Cheat-ees and Friends With Prosecco

by A Lady

So I recently was the cheat-ee in a relationship situation, the ‘one-time mistress,’ if you will. This dude and I met one night, hit it off, and spent the rest of the night together, which ended up with him inviting me into his bed — at which point the needle scratched as he told me we couldn’t sleep together because he had a girlfriend.

Some stuff did go down, however, not to the point of sex but pretty much all the way up to that, and so now I’m feeling a little guilty EVEN THOUGH he was the one to initiate the whole situation and I asked him repeatedly if he was sure about the whole situation. (Unsurprisingly, he was initially unsure, then very into it and insistent in the moment, then despondent afterwards.) I don’t really know him or his girlfriend that well, but there is a strong possibility I will be seeing them in our similar social circles in the future. I have no idea if he has told her (or anyone really).

I guess what I’m wondering is … how bad should I feel about this (given that I suppose it is ultimately between the two of them, but I did know beforehand that she existed) and how should I handle it if I ever see either of them (I really don’t need to “talk about it” with him, unless they ever break up, in which case I’d consider re-visiting it, but I also don’t really trust my facial/verbal expressions to handle it “correctly” — whatever that is — at the moment if I run into them)? Is there anything I should/shouldn’t be doing here?

Well, you’re right, he screwed up worse than you did. And it makes sense that you would be confused and not know the “correct” way to feel or act.

When it comes right down to it, though, there is no “correct.” I think it’s less about how you should feel about it, and more about how you do feel. To me, it sounds like you feel kind of terrible, but think that maybe you don’t really have anything to feel terrible about, but you still kind of do anyway?

People draw these lines in all kinds of places, and there are well-thought-out arguments for every position. What it comes down to is: Where do you want to draw that line? What kind of person do you want to be?

For my part — and others can feel free to disagree with me — I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and know I’ve done no harm, or at least as little harm as I can manage. Lord knows, we all make mistakes, and beating ourselves up about them is one of the most useless wastes of time ever … but one glorious thing about being a grown human being with the capacity for reflection and choice is that we can transmute our mistakes from shit to gold by allowing them to teach us stuff and make us better people.

So, listen to yourself closely here — go to a coffeeshop with your journal and think it through for a while. What are your emotions telling you about what went down? What did you like / not like about it? What does your future self want to do if faced with a similar scenario? If you reflect a bit, and get the “shoulds” out of the picture, you’ll come to some sort of resolution.

You are allowed to draw the line wherever you want, but you owe it to yourself to devote some time to figuring out where you think that line should be for you to feel good about yourself. Dilemmas like this are going to pop up throughout your life, and if you have to decide in the moment every single time, you’ll end up making decisions you don’t feel all that great about in hindsight. It’s far easier and better to come up with a general idea of the principles you want to stand by in life, and stand by them, and adjust as necessary.

One other thing to think about: You seem a lot more concerned with how he felt in the moment than with how you felt in the moment. I know he was unsure, then insistent, then despondent … but what was going on with you? What made you keep going, when it seems pretty clear that he was not fully into it the whole time? I’m not suggesting that you take responsibility for another person’s actions, not at all — just that you pay a lot more attention to what’s happening inside you on a moment-by-moment basis. I’m speaking from experience here — focusing too much on what someone else wants get a lady into some pretty spectacular scrapes.

When in doubt, just take a moment and check in with yourself. Because the important thing is what YOU want, how you feel, and who you want to be. The rest is pretty irrelevant.

And if you run into them, just be sweet. And quiet.

I’m 22 and just broke up with my college boyfriend, because now we live in different places and I don’t have the masochism to do long distance for the long term. But he’s my best friend and I’m in a brand-new city by myself and I’m SO LONELY, and it seems impossible not to keep talking, especially because we ended things on such a mutual/good basis. I’m still in the “giant ball of pain/sadness lodged under my sternum” phase of the breakup, and every time we talk (a couple times a week), I cry because I miss him! I’m still in love with him! But not talking is worse, but there’s no closure, but I don’t want closure, but I do want closure. Do we keep talking? Or do we have a couple months of doing absolutely our own thing? This is my first real breakup and I don’t know what to dooo. Also, remedies for intense loneliness and/or friend-making strategies are welcome.

Aw, that really totally absolutely sucks. Please don’t hate me, because I have to ask — are you super committed to this breakup? Like, is there no way to make it work? I’m sure you’ve thought long and hard about it, but I’m just putting it out there — long distance relationships do kind of suck, but they can also work just fine …

That being said, you didn’t ask me whether you should break up with this guy or not, you asked me what to do now that you have. And to answer that question, I’m going to have to pull out the Standard A Lady Breakup Advice here — you need to sever ties, at least for now.

You have discovered that you can’t really get closure, even if you were sure you want it, which you’re not … but, if you are clear that breaking up is the right thing to do, and you really do want to move on, it’s going to be nigh impossible to dissolve that ball of sadness in your chest if you keep talking to him and remembering how wonderful he is.

I know neither of you wants to do this, but if you explain to him why you need the radio silence for a bit, I bet he will understand and possibly even appreciate it. Because it can’t be easy on him either, constantly being reminded of how brilliant and sexy you are, right?

Once you’ve got the ground rules in the place — and I guess I’d suggest that you guys agree not to talk for two or three months at minimum — the next thing for you to do is treat yourself the way Supernanny treats a small child: DISTRACTION. Join a book club, go to the gym like a fiend, troll around Meetup.com for a group that looks at all interesting … basically live your life for a few months like you’re in a movie montage of what a girl does after a breakup. And don’t talk to him, at least for now.

I keep saying “at least for now,” because it sounds like he’s a person who can potentially be in your life in a positive way … in the future. Right now you need distance from him, and space to figure out what else your life is going to be about.

Once you do that, there’s no reason why you can’t circle back to each other in whatever way makes sense. But give yourself a little time to feel sad, then build something to take the place of this relationship.

I send you a big hug, by the way. If we lived in the same town I would totally get you drunk on prosecco and take you dancing, repeatedly. Hope you can find someone to do that for you very soon.

How do I explain feminism to my boyfriend without alienating him? He’s a smart, fair, open-minded guy, and I think he’d happily define himself as a feminist if he understood it better. It seems like every time we’re together there are opportunities for me to point out sexism etc. to him, and he tends to come away looking a little confused and offended. It’s as if he thinks I’m blaming him for what other men say, and that’s not at all what I’m trying to do. How can I educate him without being preachy/making him feel stupid?

First off let me say that I think you are awesome. Spotting sexist juiceboxes in the wild is a skill every person should have, followed closely by knowing how to throw a good solid punch without breaking your thumb.

And it’s only natural and right that you should want your fella to understand this perspective — you want him to have open eyes, too! Especially on this topic. I mean, if we ever want to find some way to organize ourselves that’s better than patriarchy, we all need to know what it is and how it affects us. So you are doing Womankind’s work here, and thanks for doing it.

I have a couple suggestions for conveying to your guy how important this is to you, and for opening up some conversation about it.

The first is to actually think about it in your mind as a conversation, not as something you’re teaching him. One of the best/craziest parts of being in a close relationship with someone is that you get to learn how they see the world — and usually it’s quite different than how you see it, which is thrilling, sometimes terrifying, and always totally educational for everyone involved … So maybe, instead of looking at this as you teaching him something he doesn’t know that you really think he should, I guess just try to share your thoughts and ideas and ask him about his. This way you BOTH get to learn.

You know that feminism is about a lot more than calling out sexist behavior … it’s about moving past patriarchy, which is a structure that limits us all, no matter where we fall in the gender spectrum. So that might be a good way into this with your boyfriend, too. For instance, how does HE feel limited by being a hetero male? What might be possible if we related to each other through structures of respect and listening rather than dominance and hierarchy?

One other thing: It can be really hard for people who have privilege in a certain culture to hear about the experiences of those with less privilege without shutting down and getting super defensive. (I know, I know, poor privileged people, having to suffer secondhand stories of horror from folks who have actually experienced said horror. Please just hear me out.) Sometimes getting in people’s faces about their –isms is totally necessary, but other times a more philosophical approach can make more of an impact, because it sidesteps some of that defensiveness and gets to the heart of the matter.

Which is that racism/sexism/all the –isms are more about oppressive structures than oppressive people. In my own case, when I look at racism as a collective structure rather than an individual sin, I can see that, simply by virtue of having grown up in a racist society, there is some of that in me. I never chose to have racism in my heart — hardly any of us do — but it’s the water we swim in and the cultural air we breathe. We need to be able to face that rather than deny it.

It takes a lot of courage, but when we are able to look our cultural conditioning right in the eye and see it for what it really is, that allows us to move past it and find new ways to be with each other. Like, when I catch myself thinking some kind of awful racist thought (which I hate to admit happens, but I need to admit if I’m going to be honest), I can stop and say to myself, “Whoa, that is nasty! Let me back up here!” And I can take a minute to make the choice to replace those awful conditioned thoughts with lots of light and space … and that’s how something new can emerge. Which is what it’s all about, right?

So, I don’t know for sure, but maybe your boyfriend is feeling like, “Well, hell, I didn’t do anything to anybody!” and that’s making him feel offended when you point out sexist stuff? Hard to say. But if you get the sense that that’s what’s happening, definitely think about this idea of structures rather than individuals. Because, honestly, growing up in this culture, we’re ALL capable of being sexist / racist / all kinds of -ist assholes sometimes. And each of us needs to own that and take responsibility for it if we’re ever going to have the chance to move past it.

Something you guys might like to talk about together is this article, which is a classic that explains privilege in a way that helps people who have it to start seeing they have it. It’s about white privilege; maybe you guys can talk about what some of the corollaries look like for male privilege. Like, a dude can walk down a street in a pair of shorts and not get stopped by the cops. Etc.

Hope any of this can help you guys get past defensiveness and cliche to have a real conversation.

Previously: Drama-Minimization and Bathroom Riddles.

A Lady is one of several rotating ladies who know everything. Do you have any questions for A Lady?

Illustration by Esther C. Werdiger