Vcrechard and divinedarkness74,

From my point of view, people don't change. Some change is possible but is almost impossible to change archetypes, reason why IMO once a cheater, always a cheater.

I've lived similar experiences than you 2, but shamefully from the other side of the story. Nothing I'm proud of, believe me. There isn't a day it goes by I don't ask my self how could I be so stupid to fall for such guys (yes, twice).

I've also suffered from dysthymia and depression (and anorexia). Dysthymia has been constant and the other 2 take turns (though in 2008 it will be 10 years since my last anorexic break, hope I can consider my self over it by then :) ).

Long story short; I have severe lack of self esteem which made me vulnerable to be the third point in the love triangles.

The first guy was my professor, he knew I had a crush on him and I was also his T.A (teacher assistant). The day I graduated, he didn't hesitate to ask me out and flirt with me. Things were going perfectly for me, I thought, but truth was he had started seeing someone else at almost the same time. He told me about her 2 weeks later to inform me she was now his girlfriend, but he kept on flirting with me and insinuating to me. Soon after that, he invited me to a party and gave me to try some XTC. By the end of the night he took me to his place and the rest is history. We saw each other almost daily for the next weeks until one day he tells me he won’t be able to see me that day because he had to clean up his place and get rid of the “evidence”. That came as a surprise to me though we never spoke about his girlfriend. The next days he was with her and then back with me. One day he told her (I didn’t have the courage to bring up the topic to him about “us”), she broke up with him but a few days afterward they came back but this time he had promised to be loyal and monogamous.

I thought I was going to die, I brought up all the doubts I had never dared to ask him about “us”. He said nothing and told me it was my own fault and that he was not responsible for my pain. That I should have known better that he was already taken. I felt so used and stupid. I did become obsessed with him and I wanted to take his guts out but deep inside all I wanted was for him to come back to me. I fell into a depression after that and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress (not all of us react to these things the same way, I don’t take them well). I use to hang around near his place (there was a Japanese restaurant near by) just for the stupid illusion I could ran into him.
I got to see him a few months after all this happened, at a friends birthday party. This time he was flirting with another of his ex students, a girl he used to tell me he hated and wanted to fail. Yet this time around, he was extremely friendly to her. It was no mystery to the rest of the people who attended the party what happened with the 2 of them after the party was over, but this girl gave him some of his own medicine. A few weeks afterward we became friends and she told me how he cheated on his girlfriend, again, with her. They went to a rave party some days after that party, and he bought her an XTC pill. With his bad luck, she ran into her ex BF and ran away with the ex and left him alone in the party, he never forgave her. Eventually his girlfriend found out about all his lies and affairs and this time cut him for good.

Although I got some revenge talking to the girl that gave him some of his own medicine (and laughing at him), still it took me almost 3 years to get over that mess….just to fall into one that was ridiculously similar.

Anyway…I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

Just wanted to add;

Vcrechard, don’t put all the blame on her. This is a men’s world and we, women, are often taught to be chauvinist to each other. I know you believe him, but truth is you don’t know what happened between the 2 of them that got her like that. Personally I blame the man in these kind of situations, because ¿how can a man, that swears he loves a woman (or usually in these kind of situations, women) put ANY of them in such an unfair situation? Yes it was not fair for you, but her situation is not fair either. In fact, hers is an extremely crappy position to be, you at least have your relationship back, you 2 may grow up out of this and maybe even “strengthen up” your relationship…she was left with nothing.

I’m not trying to excuse her for her weakness, but be fair and put some blame on him too. After all he was the one cheating on his “significant other”. I believe she is very unstable emotionally (therefore very vulnerable to be taken advantage of), most likely to have very little respect for her self and lack of self esteem, probably going through the same pain as you or even worst (she seems to be ‘loosing it’, imagine how much emotional stress she is under to be loosing it?).

Something else; for the description of the reaction you had when you found out about his affair, it seems to me you also had P.T.S. This usually triggers depressions, but the good thing is that you don't have a tendency to suffer from depressions. So once you are over this, you probably wont have to worry about depression again.

Anyway, hope everyone who has this crappy thing call depression is feeling better.

Dani.

"You raise the blade, you make the change. You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane. You lock the door...And throw away the key."