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Dear Panel,
I am a 22 year old female who is deeply concerned about a personal/
sexual/ relationship problem which I can't seem to resolve.
Simply put, the problem is that I have cheated on every single
male I have ever dated. I am, of course increasingly frightened
that I won't be able to stop this, ever. I am deeply, deeply
tired and gutted at how many people I've hurt because of my
inability to remain faithful. I don't want to be like this anymore.
Um.. background: I'm sure that the most significant factor
is that my father sexually abused me when I was 11 years old.
I have, however, worked very hard at overcoming the effects
of that time, through a lot of self-analysis, acceptance of
the dark parts that exist in people's sexuality and by loving
myself enough to become the kind of person I want to be. I slept
with my first partner at the age of 15 (my first puppy love)
and then no-one until I was 17.
Since then however I've spent 4 years dating guys and cheating
on them. At first I used to feel tremendously guilty, and thus
would tell them. However after hurting too many lovely, lovely
people I don't want to tell my current boyfriend that I have
cheated on him.
Tim Is a Wonderful Person
I am going to use a fictitious name: Tim. We've been dating
for 9 months. Tim is a wonderful person. (I know, I know –
rose coloured glasses). He has a few 'faults' (i.e. things which
bother me – such as not learning the local language –
we both live & work in Japan at present). However these
are only normal issues. Whilst he has a million great qualities
about him, I think the key thing is that we get along fantastically
(we were friends first).
Some examples (these are important to me and hopefully will
make sense to others) We both cackle like geese at the same
seemingly inane things. Our backgrounds (children of expatriate
parents – raised in various countries, with highly ambitious
and argumentative parents) are sufficiently similar for us to
understand each others 'quirks'. Most wonderful is that he loves
me. He truly, deeply loves me.
BS Reasons To Cheat
I don't know why I do it. When I was younger I used to justify
cheating by saying : "well, it was a sexual experience",
OR "I believe that you can have a 24-hour connection with
someone which won't be there again" (I still believe this).
The thing is that as I get older, I realise that these are B.S.
reasons to cheat. The reason I'm worried is because I've been
aware that I have a problem for almost 14 months now, yet I
still can't stop.
Why have I cheated on every boyfriend I've ever had?
– TokyoGirl
Female, age 22, Tokyo
Sabrina,
Jimmy,
and Luka
answer this question.
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