Cheating

cheating isn’t ok. the cheating wasn’t my fault or my responsibility. taking a break was the decision i made and getting back together was another decision i made and just because it didn’t work out doesn’t make it a bad decision or the wrong one. because it happened the way it did and i can’t change that. breaking up with him when i did wasn’t a mistake. it felt so right and necessary even though it came out of a place of feeling horrible. i didn’t owe him anything besides honesty. there wasn’t someone else and it really hurt me and bothered me when he asked that, and that’s okay and that was a valid feeling. there doesn’t need to be someone else for you to stop wanting to be with a person. and cheating isn’t ok. i might have let that ruin me for a bit, but not any more, ok? i couldn’t figure out how to process it without shouting at everyone i saw. maybe i’m still working on it. and hearing people talk about cheating makes me worried. i keep thinking that maybe i’ll get to a point where i’m too old for it. but that’s ridiculous and maybe also implies that i believe in some antiquated biological shit. and i don’t think i do. he hurt me. and i don’t think i dealt with that. he hurt me. and then things fell apart. and goddamn yeah, part of it was the tiredness and the emails and the letters and the boxes of stupid stuff that i sent him and yeah, the anger of it always being HIS time. taking time to sit down and open skype when my roommate got dressed up in her red red lips and her sweet perfume and went out into the tuscan twilight. and listening to my friend talk about how his relationship was getting frustrating because they were too close and too much and you were so fucking far away and sleeping with girls who weren’t me. one, at least. maybe more since then. and the sex wasn’t ok. i mean, in the way it happened. we’re both at fault for that but honestly i blame you for a lot of it. i think it’s important for me to dissect it. the kissing was ok, mostly. except the first one. that was really horrible because it was cold and wet and i was really scared and i’d never properly kissed someone and i liked you a lot but you didn’t fucking ask first. and i don’t like that. i didn’t like it. and then i spent the night wondering why i’d felt so awful about it when i liked you and i read about kissing being nice and i had to pretend that i was happy because somehow all of my friends figured it out instantly. i didn’t mind a lot of the kissing, after that. i liked some of it a lot. i liked making out. i liked having clothes on. i didn’t feel comfortable with you taking off my bra the first few times you did it and somehow it happened anyway. that’s coercion and it’s not okay. i have some very vague recollections of you taking off my underwear. touching my vagina. maybe not in that order. it scared the shit out of me at first. and that was another thing where a non-verbal no became and non-verbal happening, which is not the same as a verbal yes. in the end, i liked you touching me – lots of times. but almost never the way it happened. and it makes me think, what if you felt the same way? and then i feel sick. probably because lots of times when i think about you touching me it makes me feel sick and then sicker that i could possibly have done that to somebody else, to you. i wonder if you think i thought about that. i never wanted to put your dick in my mouth. i’m really glad that you didn’t push that in any concrete way because i’d probably have ended up doing it and then being really upset. and also, you don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d think about wearing a condom for oral sex and i wouldn’t have fucking known because i didn’t know anything. i still need to have an sti/std test done. because you gave me unprotected oral sex, didn’t you? i don’t necessarily want you to feel badly about any of these things. unless you feel you should. but it’s at the point where none of these things are any of your business anymore. besides this: don’t cheat on any of your other partners. it’s shit. i remember when we were first kind of together and we were lying on this tiny couch together and i asked you if you’d ever cheated on anyone and it was so casual and off the cuff and you said no and maybe you’d even be cheated on? and now if anyone asks that, you’ll have to say yes. or lie. don’t lie. and don’t fucking do it again. and for the love of everything, ask before you do something – in bed, on the floor, wherever. any time you touch a partner intimately. just fucking get consent. i don’t sit here and think about what we did together and then think of words like assault. but maybe i could. i definitely think non-consensual. i think wrong silent gross uncomfortable shock. not breathing. sick. so. fucking get consent every time. even if she’s already your girlfriend.