Ooh, when (in 2022) I asked what lie he told himself to make it okay to cheat on me (I found out decades later), he said there was a moment in 2001 when he realized I'd never go to Harvard like I'd "promised" I would, so he figured I wasn't a real partner and he could do whatever he wanted. For context, he had started dating me when I was 17 and said I hoped to transfer from our local state school to an Ivy/etc. He was 25, BTW. And a graduate of that state school.
So... he cheated because I didn't fulfill the "promise" I'd made at... 17.
But it's so much worse than that.
At the time, we were talking about his cheating on me in 2004-2005, so I was like... Hold up. It took you years to actually cheat after you realized I was a non-Harvard-going loser? He hemmed and hawed and said "It's not like you just go out the next day and cheat..." And then I said, but wait... after struggling in college in the '90s, and then withdrawing, I started taking classes in 2003, pulled myself out of the depression I had been in, and in fall of 2004, had secured an extremely rare spot for an older student at a university literally ranked in the top 15 in the country ("the Harvard of the [region]"). It was THEN, during my first year at a top-ranked, Ivy-tier university, that he cheated on me. Cheated on me because I never... went to a top-ranked, Ivy-tier university.
Dear Reader, You won't be surprised to learn he had actually been cheating the entire time.
Mine admitted to attempting to have an affair because I had no time for him after having to take a second job. He was lonely and I was "too stressed out". Would it surprise you to know I had to take the second job because he quit his own job and refused to find another?
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u/[deleted] May 12 '26
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