They posted an article from IHEARTINTELLIGENCE.com titled ‘If you cheat on someone, then NO, you do not love them,’ with their own description alongside of it saying, “True love never involves cheating. It's time to stop lying to yourself, and admit the truth.” Naturally, tons of people commented claiming things from agreeing with the article, to disagreeing with it, all while many (I repeat, MANY) individuals that we live alongside of on this earth attempted to justify the act of cheating, unfaithfulness, and infidelity for more reasons than I care to count.
After stating my opinion on the matter over people trying to justify it, as well as over the idea and fact that if you cheat then you do not love that person that you are cheating on (along with an in-depth explanation about this for a certain person who could not seem to grasp the idea), I received a response from another individual claiming that it’s not simply black and white like that, and that cheating, unfaithfulness, and infidelity does not necessarily depict a person’s lack of love for their partner - blah, blah, blah. Surprisingly, she was kind within her response, which I do sincerely appreciate. It’s laughably become rare when people on social networking sites (or the internet, period) don’t have some sort of superiority complex and actually speak to you with consideration. Especially when they are disagreeing. But despite all of that and her kind nature, ultimately, when we come down to the core of it, she still is wrong – plain and simple.
I felt that I would share this in the hopes that it is able to reach anyone who has never been able to understand (or even begin to comprehend) the aspects of dedicated and devoted emotions that come naturally with an incorruptible love. As well as to act as a reminder to all of those out there who do understand it and live by it in real-time every day that you are not alone, and to keep that brilliant mind of yours confident and at ease in your efforts. Moral intelligence naturally brings with it responsibility, and moral responsibility can be exhausting – sometimes uncontrollably exhausting. And more times than not, we are not awarded for the efforts behind it. I’ve learned to accept this and have made peace with the idea that acting on moral intelligence does not automatically warrant us the same in return, because no matter who you are, the world will not just give that to you. No matter your stance on the subject of cheating, if there is any lesson that we can all probably agree that we have learned in this place, it is that not everyone can or will act fairly, accordingly, or decently towards us – even if we have acted that way towards them. With that being said, it creates gray areas for good people to turn bad. It creates empty trails and paths for souls to wander off in during their times of darkness that lead to voids and places that they will never be able to come back from. We are all broken in one way or another; some are more broken that others. And the emptiness that comes along with these more severe cases is insatiable, and these people will lead you into emotionally terrible places with terrible outcomes in a vain effort to fix themselves. The ending result? Distortion in that misled person’s morality. Fortunately for me, I have always found comfort in helping others, even if it’s at a fraction’s worth of .01%. So through learning my place and realizing the fact that simple, moral intelligence and moral actions do not deserve awards (for merely acting how I should have in the first place), I have been able to constantly remember why it is worth it to stand out in a crowd with all eyes on me, standing up for what I know is right in regards to a subject such as cheating: Because I will always remember the worth of being a lighthouse for those who are lost – even if that light shines briefly and momentarily for them. I would rather be a signal pointing them in the right direction as opposed to the dark taking them where they are not meant to go, and if needed, a place to stay to temporarily escape their storms. For those of you out there living this too, be proud of yourself that you are strong enough to own this intelligence and to stand beside it and to fight for it. If there is anything to be proud of in this day and age, it’s that.
So this is what I had to think about it all as a whole, and this is what I had to say about the subject. Here is my response to her, word-for-word, as well as to the rest of them. This is what love is, and why cheating does not equal it:
“At this point, this pisses me right off too, David. I’ve got a lot to say about this. Hopefully no one complains about the length of it. We are on a page titled ‘Intelligence is Sexy.’ A little reading shouldn’t deter anyone if that’s the truth about how they feel.
Stefanie, first thing is first: I will never “jump on you” or anyone else that has the decency to reply with the underlying respect that your message carries, despite our differing views. I see it, I recognize it, and I appreciate it, sincerely. Don’t doubt that. I don’t like to take part in the typical internet ‘slug-fest’ mindset that most people resort to or choose to take from the start, so thank you for having the decency to do the same and share your opinion gracefully.
To start, I’m truly sorry about your misfortunes with your husband and the relationship that you and he had, and I’m especially sorry for the lack of relationship that you ended up having in the end. I’m sorry for his trials that took him to that state as well - there are some pains in this life that are so great that they just do not have a timeline, and they never completely fade, and some even hardly fade at all (although it does not, and never will excuse his resulting behavior). What you went through and consequently still feel to a degree is without a doubt, an absolutely horrible thing for anyone to have to endure, and I hate the idea that you, or any other undeserving individuals, has already had to and/or may have to go through it in the future, and my heart goes out to you for that. Holding out for ten years is a very long time, and a very, very commendable thing. There aren’t many people in this world that have formed a love so strong that incredible patience and devotion like that grows alongside of it as well. Props to you, girl. But I have to be honest: And as much as I hate to say it although I could be (and hopefully for your sake are) wrong, it sounds like its left you feeling empty, like it would to anyone in their right mind. As it naturally would to me and any others, it sounds like it left you feeling like you were lesser and inadequate; like you weren’t enough, like you didn’t do enough, like you didn’t try hard enough, and perhaps like you still aren’t enough. Like you didn’t know how to say the things that he needed to hear when you always could find the words before, like the emotions inside of you weren’t strong enough or mattered enough to reach him or shake him or change him like they always could before. Like your attempts only bounced off of a shell that used to welcome everything that you had to say and everything that ran through your mind, who also strived to provide you comfort and a sense of belonging and safety. Like your heart simply lost its validation, its meaning, its power, and its importance towards him. And ultimately, like you just didn’t know how to save the relationship which was something that was so strong and ran so deep into your soul, that you never imagined that it would need ‘saving.’ All of this and more, despite your devotion and an endless amount of love that could fill the sky and the oceans. And if it truly played out the way that you described it, well then all that I have to say to that is, simply put, despite the hindrances that may place themselves between you truly believing it – the reality to the situation is that you were enough, and you still are enough; you did enough, and you loved enough. You knew what to say, he just forgot how to hear it, and why he needed to. Your love didn’t lose its meaning, he just regressed and no longer could honor it like you deserved. Your attempts weren’t in vain, there is just no way that he could have provided you that comfort of acknowledgement of wanting to change if he couldn’t even provide it to himself – just like loving someone else correctly requires loving yourself correctly. Your heart didn’t lose its validation, he lost his ability to see it cry out; it didn’t lose its importance, he forced indifference and just rejected it every time it faced him. You knew how to save your relationship - it requires patience, understanding, compassion, and effort just like you applied - he just didn’t know how to save himself, let alone what you and he had. A man that is truly ready, correctly devoted, and wise and educated enough to maintain a lasting relationship will not push away who he loves as his partner just because he’s lost someone else that was close to him. You were his safety net, not this disposable thing to walk all over simply because he found himself in pain, and I’m sorry that he treated you that way. His foundation was faulty, so what you built together in time, collapsed.
I’ll briefly digress here with a bit of a rant that is not specifically directed at you, especially its underlying frustration: My stepfather and biggest father figure committed suicide when I was fifteen years old; forward, I know, but there is a point to bringing it up. Simply put, he put me on the path to be who I am today. If he upset my mother, he sat down with me at the edge of my bed before I went to sleep for the night and apologized to me for upsetting her. After all, she was my mother, so if it upset her, it upset me too. He would explain why what he did and/or said hurt her, why it would hurt other women, why it was wrong, and why I should never be that way, or act ungracefully in those manners. And if I slip up and do that, that it was my duty to regain my footing, to act like the man that I am supposed to be and to recognize my wrong doings, make peace with the fact that I will convictively not do it again, look that woman in the eyes, and apologize sincerely to her because anything less would be nothing but unfair to her; I was taught to fix something if I broke it. I was taught to do your best to communicate with her and ensure that that woman does not walk away from you until she is reassured in your love for her and your respect for her and your relationship.
He would sit down with me and tell me stories about his former dreams and goals, places he wanted to go, mountains he dreamed to climb, rivers he wished to one day fish, parts of the US that he longed to camp in, the space shuttle that he dreamed to be in one day as it left this Earth. When he spoke about it all, his eyes were as wide as I ever remember them being aside from when my mother was in his line of sight, and he spoke with such excitement that his optimism was contagious, and I could hardly fall asleep after he left because it left me so excited for my next day in my life. One night, his demeanor shifted, and he began a story about how a coworker of his at the Space Center returned from vacation and then employment leave after he went off to climb some mountain somewhere in the world. The trip took an unfortunate turn and his coworker returned having lost a few fingers from frostbite, while suffering some other issues trying to scale that mountain, along with enduring moments where he questioned if he would make it back or not. When my stepdad asked him why he wanted to go in the first place, the coworker replied that it was a dream of his. He explained how he had always wanted to go and that climbing was a long-time passion of his. So my stepdad accepted the answer and didn’t pry because he didn’t want to overstep his boundaries, but he said that his coworker continued on, “I don’t know why though.” Puzzled, my stepdad said that he asked him what exactly he meant. He continued and explained that, “Nothing that he needed was there.” That he had spent so many years pursuing his passion for climbing that he displaced it from where it really belonged in his life’s prioritized list. That he left and went there to be challenged and to win, and came back defeated and having lost. That he came back wondering why in the world he felt that he needed to do that, when everything that he wanted and truly needed was at home – his wife, his children, and his life. He spent years already pursuing his passion, and he knew the risks of what he was doing, but didn’t apply the critical thinking to ask himself what might happen if those risks became a personal reality. He left thinking that he would return unscathed and on top of the world, but that wasn’t the case for him – he came home bruised and broken. He came home and suddenly his hands didn’t fit into his wife’s like they used to, or his kids’ like they used to. He couldn’t pick his youngest up without pain shooting throughout. Throwing things, like a football, now had extreme limitations. He questioned his career’s future because of the hindrances that he now faced, and ultimately, his families peace and well-being. He was convinced that his wife looked at him differently, even if she didn’t. He felt that he became more of a burden to her, and to his children, because at times he needed help with simple tasks when he never did before. He felt that he put something so miniscule in comparison to his family before that family, and although he understood personal dreams and goals, he simply just took a risk that was no longer worth taking. He would rather not have scaled ten more feet of that mountain, but just held his child even ten more seconds without the physical pain that it caused. He would rather not have spent hours celebrating reaching the top, but hours just holding his wife the way that he used to be able to, while she looked at him all of the ways that he swore she used to. He would rather not have said to them, “I love you, and I’ll see you soon,” but rather, “I’m not going anywhere,” instead. My stepfather looked at me and told me that there are some things in this life that are better than anything that you can dream up for yourself; things that easily conquer any selfish wants or dreams that we have for ourselves, and that these things are meant to be recognized and protected if we’re lucky enough to find them. And that man looked at me and told me that that is exactly what he found in my mother, and her three children, and he proved it every, single, day. His love for her, and her love for him, is unrivaled by anything I’ve ever seen.
Ultimately and years down the road, we learned the hard way how much that he loved to a fault, and it became the death of him. Was it selfish of him? Yes. Contradictive? Not with his reasoning. Can I understand or at least comprehend why? Yes, and I’ve forgiven him. Loving someone else so deeply requires a greater and deeper love and care for yourself, otherwise the potential damages of it may cause you to feel so irrelevant that your mind becomes toxic towards itself. Where most people only witness or experience a short-handed love, I was fortunate enough to witness an over-extending one in my outrageously influenceable years instead, as well as through my grandparent’s relationship. And through that man’s death, I learned that, and through his mistakes, I learned the balance to keep myself from making a similar one.
The point is, I did not learn from a boy that was weak enough to stray and find himself in another woman’s bed when he also found himself mentally and emotionally unstable. Instead, I learned from a man that was strong enough to love one woman out of all of the others in this world so intensively and with the purest conviction, that all of those other women hardly and barely even existed to him; he acknowledged their placement in the world and interacted accordingly, but that was it. As for my mother, she lived that devotion just as fiercely and fearlessly as he did. And THAT: THAT right there - THAT is love. It is incorruptible, it is indomitable, it is selfless, and it is unbreakable towards unfaithfulness.
People’s personal definitions of love are SO overly weak this day and age, just like Jason ******* stated. People tell themselves that they ‘love you’ because they can’t get you off of their mind, because you make them smile, because you make them happy, because they miss you, etc. etc. They think they love you because they simply want to be with you, because they want you, because they feel different about you than most, because you’re not like what they’re used to, so on and so forth. So many people even ‘love you’ simply for the potential that they see with you, as well as so many other faulty reasons. That is not love in its true, uncorrupted form. That is nothing but a childish way to view it. In its true, uncorrupted form, there is no hesitation if you question yourself about your own faithfulness and devotion. You do not doubt either of those either, not for a fraction of a second. It is not a crush-like obsession; it is a confident, selfless, lasting, and empathetic devotion. It is a willingness to defend what you have and the heart to never desire to betray it. It is the relief that you feel when you look into that person’s eyes and soul, and absolutely nothing about it is terrifying like it is in so many others. It is the understanding that remaining loyal and faithful comes with the easiest of efforts, because the power and validity behind your love makes it impossible to see anyone else in the same way and in the same light as you see your partner. Most people won’t agree with this, why? Because most people have not experienced it, and sadly, so many of them never will. They allow it to remain illusive to themselves by disbelieving in it as opposed to bringing it to life by their own actions. So many people will reply with impatience and prematurity because they think that they’ll be waiting forever to find something like that, as opposed to responding with patience, understanding, self-respect, and self-love, and refusing to give themselves to someone that just doesn’t deserve them, and having the courage and bravery to wait for someone that does. I have seen far too many corrupted loves do their damage on far too many beautiful souls to ever begin to allow myself to condone it. I even watched my mother’s heart, soul, and will break time and time again by my real father’s hand while I was young, without ever knowing what to do, what to say, or how to help her. At this point, all that I can do is be is decent enough for her to learn from her’s and other human-beings pain, as well as mine own in my years. And I will tell you this: I will never be the reason that a woman feels so destroyed. I have had every opportunity to make the wrong choice in my very few, but lengthy relationships, and every time I made the right one – no matter how the woman that I loved made me feel. That lack of grace that leads to unfaithfulness is at the fault only of the person that carries it out - no one else. Your responsibility is solely yours; the person that looks back at you in the mirror - no one else. And before anyone lets the thought enter their mind: No, I am not some unreasonable individual that conceitedly, arrogantly, and falsely holds himself higher. I am not looking down on anyone with condescension. I am a normal, caring man in this world. I am not breaking boundaries by showing common care, common courtesy, and common respect. And that sadly puts the world’s moral and ethical degradation into perspective, and how widely that it has been accepted.
So, to now redirect this whole message back in your direction Stefanie, after all of that, I ask you this: Are you sure that after ten years of that emotional and mental abuse that you suffered, you still loved that man the same when it came to your point of unfaithfulness? Are you sure that you loved him – who he became – still? That angry, lazy drunk that wouldn’t hear you, or anyone else out? I’m willing to bet not. I think at that point, you loved who he was and had been before. If you had loved him the same, the fire behind your devotion and willingness to remain faithful and to protect him would have been as intense as it was during the peak of your relationship; especially if you had witnessed him, the man that you believe you still loved so deeply, hurting so badly. Granted that our tolerance towards our mistreatment as humans naturally drops with time, love is what refuels those tolerances when we make mistakes towards the ones that we truly care about, as long as they reciprocate. Your fault is the unfaithfulness, but his fault is that he allowed the relationship to die. Realistically, how could you love that person who allowed that to happen after ten years?
Cheating IS black and white. The answer is no, I will not cheat because I am unshakably devoted to who I love (because I truly love them), or yes, I will act unfaithfully because I am not devoted to them, because I do not truly love them. People typically refuse or have the inability to realize that either they never did, or that they simply stopped loving that other person at some point. There are plenty of people here, as well as on other posts, that have and still try to defend cheating and unfaithfulness towards monogamous relationships. And even if they’re just trying to condone it for whatever reason like you’re stating, they still are not taking a stance against it. This is the biggest problem with the subject. If you truly know that it’s wrong, you will not let it tower over you and you will find no justification within it. I stand by that unshakably. And anyone that tries to move me on that is simply wasting their time and effort. Would you rather be with someone who see’s cheating as a dismissible thing, or would you rather be with someone who would never put you through it to begin with? Unfaithfulness is devastating and purely selfish. I don’t want to hear anymore from anyone else how something like that should be allowed, overlooked, and condoned in this world, when this world would be a much, much better place without it.”
Enough said.
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