What I lost in the back seat of a taxi

A friend of ours was just cheated on. They'd been together for three years and she thought that they were madly in love. Since she found out (as these things inevitably do get found out--a stray text, a small world), he's been calling daily, filled with remorse. At the emergency girls night, reactions ranged from moral outrage to mutilation suggestions, but there was a definite consensus that she was Better Off Without Him. But later, alone, she confessed something to me she felt she couldn’t say to the army of girlfriends who had so powerfully come out in support of her: she didn't know if she wanted it to be over. Was she really Better Off Without Him?

Like cancer or depression, everyone knows someone who's been cheated on. The statistics, if Cleo magazine is to be believed, are horrifying--two thirds of men claim to have cheated on a partner at least once in their lives. That means that two out of every three guys you know have cheated or are cheating. Are you freaking kidding me?!

For me, it was the love of my life, or at least, I believed he was. The girl he cheated on me with was a mutual friend. She'd once sat on my couch, shared wine from my cellar, and eaten a home-cooked dinner at my table. She then went on to have sex with the love of my life in the back seat of a taxi.

He too, called me daily begging for forgiveness, bombarding me with flowers and texts. But aside from the numbing horror and heartache, I was overwhelmed with shame. The shame was twofold. First was the shame of being cheated on. Was I so awful, so repulsive and unlovable, that the love of my life would prefer to have sex with a random slut in the back seat of a taxi than come home to me? Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the two of them in that cab. But then there was also the truth that I, like my friend, wasn't sure I wanted it to be over. Unfaithful or not, I loved him.

When I finally took him back, I had to endure the outrage and warnings of everyone around me. I was made to feel like a fool for even considering forgiving him. I felt ashamed that I took him back, like I was some weak, pathetic, spineless girl too naïve to see reality.

I wasn’t.

It feels like everyone expects you to behave in a particular way when you’re cheated on. But the truth was that my anger wasn’t enough to drown out my agony...or my love. I believed him when he said that it was a stupid drunken mistake.

The other issue for me was the tendency for people to exonerate her, to say, "Well, it's not her fault, she didn't do anything wrong, he was the one that was cheating," but I find that argument in the same vein as "I didn't do anything wrong, it was the Nazis that killed the Jews, I just stood by and watched." You know it's wrong, and you let it happen anyway. (BTW, she was living with her boyf.)

It was the lasting damage I didn’t count on. When he cheated on me, he took something from me I can never reclaim. Aside from my self-esteem and my self-worth, he also took my ability to trust. Something sacred was forever stolen from me, by both of them. To this day, my first instinct is to distrust. I wish I could change this, but I fear that all of my future lovers will be punished by what I lost forever in the backseat of a taxi I’ve never been in.

As for her, I always wonder why she did it. I would love to say that I wish her all the best. But sadly, I don't. We still run into each other occasionally, in our very small city, and every time I see her all I wish her is herpes.