Dear Roe,
I am in the most perfect relationship ever, but unfortunately it’s long distance. My boyfriend loves me with all his heart and so do I. I acknowledge that he is the perfect fit for me and that I can never be happier with anyone else other than him. But, even after such a good relationship, I often have thoughts of cheating on him.
I am a serial cheater.
I have almost always cheated on all my partners. The reason for cheating might be because I want to get validated by other men. I don’t like it, I feel guilty about it every day. I can’t stop thinking about other men and cheating on my boyfriend. I really need some help to save my relationship and stop my habit of serial cheating.
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I believe that your long-distance relationship, your current desire to cheat, and your previous experiences of cheating are likely all united by one theme: the fear and avoidance of real intimacy.
Long-term readers of the column know that I’ll never dismiss the importance of long-distance relationships – I’ve been in a few myself. The world is large, wonderful people are everywhere, and sometimes there are simply huge distances between us and the people we love. But it is important to be clear-eyed about the limitations of long-distance relationships, to have a shared vision for the future, and have a plan for when you can be together.
Without this awareness or this desire, long-distance relationships can sometimes be a form of avoidance; a way of keeping true intimacy at a literal and emotional distance. Sometimes it’s this very distance that makes it feel like “the most perfect relationship ever” – you can both present as your most idealised selves, without having to deal with the harder, more challenging, or more mundane aspects of an in-person relationship.
Distance allows you to control your dynamic in a very particular way, and the question is whether you want to relinquish that control for something more messy, vulnerable, inconvenient, taxing, effort-filled, revealing, boring, and gloriously flawed – and I don’t know if you do.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that this relationship is another way of avoiding the vulnerability and intimacy of a committed relationship, in a way that cheating is also a way of avoiding the vulnerability and intimacy of a committed relationship.
And the tragedy of your pattern is two-fold: one, you are repeatedly, knowingly deceiving and hurting people who are brave enough to commit fully to you; and two, you are repeatedly telling yourself, through your own actions, that you are not a good person and not worthy of love – which causes you to continue to avoid it.
The reason I think that avoidance is the key here is because your reasoning for cheating isn’t as straightforward as you claim it to be. You say that you like the validation of being wanted by men. Sure. Most people enjoy the validation of having someone consider us attractive.
You know what you are doing is wrong and is eroding your relationships from the inside, but you continue doing it
But you don’t just want to feel attractive which you could do by embracing what you love about yourself and self-validating, or even having a harmless flirt with someone – you go further and cheat.
And you don’t just want to freely enjoy getting with lots of people, because if you did, you could stay single or have an ethical, non-monogamous relationship where you could, for one example, have a primary partner and still get with other people, all while being open and honest.
But those two options – remaining single or being in an open relationship – feel too vulnerable for you. You are terrified of being alone, and you are terrified of your partner also being with other people, because in your mind, those two options prove that you are not good enough. In order to prove yourself desirable and worthy, you need to have someone be faithful and committed to you, but you still need the extra validation of other men to prove yourself desirable – and you need to lie, and deceive and hide to do it.
And what does all that lying, deceiving and hiding do? It puts up a barrier between you and real vulnerability, real intimacy – with others, and yourself. You never have to grapple with your own deep insecurities or work on your own damaged feelings of self-worth, because you constantly have a man distracting you from them. You never have to grapple with the vulnerability of a fully committed, honest relationship, because your cheating and lying prevents you from being in one.
You never have to make the sacrifice required of a loving monogamous relationship and choose the work of commitment, because you either get with other people or keep your relationships at a physical distance. And you never have to fully accept that you could be worthy of love and rise to the occasion by being a good partner, because by cheating you are telling yourself every day that you are a bad person and that real, committed love isn’t for you.
That’s what guilt without changed behaviour is: self-sabotage.
You know what you are doing is wrong and is eroding your relationships from the inside, but you continue doing it, compounding your idea that you’re a bad person, which strengthens your need to keep loving partners at a distance, and increases your desire for cheap, fleeting boots of validation from men who don’t really care about you.
Your actions are selfish and are hurting your partners, but you are also hurting yourself, and you need to realise that – and start making different choices. There’s no good in being a martyr and romanticising your pain and previous behaviour, which people who serially cheat can do. They feel insecure and cheat, then feel guilty which heightens their poor self-image, and suddenly they believe that they’re so damaged and unhappy that they need and deserve more love and attention and validation than other people to fix them, and hey presto, they’ve justified cheating again. You are creating a continuous cycle of selfishness and self-sabotage that is fundamentally damaging your ability to love and be loved – and it’s time to stop.
Get yourself a therapist. Work on your low self-esteem, your need to get constant, fleeting validation from men, and your fear of intimacy and being fully seen and loved by someone else. Think deeply about your long-distance relationship – is it actually leading you towards the honest, committed, in-person relationship you want, or is it a way of hiding? And confront your fears of what being in a committed monogamous relationship means, and become curious about growing and evolving. That could look like exploring non-monogamous configurations that would allow you to get with several people but would require honest, clear communication and sharing equal freedom with your partner(s), or it might look like a monogamous relationship where you become curious about and excited by the idea of being committed to and fully seen and loved by another person.
Your choices are putting a distance between you and the real, vulnerable, terrifying, wonderful, core-shaking experience of love. If you want it closer, you’re going to have to look at yourself clearly and eventually let someone else see you fully, too. You’ve been hiding for a long time – it’s time to step into the light.