A Friendly Betrayal

I have lied. I have cheated, both in school and in relationships. I don’t feel good about any of it. I cheated on a test in college. I cheated on my homework and classwork in high school. Not all the time. Honestly, I was usually the one that was cheated off of, but I did cheat. I was lazy. I didn’t feel like studying or trying hard. I cheated on my husband. I felt ignored. Someone else paid me attention. I cheated. I am not proud of it. I am not happy about it. I damaged our relationship. I “cheated” on a boyfriend in college. I kissed a guy that was not my boyfriend. My excuse, “he’s getting ready to break-up with me anyway.”  This was not as big a deal as cheating on my husband, but there was dishonesty and my own selfish desires behind the motivation for it.  I have emotionally cheated on my husband. I’ve had feelings for someone who wasn’t him, and I kept it from him. Whether or not cheating is really a bad thing due to human biology is for another discussion, the “sin” lies within the dishonesty.  Doing something that I knew would upset him is the sin. I purposefully put my own pleasures/desires/feelings over my relationship with him.  I shit on his trust, essentially. 

I’ve recently had a friendship fall apart due to similar circumstances.  I feel like my friend took our friendship and shit on it for her own pleasures/desires/feelings. She knew it would upset me, but she did it anyway. This may be the karma I have sown, but now she is reaping her own negative karma. I am torn. I don’t want to throw our friendship away, because I understand what she is going through. I got duped by the same man. However, I have begun to question our entire friendship. At what point did she betray me? Was it from the moment she and this guy met, or was it much later as they both led me to believe? Does it matter when it was? Well, actually, yeah it does. I was in a state of emotional turmoil. I found myself in a situation that I thought I could handle but quickly realized I couldn’t. I reached out to a friend, a person I thought I could trust.  Someone I thought would have my back, and maybe talk some sense into me.  Instead of saying to me, “What the fuck are you doing? He’s a piece of shit fuckboy, stop talking to him,” she tells me, “he loves you.” Now they are dating and I’m like, “what the fuck just happened?”  Was she taking every bit of information I was giving her and using it to her own advantage? Or, did he see a weakness in her that he could exploit, just like he did me? Did she not see all the texts I sent to her telling her I didn’t trust him?

I learned five years ago not to write someone off if you care about them in the slightest. I didn’t speak to my brother for ten years, and he fucking died. I can’t just going throwing people away.  Distancing yourself doesn’t always help. It’s moments like this when I wish I was religious. I wish I did buy into all the shit it’s supposed to teach you. I just don’t. I have been reading the Bhagavad Gita. I’ve wanted to since I was a teenager, and it makes sense to me. Not that I am going to go around worshipping any god, but I see how religion can help folks get through their everyday lives. I can see why people cling to religion, especially when shit happens in their life and they are left questioning everything. 

Now I know that this situation I am going through pales compared to a lot of the ills of the world, but it has left me mind-fucked. I don’t understand how my friend could do this. I have had her back ever since I have known her. I needed her to desperately have mine and instead, she stabbed me in it. I may be a shitty wife, but I am an excellent friend.  When she was constantly coming to me about a guy that was fucking with her emotions, I offered to beat his ass. I am not a large woman. I am feisty as fuck. I hated seeing what he was doing to her.  I hated seeing her hurt.  I would have physically assaulted this man if I need to.  He didn’t do anything to me, but he was fucking with my friends emotions and well-being, I don’t play that shit.  I am a protectionist when it comes to my friends.

I don’t believe happiness can come from hurting those you love. I know this from personal experience. I love my husband. I am not sure we are right for each other for the rest of our lives, but I love him as a person. What I have done in the past has never made me feel good, and it sure as hell hasn’t brought me happiness. Maybe fleeting moments of joy, but not real happiness. It has brought me anguish, shame, despair, and crippling depression.  I am worried about my friend. I am worried she is going to get crushed. Then, there are moments when I can’t help but wonder if she was also pulling the wool over my eyes. Is she like this? Did I not see it? Is she selfish?  Is she just as shitty as this guy? Do they actually deserve each other? 

My relationship with my husband is weird. He has been dishonest with me in the past as well in regards to feelings for others.  He and I have our own complicated shit to work on. We have been together almost nineteen years. Our shit is our shit. This craziness with my friend is not something I have ever experienced.  There are times when I catch myself questioning whether or not I have the right to be mad, but dammit, I fucking do. Friendships and romantic relationships are two different animals. They follow different sets of rules. Similar rules, but still different.   

**this post brought to you by tequila and whiskey.**