Truth About Cheating

I was once engaged to someone I shouldn’t have been. Let’s call her Carol. We were not kind to one another. She made a point of ruining my best days. I looked down on her. It wasn’t healthy, and I’m so very grateful we did not go through with getting married.

I cheated on Carol twice, and confessed to her immediately. She made a point of dragging out the forgiveness, but it happened. I was grateful, and contrite, and tried to make things better.

What I did not know, what I wouldn’t learn until much later, was that Carol had been cheating on me long before that, and with two close friends of mine, possibly more. Including my best friend (let’s call him George).

Yup. She cheated on me for over two years with my best friend from high school. Fun.

We broke our engagement before I knew about that. I was annoyed when Carol started dating George, whom her parents far preferred to me. I was even more annoyed when she attempted to sleep with me while with him.

Then I found out about the cheating. Turns out Carol had told two other friends of mine while we were still together, as a kind of landmine for our relationship. I can only guess that she hoped they’d tell me and I would do the breaking up.

They foiled this plan by deciding not to get involved. In fact, it was only when, a year later, I started dating one of those friends that I found out. If we were going to be together, my new girlfriend didn’t want that ugly secret between us.