Cheating is Self-Care…
It is not unusual to see someone sharing intrigue with any person while they shadow another life with a mere commitment. There’s a saying that rings situations like this,
“Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
While a couple may initially share identical whereabouts and thoughts, it is not mistaken to say that these related individuals soon change into sharing a life so different after getting cheated on or after cheating that the parties they attended, the friends they had, and even the family they love, get on the brink of choosing one over another.
Ironically, people and situations push against us when we let go of things and live without paying attention to other’s thoughts. To indemnify, cheaters change; in fact, they are an expensive example of prioritizing yourself and not getting attached to the past to live in the present. It is not a shuffle of thoughts or days or agendas that make somebody a cheater, but a companionship that these brains pity after a certain time and arguments that lead them to cheat.
Too complex when I put sentences without an example, knowing which, I will elaborate through a story of my dear neighbor.
Marguets have a beautiful apartment, greeting and sarcastic as if they are natural, but a state of tension can often be seen between the couple in their late twenties with a beautiful daughter when they interact with each other for small things. By no means I’m saying that they do not love each other. On the contrary, Eugène, a handsome 27-year-old with a flourishing business and a beloved nature, still sees Julia with the eyes of a 7-year-old. The other week, when we arrived at their place, Eugène, who wore a polo and casual pants, called Julia and shook subtly, showcasing how he still presents himself handsomely to her. Julia, on the other hand, greeted us while paying no attention to her husband, which made Eugène take a backstep. The girl who loves her husband in her own way is shy of him because of the argument both are having about the husband shipping himself for three months to Ukraine in an attempt to enlarge his business activities in the war-hit region.
Eugène is not pleased with his business growth and sees international regions with troubles as a nice opportunity, knowing the lesser competition and almost similar demands. On the other hand, Julia is unaware of this fact and keeps being strictly aware that this can lead to tensions that she doesn’t want to invite. The region is unstable, she argues, and he should go to any other country.
The conversation has been taking place for a few months, and I have only recently discovered that Julia is seeing another man in a flirtatious but unromantic way. Paris is a city of experiences and too large but gets confided by people of similar tastes. When I saw Julia that day, she resisted interactions and smiled from a distance. Something was not right, I knew, and the instance in itself may feel as if Julia is the one cheating on Eugène.
In my perspective, the Marguets are influenced by their choices, almost blind to the attention and the desires they want to fulfill. I am sure Eugène will move to Ukraine, and Julia might continue seeing this guy or perhaps another, but the love they both share will remain unchanged. If Eugène finds out about Julia, circumstances will change, and we will blame the latter for her choices, but only if we let ourselves be impartial and understand that cheating is not only physical but mental as well.
Julia is right about her disagreement with Eugène’s move to Ukraine. The latter does not want to think what would happen to his pretty family if a life-threatening instance hit him, but Julia understands that and does not want to directly convey this, knowing how even speaking of it frightens her.
As brash as it may sound, a marriage is a contract. We are bound by vows that are not supposed to be broken, and when they do, it is a relationship we lived in the past and attempt to live by for no gains in the present, damaging both ourselves and the other each bit every day.
Knowing how Julia is getting cheated on mentally, it is only falsely opinionated for us to treat her as the wrong character if she moves ahead.
As Leo Tolstoy says,
“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
In the end, a person is a cheater if he is born with the desire to take advantage of others without facing any mental or physical torture on their own. But who are we to judge if we are only the viewers with no backstory?
