Not a day dreamer you understand - nor do I indulge in
aspirational dreaming. I am just a simple dreamer of incredible dreams.
Don’t you find that there is nothing more tedious than
listening to other people accounts of their dreams? So I can appreciate why no
one wants to hear about mine but my dreams are so vivid, so detailed and
sometimes life altering.
In my dreams I run so fast that I leap and soar through the
air. Not flying exactly but almost. I’m almost sure that a couple of weeks ago
I actually levitated. In my dreams I
create inventions that change the world. I am a genius when I sleep. In my
dreams I make wonderful love to the most expert of lovers and have incredible orgasms.
I am a sex goddess when I sleep.
Sometimes my dreams are not so good. I often dream about him
and his violence. But when I do I then have the indescribable pleasure of
waking up in the sanctuary of my own bed in my own bedroom, surrounded by my
things and, heart still pounding, throw back my covers and lie naked taking
contentment in being free.
I had a recent dream in which I was a stand-up comedian. A
very successful one, who also, I am proud to say, wrote all her own material.
The fear I felt backstage before going on and launching into my routine was
very real as was the pleasure of hearing the rapturous applause when I
delivered my final knicker wetting
funny line. I was very funny and on the verge of stardom when I woke up
and the funny routines faded from my memory in seconds and I missed the chance
of sitting next to Lee Mack on ‘Would I Lie to You?’ A game show that, on
reflection, I would be useless at as I can never tell when people are lying.
I am accepting.
My hands are not clean and if I am to write about lying I
have to be honest and admit that I have been known to tell the occasional lie.
Who hasn’t? Even the Pope may have exaggerated on his CV. I suppose being
raised as a Catholic gives you a ‘get out of jail free card’ in as much as
there is always the option of confession. Growing up I could lie all week and
then confess on Saturday and, after a few ‘Hail Marys’ I would be absolved of
sin. It is almost worth the eternal
guilt Catholics are lumbered with. As a
grown up I’m not talking about the lies you tell to explain why you haven’t
done something you should have done. I’m talking about the lies you tell when
you have done something you should not have done. Like cheat on your partner
when you have said that you wouldn’t.
I am a hypocrite.
But that does not exclude me from having an opinion about
liars and cheaters or from being a tiny bit judgemental of liars and cheats.
Even if I have dabbled a toe in those murky waters on occasion.
My man is a good man.
An' I don't want much
outa life,
I never wanted a
mansion in the south.
I just-a want to find
someone sincere
Who'd treat me like he
talks,
One good man.
How would I feel if my good man cheated on me?
Disappointed.
How would I feel if my good man lied to me about it?
Devastated.
We could find our way back from the first but not from the
second.
I would naively assume that he cheated on me for the same
reasons I have cheated on a partner in the past. I cheated when I no longer
loved or respected the person I was with. Doing the decent thing, such as
leaving, was not an option at the time so I did what I had to do. Who knows - had
I not cheated I may have done something a million times worse? If my good man cheated, knowing our relationship
is in its ascension, I would have to consider that my reasons for cheating may
not be the same as someone else’s. I
would be happy to explore his reasons and decide if we could continue to have
such a special, unique relationship as the one we currently enjoy knowing that
he placed his penis in some other woman’s vagina. This is pretty much
forgivable. The hurtful part of infidelity is not the sex act itself – it’s the
additional stuff like feelings, emotions, obsessions and lies that inflict
damage.
My good man and I enjoy a relationship based on liking each
other a great deal, sharing similar interests,
wanting to spend time together making love, talking, laughing and supporting
each other. I respect him, admire him and am glad he is in my life. We share
more than a physical intimacy. So it would depend on the stories he wove around
the physical act of betrayal and it is the extent and depth of those stories
that have the power to destroy – not the act of fucking someone.
I have a friend who has been married for 30 years. And he
has cheated since about year 5. Some of his dalliances have been one night
stands, and sometimes he thinks he has fallen in love and the dalliances are
more longer term. I was one of his long term dalliances and during that time we
fucked a thousand times and yet I would put money on his wife being more hurt
about the things he said to me during the 40 years of our friendship than she
would be about the years of sex we enjoyed. He has said things, wrote things
and did things, like not telling her he was in the country, so we could spend uninterrupted
time together. He continues to speak to me in a loving way although the
physical acts of intimacy no longer take place. The lies he told her to enable
his dalliances to happen are endless and unforgiveable. He still lies to her
about me and, if we are to meet for a drink and chat he has to create an elaborate
excuse and I just have to tell my good man I am meeting an ex-lover for a
drink. He has made his wife’s whole adult life a sham and that is selfish and cruel.
And yes I hold my hands up for being complicit in that. Why does he cheat? Low self-esteem?
Lack of a moral compass? He is gorgeous so sex is readily available to him? His
wife isn’t a sexual being or doesn’t understand him? He is shallow? I doubt he even realises his
life, and his loves, are a sham.
When I cheated on my partner it was because he was a bully
and I was very very unhappy. Cheating was my revenge for every punch and kick. Cheating
was a response to my lack of self-esteem. I would have loved to be honest with him but I
would have been risking much more than my family life.
‘They’ do say that what goes around comes around so it was
on the cards that I would be betrayed by someone I considered to be a very good
friend. Someone who I had known for many years and admired and respected
enormously. He betrayed on me with
someone I also considered a good friend and, it turns out, their relationship more or
less ran parallel to ours. Their affair wasn’t just sex. He fell in love with
her but did not have the decency to tell me. It went on for years before I came
to suspect and, when I did, his denials were robust. ‘Why would I have an
affair when we are so happy?’ he would ask. As evidence he would cite all the
times in the past when he had ‘overlapping relationships’ as he was honestly
convinced he was not a serial cheat. He claimed he only got involved with another
woman when the relationship he was in was in its dying moments and his current
woman was only too aware of her deficiencies as he would try, like the decent
caring human being he was, to make things work before he embarked on something
new. The fact their affair began while our relationship was still in its
infancy belies this claim. To be fair I wasn’t surprised he cheated. Cheating
was his MO and when we first got together he was cheating on his then partner,
a wonderful woman much better than either of us and one who did not deserve our
selfish actions. What is it about love and lust that makes us think that all’s
fair blah blah blah? Knowing what we did should mean that I should have been
prepared for the extent of his lies. At the time he was telling me he found our
mutual friend unattractive and not at all sexy he was relentlessly pursuing
her. When he was telling me he found her
clingy and needy he was telling her he loved her and heaven knows what lies he
was telling her about me although, from what she has shared I can guess at what
they were. Their affair had been going on for years before I found out the
truth which I eventually did years after our sham relationship ended. My first reaction was one of shear relief swiftly
followed by a ridiculous feeling of vindication. I was right all along. I wasn’t
mad, stupid or even jealous. I was intuitive and right. By that time I no
longer cared about how they had both betrayed me – if you fall out of love with
someone and in love with someone else it can’t be helped and who am I to stand
in the way of true love? But the lies he told devastated me. In a funny way I
understood her lies – I had been there myself after all and her lies did not
have any impact on what had passed between me and him during the times we laid together.
I felt such a gullible fool and any good memories I did have become tainted as they
were all false. Nothing that had passed between us had ever had any value or
meaning. Every action, every touch,
every smile, every kiss, every fuck, every word, spoken and written, was false
and meaningless. We had a sham relationship and as a result a long standing
friendship, which included a professional battle for the truth and reason against
a machine of destruction, was sacrificed not because he fell in love with
someone else or because I was an unreasonable jealous Bermondsey girl but because he did not have the courage or the decency to tell me the truth which would have enabled me to walk away with dignity and some fond memories.
At least my sham life only lasted for a couple of years unlike
S’s wife who has lived a lie for decades. Funnily enough my sham years were
also the start of my metamorphosis stage and the beginning of my search for enlightenment.
They coincided with my time of escape
from a life of confinement. So I can now track my life as the confinement years, the sham years, the growth years and now
I am in my contentment years.
I intend to be honest, if not monogamous (because who knows what is around the corner) with my good man and I hope he will be the same. I will never allow anyone to take away from me my freedom to choose, or my sense of contentment ever again. Nor will I take those things away from them. It is, after all, how grown up enlightened people behave.
Luckily my good man and I are both unconventional enough for the contentment
years to be full of adventure. And I am having the last laugh.
