Cheaters never win or prosper. Or do they? Those are especially pointed questions when it comes to matter of the heart. Being in a relationship is difficult. Just because you love someone doesn't mean the devil still isn't beguiling. We're not perfect. I love vodka, but I don't pretend rum isn't out there. I just have to commit to not imbibing. ;)
Redditor u/tofuandvegantendies wanted to see who was willing to discuss the times they've strayed from the path of righteousness in relationships by asking... [Serious] People who had an affair and got away with it: what's your story? Do you feel any guilt?I've had several serious relationships in my time. I've cheated on a few, I've been cheated on and I've been the person who was cheated with. And although it felt good in the moment, the aftermath always left me feeling shame. Because I knew I was better than that. Who can relate?
Sorry
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I have cheated on My now Ex-girlfriend and got away with it obviously because it was a long-distance relationship. And I did it with my now ex-best friend (M) and I was 17 and I do feel guilty because it's not fair to cheat at all under any circumstances. I'm never doing it again and it never occurred to me that I'm doing anything wrong which is horrible. My heart goes out the people who are being cheated on I'm sorry.
In the Sunken Place
I met a beautiful young(er) woman online and we immediately hit it off.
In the time leading up to our first date, she was super excited about hanging out/fooling around with a "Dilf"/"Dad" (I'm single/no kids. I just look sad, old, and defeated), whereas I was super excited that I met someone beautiful/funny and that they were crazy excited to spend time with ME! (Shock, I know).
When we finally met, our hangout essentially dissolved into an affectionate, sloppy, naked, mess, to which my new "friend" decided to share that she had long-term BF/Fiance . -_-
At that point, my feeling could only be described as the sunken place from Get Out, where my psyche felt like it was sinking into a black hole of disappointment while I was watching my body/mind interact with this person.
I couldn't enjoy our time after that, and I felt numb to her affections. So the guilt was immediate. I think the feeling that I struggled with/ate away at me the most is knowing that the entire time leading up to this, I was upfront with my interests and intent (LTR) and that I spent all this emotional energy getting exciting/happy about meeting a potential partner, and then having to reconcile how everything was pretty much bull.
Eggs in the basket...
I was in a cycle of serial cheating for the majority of my dating life. I dated many, many people, but only one boyfriend ever found out about my infidelity (and promptly dumped me).
I compartmentalized every relationship and fooled myself into thinking I was doing it to avoid "putting all my eggs in one basket." In reality, it was because I never felt satisfied with the amount of validation and attention I received. I made impulse decisions and submerged myself into relationships, because self-introspection was too scary.
When I went off prozac two years ago, the truth of what I was and had been doing to myself and others hit me smack in the face. I was consumed by guilt and self-hatred and vowed to change my ways. I've kept that vow.
I currently have a serious boyfriend, and he is my first monogamous relationship. I'm in therapy, on appropriate medication, and have cut off toxic influences. I'm working through my traumas. I no longer talk to any of the people I cheated on, but I wish them the best.
Six Months In...
The affair was with me. She was an older married woman in her early 40's, and I was single and 27. We flirted for months in person and text, but I didn't think anything would come of it. Then it did for a year and a half. She tried to break it off twice out of guilt, and I completely understood, but within a week we were back in bed together. Third time was a charm, apparently.
Guilt?
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I wasn't the one who had an affair. She was the one that had an affair with me.
I had broken up with her officially but remained as friends with benefits. Our affair ended for good when she went public with her boyfriend now husband. I only found out later on how bad of a situation it was. Guilt? Yes, it ate me up for several years. I was unwillingly the other guy, Not once but twice, with two different women.
So it's not just me. I have to admit, I feel pangs of guilt now because... some of those stories are hot. They just are. That's why it's important to think about the consequences that will follow. For instance...
Be Alone
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Yes. Cheated once in my life. Was in the end of a long relationship that was to weak to end. So I cheated.
She didn't even notice even to I started to act weird. Didn't feel fair the either my SO or the person I was cheating on. So I ended the relationship and a couple of weeks later ended it with the person I cheated with. Kinda figured I needed to be single.
Poor Guy
The guy was in a toxic relationship with a girl who pressured him to put a ring on her straight out of high school. She was an absolute witch to him and refused to get a job citing mental health issues while he was working his butt off trying to support the two of them.
I met him online and we hit it off really well. I knew enough about the situation with his fiancee to constantly pressure him to just cut it off with her.
He wouldn't cut it off but the two of us graduated to friends with benefits for awhile before toning it back down. I have 0 remorse for the affair.
Later I got married and a little after that he finally broke it off with his fiancee and moved in with a new girl who actually treats him like an equal. I'm happy with the outcome.
I Loved Her
I was 28. My girlfriend and I were long distance. She in TN, me in MA. I met a girl online and we talked. She ended up coming over 1 weekend and we had sex. I never told her I had a GF. She did have a BF. He found out and broke up with her after.
A week later I confessed to her. She stayed with me. 2 weeks later I broke up with her and broke her heart. For 8 years I was still in love with her.
I didn't want to date anyone else.
About 10 years or so ago I told her yet again that I was sorry for what happened. This was a decade after it happened. She forgave me.
I've never cheated on a relationship since.
But wait... it gets worse...
My brother in law is engaged and has three kids, he had three affairs, real messy when it came out, three times we had to take the kids to keep them safe, three times we had to support my sister, three times the police came out.
They're still together in an unhappy relationship, He had his affairs when working away from home... guess where he is now?
100% that guy doesn't feel guilty and is peed with us because we have denounced him as a family and refuse to let him into our homes after everything he's done, to my sister and his kids, and the poor girl he had the affair with.
if I told the full story, I'd have to stop thirty times to say 'but wait, it gets worse'
He had affairs during covid, one of his kids is extremely vulnerable, he wrote the girl love letters blaming my sister, he broke all his bail conditions stating he has to stay away from my sister, the affair only ended because the girl broke it off with him, he still continued to pursue, promising he can change, that he wants her... he's such a toxic person... theres so much more...
He 100% got away with it all.
Forget You
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Someone I met up with was cheating on her husband with me.
I felt horrible for him as she was talking crapabout her husband. Like that's all my worth was to her was basically a "freak you" to him.
Cheaters never prosper, we've circled back. In the end, it's better to just be honest. Usually cheating is a red flag that means something bigger is wrong in the relationship. Start looking there. And remember... think first! Consequences abound.
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"What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?"
The minds of really smart individuals never stop working.
Resourcefulness
"They draw wisdom from multiple sources. Wait but that might be more wise than intelligent... But I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot."
– Puzzlehead-Engineer
Inquisitive Minds
"They are curious about everything."
"To be intelligent you need to be knowledgeable and you cant be knowledgeable if you are never curious."
– soup54461
The way highly intelligent people interact with others is slightly different.
Social Adaptability
"They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they're talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person's language of understanding."
– Wynonna99
Talking On Level Ground
"Talking to people as if they're intelligent at their level and without being condescending or even letting on that it's lower than their level."
"I used to work with a doctor - Tom Howard - and the day I realized he was a genius was the time he guessed every single condition a patient of mine had based on minute piece of information about him."
– Yoodei_Mon
The Humble Professor
"No joke. The smartest professor I had in engineering school was also the most humble. She was an astounding human being. By week 2, she knew everyone's names by heart in the intro engineering course. In College. With like 180 students. Later, in upper division classes, people would occasionally ask some really stupid questions."
"Like, it happens... you get so deep into some fluid mechanics derivation or something you forget something really basic. People would ask a question like this and everyone would be thinking like; 'Wow, how did you even make it this far?' but then... it's like she would spot the flaw in their understanding so perfectly, and then respond with such clarity and wisdom that the person asking the question would look less stupid and the whole class would be enlightened."
"And here's the thing... I pride myself on being really good at that exact skill. I tutored a lot of people. I was easily one of the brightest amongst my peers. But that woman was on another level. It was mind-blowing."
"And it wasn't just her intelligence, but her organizational skills, discipline, consistency.... And yet... she was so humble. She was quiet and physically quite small. But she just exuded competence and immediately commanded every room she walked into. I've never seen anything quite like it."
– EngineeringNeverEnds
A Positive Effect
"When they explain something they make you feel intelligent."
– gwoshmi
When In Doubt
"They know when their knowledge ends and say something to the extent of 'I don't know and anything else i say on this topic is ignorant speculation.'"
–blutoboy
Some with impressive IQs may deal with questions in the following ways.
Reaction To Delayed Responses
"'You really think about everything don't you?' - a doctor, to me, after he asked me a question and I took longer than 2 seconds to answer it."
"No, I just pull something out of my @ss every time and those extra seconds you waited for me to answer were purely to irritate you for my own enjoyment."
– Imakegoatnoises
The Really Good Questions
"They can ask really good questions."
"Edit: to anyone not understanding what mean, I’m talking about people who ask 'really good questions,' not just any questions, really good ones. I don’t know how one would achieve this skill(I know I haven’t)."
– milkmanbran
Taking Pause
"They spend time thinking before asking a question."
– ParkMan73
"Some of the smartest people don’t comment at all."
– metric-poet
I agree with many of the comments saying a really intelligent person knows how to cater the conversation towards another person's level of understanding.
They do have the impressive skill to convey something in a way that can easily be understood. Some of the most venerated professors at my university were like this, and their classes were always the hardest to get in to.
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I'm on the fence about high school. I want to hate it, but nostalgia haunts me. I saw a lot of violence, there is that.
We were on CNN.
don lemon nodding GIF by Red Table TalkGiphy"They started charging us for ketchup in the cafeteria. Most of the school boycotted cafeteria lunch and brought all manner of condiments from home. We were on CNN. They eventually caved." ~ Ash3Monti
No one liked him.
"I was big into drama club and musical theatre when I was in high school. There was a girl in the drama club in her freshmen or sophomore year who was super nice and everyone loved her. Her older brother on the the other hand, was a complete and total douchebag. No one liked him."
"He always made inappropriate comments or jokes and no one liked to be around him. One night, he was driving him and his sister back from school when he took a steep curve going around 100 mph. He lost control and hit a telephone pole. His sister died instantly and he was in a coma for a few weeks but ultimately survived."
"Myself and my friends in the drama club were devastated. She was one of the sweetest girls you'll ever met and we all loved her. A year or two later, the brother messages my sister and tries to use his sister's death as leverage to get laid. F**k you, you piece of crap." ~ FearTheKeflex
Bribes
"Guidance counselor was taking bribes to change grades (Both money and sexual favors). Invited one male student over to his house. Had the student tie him up and hang him by chains in his basement "dungeon." Student was homophobic and while the counselor was tied up, bludgeoned him to death." ~ monthos
H2O Issues...
"This is not that extreme, but it's still disgusting. We have drinking water taps instead of fountains. One parent was suspicious of whether they were cleaning the tanks or not. So they made an announcement that the tank was being cleaned every single day."
"A lot of us didn't believe it, so a group of boys decided to see for themselves if it was true or not. So they put a dead frog in the tank when there was no one around. I don't even know where they found the frog but they swear they didn't kill it. Anyway the frog was there for a few weeks. And obviously the water started tasting weird."
"After the teachers got multiple complaints, they opened the tank and found the frog. The boys were punished, but they fired back with the fact that they lied about cleaning the tanks. They were still punished, because they proved it in a disgusting way. They could've put literally anything in the tank, but they chose a dead frog." ~ R00mTemperature
The Quad
Acds2 Look Away GIF by Anime Crimes DivisionGiphy"A worker doing stuff on the roof. He fell off. Landed in the 'quad' at lunch. A large piece of machinery fell and squished his head. Like a cartoon, only funny. Like 150 Kids saw this." ~ LordInventus
Threats
"The Latin kings gang threatened my cousin and his friends and they had 10 squad cars guarding the whole school and dismissed us the same day early." ~ Terrykrinkle
“it’s gonna blow”
"I had just moved in from Egypt to the states in my senior year of high school. A teacher thought it would be funny to fold a bunch of papers and wrap them in duck tape to make it look like a bomb and threw it my direction and went under his desk saying 'it’s gonna blow.' Everybody started laughing and I was so clueless then I just laughed along. It infuriates me to this day that I didn’t call him out on it or report him." ~ ezzabousaif
Go Fish
"Someone somehow made a bomb threat on a Swedish fish candy. Like one single piece. I don’t know how it happened but he got arrested." ~ ts_13_
Masternid
"A couple weeks before graduation, this kid hacked into the school system and put a Hitler quote and a Boston bomber reference in the senior quotes for the yearbook. One of the affected parties was a trans girl, and we're still not sure if it was a targeted act because of that."
"Administration didn't find out until the entire senior class had received their books. Some people turned theirs in to get their pages replaced, but some kept it because it was a 'limited edition item' or some stupid sh*t like that. Kid got arrested and charged with cybercrime, since he hacked everyone in our school system's school passwords."
"He was so close to graduating too, but got expelled like two weeks before he could. Looked like a rat too. It was all over the news, and everyone in the state of CT basically knows about this now. Got out on bail for $5000." ~ kocorpsie
Season 3 What GIF by On My Block"Apparently one student brought drugs to school and was selling it to her friends. A completely unrelated student caught on and stole the drugs while everyone else was in class. She was caught snorting the drugs in the bathroom by the group selling the drugs and got the crap beat out of her."
"We also had a recently graduated student murder his parents for insurance money . He hid the bodies in a chicken coop and told everybody they were on vacation. It wasn't until 7 months later the bodies were found by the landlord because the rent was late." ~ randomgenericcow
Enjoy high school, at least try too. Maybe if more kids do that, it wouldn't be so insane.
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