Cheating Doesn’t Start With Sex

I will admit, I was triggered by this social media post today that said, “Cheating doesn’t start with sex, it starts with sneaky conversations.”

If you talked to my most recent LTR (long-term relationship) she’d tell you, I’m obsessively intent on expressing my own fidelity. I go out of my way to clarify any relationships with women, so there is no misunderstanding between us. I try to be as clean as possible in my relationships. I know, and I believe, LOVE is what you contribute and how hard you work at being a better lover.

Sneaky Conversations

When I re-met the mother of my children, we’d not seen each other since high school. She was a grade behind me, we shared typing class in 8th grade. That’s what I remember. Oh, and she has a fantastic smile. Radiant. This was also true when I ran into her on Easter Sunday oh so many years ago. I went in for a handshake, she pulled me in for a hug. I’m a hugger. I was being conservative.

We walked together to her breakfast coffee date, another woman I’d known since high school. The three of us sat and caught up on our lives. I was recently divorced (1-year), she was recently divorced and our friend was unmarried. We exchanged hugs and I left to join my mom and my sister’s kids at their Easter service. I could smell her perfume on my neck the entire day.

A week or so later, I invited her to lunch. I had gotten her phone number from our mutual friend. We had a great time. She was amazing. I was crushing right off the bat. We began an intense days long series of texts that continued to get more and more flirty. We had lunch again. More flirty texts. Still, above board. Well, except for this next part.

THIS ENTIRE TIME, she was living with a man. She was lunching with me. Flirting with me via text. I had not idea there was another man. From her activities and openness to the playful banter I was certain she was single. She was not.

A Date for the History Books

Still in the dark, we had our first date on a Saturday night. I invited her to dinner and a live concert for a California band called SilverJet. We danced. We hugged. We kissed. She came back to my condo. We kissed some more. She followed me into my hot tub. She went home late. No sex, just a ton of foreplay.

A few flirty texts on Sunday, but there was something amiss. Monday morning she invited me to meet her for lunch. She confessed to the “other man” and said she needed to pause any further connections between us. “I need to see if there’s anything left in my other relationship.”

The period of silence began. I honored her request and did not call or text her. Five weeks later, she texted me, “Well, we’re done.”

Two Kids Later

Life was not easy, but it was greatly enhanced by our marriage and eventual birthing of a boy and a girl. We struggled through the ocean waves of life, the ups and downs. Our lives together grew more complex. The kids were just beginning to go to school.

In our house I was the computer manager, the IT department. I was on the family iMac clearing away some old files and I was deleted spam from a gmail account.

More Sneaky Conversations

I was just about to delete a message that looked like it was from our cable provider. Some of the text caught my eye.

“Thank you for lunch and introducing me to the library. That was awesome. I’ll see you again soon.”

Um… Wait, what?

I clicked the outbox and noticed her reply and my entire world blew apart as I read about her “troubled marriage” and “depressed husband” and finally “someone I can talk to.”

She was beginning the sneaky conversations with a new person. I get the impulse. Marriage is hard. Couples Therapy is hard. Making it work is hard and sometimes lonely. She needed a therapist, not a male confidant. What about our mutual friend, couldn’t you just talk to her about how hard your life was?

It’s true, she did not sleep with this younger coworker. As far as I know. When I confronted her about the email she said, “I can see how that would make you feel. I won’t do it again.”

No apology. Even in marriage counseling, she never apologized for her actions, only for causing me pain. I didn’t really see, until we were divorced, how this process she was involved in, was exactly how she replaced her previous relationship for me. Revealed later, the key component of her agenda, “have children.” Her previous boyfriend did not want to have kids. She needed a new boyfriend.

The sneaky conversations outside of your marriage are a slippery slope. Just don’t do it. Flirting is fine, in public. Flirting via text messages and phone calls is the opening move of a cheating mind.

Closing snipe: she married and changed her name as quickly as possible. There were no indicators that she had been flirting with her new husband before she left me.

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Previously Published on The Whole Parent

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