Day 33: Oh come all ye faithful

A few weeks ago, I conducted a mini-survey on my Facebook wall, asking friends to describe the perfect man in just one word. Can you guess which words came up the most? Rich? Nope. Handsome? No, not that either. Funny? Nah, not even that. The three words that most of us girls used were “trustworthy”, “loyal” and “honest”. Basically, we don’t want no cheaters, no siree! We’d take a poor, ugly, unfunny man, as long as he didn’t do the dirty on us. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but there’s no getting away from the fact that cheating is one thing most of us loathe - and when I say “us” I mean the guys as well as the girls.

The first time a boyfriend cheated on me was during my first-ever relationship (see Mr T, as in T for Troll) and I felt as if my heart had been ripped out through my throat. I was only 14 at the time, so my emotions were abnormally off the scale as standard, but I don’t think I ever forgot how purely horrible it felt when I found out. What was wrong with me? What had I done that was so bad that he’d had to cheat? How would I ever get out of bed/leave the house/breath normally again?

The funny thing is, I don’t actually remember being that angry with my errant boyfriend. I hated myself, sure, and I hated the girls (yes, there were a few) he’d cheated on me with even more, but not him. In fact, rather than do the smart thing and move on with my life as far away from him as possible, I spent all my spare time coming up with plots and schemes to win him back. I can clearly remember telling him (in my best nonchalant voice) that I was “cool with us just being friends” and that I was “sooo not bothered”. Both those statements were utterly untrue, but do you know what - they worked. When we did finally break up almost three years later, it was him at the front door begging for more and me glad to see the back of him. However, despite that small victory, I have never EVER trusted another boyfriend from that day to this.

This little issue of trust is, I think, a major contender in the “Why Broom is still single” mystery. The way I see it, any boyfriend of mine has to accept that I won’t trust them until they have earned my trust, and that won’t happen overnight. My last boyfriend used to get endlessly frustrated with my assumptions that he would do the dirty given the chance. I would calmly explain that I’d rather think the worse, so that if it did happen I’d be less shocked and more able to get over it. It’s a nice theory, but it’s also a load of crap. Even if you wake up thinking “today’s the day my boyfriend will sleep with someone else” it’s still going to hit you like a charging rhino with a sledgehammer if he actually does. And do you know what, maybe he’s only done it because his girlfriend has pushed him away with her constant distrust.

Learning to trust a man again after you’ve been the victim of a cheater is not easy. One friend, who had the misfortune to become involved with a man so close genetically to pond scum that I was always surprised newts weren’t popping out of his ears, told me: “I always thought I would never put up with it [cheating], but when I was in that actual predicament I found it too hard to walk away, and hoped it was a one-off. I thought I could change him, still make it work because he loved me - and that real love doesn't come around often. I completely lost my self-esteem and became a jealous monster. In my head it was still all about him. I never put myself first.” I can hear you all now, going “bastard” in your heads. You should, he was. But the key thing here is the effect it had on my poor friend. As well as a serious blow to her self-esteem, it made her expectation for disaster shoot up to an extreme level. As far as she was concerned, men will cheat, men do cheat and the best thing to do is assume the worst at all times. I can happily say she’s worked through many of these worries now, but it has taken years. Another friend of mine whose other half did the dirty while she was in the next room, admitted, “I find it very hard to trust men now and find myself 'protecting' myself on instinct by being tough and not getting too attached. I deliberately stayed single for ages, as I didn't want to transfer my crap on to anyone else, or go into another relationship with baggage or damaged.”

Surely my trust issues could be seen as “baggage”, and if I’m honest that is part of the reason why I’ve opted to be single for these 12 months. If I can come to terms with being cheated on, start to think of myself as more worthy, and feel able to enter a relationship without all that (adopts American tone) “negativity” then maybe I’ll have a chance of being happy. Not only that, but - and this is the part where I get so honest it makes even me squirm - I don’t think I can trust myself not to cheat. I have done it before. In fact, I’ve done it twice before, and both times it was because I was unhappy and looking for a way out. Having sex with someone who is not your boyfriend is certainly a big neon-lit sign that all is not well, and it would appear I am not the only person to have resorted to this course of action.

“I was with a guy who was very possessive who I’d tried to break up with many times,” one friend told me. “He wouldn't leave me alone, wouldn't stop turning up at my house and always wormed his way back in somehow, even though he knew how much I wanted out. It's not an excuse, and I did try (many times) to end it before I did anything with anyone else, but by the end I just thought I'd never have the resolve to cut him out and not let him back if I didn't do something irreversible. It was a way to get me out of the rut and I knew that I would never be able to take my ex back again. Although I wish I hadn't resorted to being unfaithful to get there, I don't regret that it was the kick I needed to break it off and not go back.”

So, does cheating always mean the end of your relationship? Not according to another friend of mine: “I cheated on my boyfriend two months into our relationship,” she admits. Basically, I was smitten, so when he went AWOL for a week and didn’t return my calls or texts, I was distraught. On the fourth day, a boy chatted me up and I took him home with me. I was hurt, angry and wanted to feel desirable and that I could still get boys (pathetic after 4 days, right?). Anyway, the next day my boyfriend came round and it was all fine – he said he’d 'freaked out' so I told him he should have told me how he was feeling. If anything it made us a bit stronger, but he never found out. Ultimately, I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Indeed, it would appear that those of us who do admit to slipping up in the past are more likely to forgive a future partner if they did the same thing. “I used to think cheating is absolutely unforgivable,” says one friend. “But I've changed my mind completely. With what I know now, I think I would forgive. Maybe stupid, but knowing myself I would probably cheat too, and want to be forgiven. I understand how you can love someone and still go off and have sex with someone else. The key is if you’re going to do it, don't get caught!” Does it feel strange, to hear a girl admit things like that? I suppose it does in a way, but every one of us is different. Some people can move on and forgive, while others would not even consider the idea.

“I can see it's confusing what's acceptable when you're casually seeing someone,” agrees another female friend of mine. “But if it was my boyfriend, they'd be gone in a second and I'd never speak to them again, never hear them out, never look at their face again. That would be it, even if it were just a two-second kiss. It's a betrayal and the trust is gone.” And she’s not the only one… “If you take them back, it's NEVER gonna be a one-off,” insists Pond Scum’s ex. “Once we allow them to get away with it, it will happen again. That boundary is well and truly gone.” According to another friend, “Whoever is doing the cheating is wrong, and I don't see why people don't have the balls to end relationships before trying someone new!”

And surely that is the main point: don’t be in a relationship if you want to sleep around. Don’t be in a relationship if you’re not 100% sure that it is what you really want. And don’t be in a relationship if you will never be able to trust the other person. A few years ago, I was going out with a guy who I met in a bar. It was never an idyllic union, if I’m honest. He was strange, I was lonely, and we didn’t have an awful lot in common. Despite this, we persevered and had made it to our year’s anniversary when I started to get the itch. Our sex life, while never anything to base a Mills & Boon novel on, had completely stopped. I felt unattractive, unwanted, frustrated and pointless, and it was around this time that I went on a holiday abroad with my best friend. I had resolved not to do anything behind his back, but one night he called me out of the blue to ask - I thought - how I was and if I was having a good time. He didn’t ask that, he didn’t even ask how I was, he just ranted about some friend or other who’d left rubbish in his room. I must have paid at least £4 for the call, and it was just the final nail (or not, given the celibate state of our relationship). That night I went home with a barman and the next day I felt an overwhelming sense of relief: I’d gone too far and now I had to end things. That doesn’t mean it was acceptable, in fact it was probably extremely cowardly, but it does seem to be the reason most women cheat.

If women cheat to escape miserable relationships, then why do men cheat? Is there a difference? Is a man cheating less awful than a woman? And what effect does women cheating have on the men in the relationship? These are all subjects for part 2 of this blog entry (coming up tomorrow). In closing, and having read so many of your responses on the issue of cheating (thank you very much for those, by the way), I think one of my friends summed up cheating perfectly when she said, “Men and women with no backbone cheat. It takes an adult to admit a problem, but it’s better to end a relationship than cheat or be cheated on.” Wise words, and I just hope that over the next 12 months I grow into a strong enough person to put my hands up when the going gets tough.