Emotional Man

I met Emotional Man via craigslist. Only this time, it was in the run-of-the-mill relationship section instead of the casual encounters 😛 . His picture was very attractive, and to be honest, I didn’t expect a reply from him because I felt he was a bit better looking than me. 

But, he did reply. And then he texted. And then he called, and called pretty much every day until we met. 

He did live a ways away, but he came up to take me out to lunch near my house for our first meeting. We had a good time, and I felt comfortable bringing him to my apartment to look at the homemade still I had made for making moonshine. I had secretly been planning on moving back home to Colorado, and needed rid of it, and he had expressed interest in it. So, we spent the afternoon distilling moonshine on the stovetop and he agreed to buy the still from me. 

When I had met him, I didn’t expect anything to come of it. Why would I try and get into a serious relationship when I knew that in a few months’ time I’d be moving more than a thousand miles away? Surely, if anything, my recent experiences in the dating world were showing me that I wasn’t having much luck snagging anything but a steady FWB. 

But as we sat on my bed, sipping moonshine and wine, and talking about life, a connection was made. I suddenly felt bad for leading him on. I didn’t think I was going to care about the person sitting across from me, and maybe it was just the wine….but I did care. I had to tell him about Colorado. So, I did. And surprisingly, he didn’t mind. He said that he wouldn’t even mind moving if we worked out in the months that came before the move happened. 

He came over a few more times and soon enough we were officially bf/gf. He was even staying at my place and driving an hour each way to work every day. I had told my family he was moving home with me and he started moving things into my place and getting rid of things at his to prepare for the move. 

I was quite happy with him. He was very good looking, treated me well, cooked for me, helped me around the house, and our sex life was great. He loved being on top, which happens to be my personal favorite, and he seemed to be keeping up with my drive just fine. He was vocal enough and said things to me during sex, which I do love. Silent lovers always puzzle me…and there is something about a man’s voice, moans of pleasure, or dirty talk that just take me to a whole other level. 

His only real flaws were that he suffered from depression and anxiety, and refused to do anything about it. It got to the point that he had to have a drink or two at night to calm his mind enough to put him to sleep. I didn’t like the idea of spending so much money on alcohol, or the indicators of potential alcoholism that were evident, but most of all I was worried about the crippling effects of his anxiety and depression. It had caused him to miss work on more than one occasion, and I spent a lot of time comforting him over some irrational fears that he had. The latter part of this I didn’t mind. I’m a good comforter and listener and realize that being a man’s comfort is a vital part of any relationship…and I certainly needed a man to be my comfort from time to time as well. I feared that his issues would, however, affect his stability, and being the sole provider in a relationship wasn’t something I was willing to sign up for again. 

We seemed to get through it, though, and went along our happy way.

But one day something changed. Family had flown into Orlando and I spent a few days with them at Disney while Emotional Man watched my pets for me. He was upset he couldn’t come, of course, but this had been planned months ahead of time, and before we had met. 

When I returned, he greeted me with an angry look and a warm hug, and a remark about how much he had missed me. He went on to tell me that his ex had moved to North Carolina that weekend, and had been by to see him while I was gone. This I knew ahead of time because he had told me about it, and I didn’t worry about it too much because apparently since they had broken up, she decided to go lesbian or bisexual and had been seeing a girl. What he failed to tell me was that he had gone out drinking in town all night while I was gone, and that she had broken up with the girl. 

I wasn’t happy about it but chose to leave it be for the time being. 

But after a few days, I noticed his behavior was changing. He was in a grumpier mood, was texting more than usual, and something was just off. We were going to bed one night when he freaked out over the laundry and left me feeling very upset and sleeping on the floor in the other room. I had decided to find out what was going on. Once he was asleep, I took his phone and saw for myself what the reality was. And sure enough, the ex had been texting with him inappropriately, and even sending him explicit pictures. They were talking about me and every word of it made my stomach churn and my heart race and my blood boil hot with anger. 

I sat on the floor in the dark, pondering what to do. My mind went back to The Italian. I had once caught him with racy pictures of an ex and an ad on the casual encounters page of craigslist. He swore there was nothing to them, but later in the relationship, I’d walked in on him cheating on me. I remembered thinking in the aftermath of that relationship, that I should have walked away after finding those things on his phone and the computer. 

And so, in the middle of the night, I started stuffing his things into trashbags and throwing them on the bed. He groggily woke up. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“We’re done”

“What?”

“We’re done. That’s it. I want you out.”

“What are you talking about? Why?”

“You can’t think of a reason?”

“You read my texts, didn’t you?”

“Yup.”

He angrily got out of bed and started moving his things. He took load after load down to his car, and didn’t say a word to me. I asked for my keys back and once he grabbed his last bag, I said,

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

“I don’t understand why you’re throwing me out. I didn’t do anything.”

“You cheated on me!”

“No I didn’t!”

“How do I know if that’s true? Those text messages were cheating enough for me.”

“You didn’t even ask me about them.”

“I don’t have to. I read enough.”

And with that, he left. I spent the next hour, wide-eyed with adrenaline, typing him a strongly worded email chewing him out for ever treating me like that. I’d never thrown anyone out before, and aside from being totally upset and wondering how I would tell everyone that, once again, I had another relationship crash and burn and that Emotional Man wasn’t moving back with me after all. 

I was pretty crushed after Emotional Man. He’d taught me I could love again and I had a strong connection with him. I wondered what he would do. He’d already bumped himself down to part time at his job to offset the cost of gas he’d been spending since moving in with me, and although he still had his place, he’d been slowly getting rid of all his things in order to move completely out. 

I found out within a few days that he intended to get back together with his ex. And, he decided to make it official over Facebook ON MY BIRTHDAY. 

That night I had been drinking with friends, and upon seeing the status update, called and left him a nasty voicemail. The next day I was so sick to my stomach that I called out of work. We’d been texting angrily that morning and I couldn’t even relax all day. I finally had some reprieve when a friend asked me to have dinner with her and her man. But then, he started texting me again. He was drinking and he was horny for me. He missed me and he was sorry. 

I didn’t believe any of it, of course, although the part of me that wanted him to come crawling back was overjoyed to see it. Then, I resolved to do something quite out of character. 

I wanted revenge. 

I wanted revenge on the girl who thought it was ok to sext and send racy pictures to my man. 

So I drove down to Emotional Man’s house. He let me in and was soft to me, though I made sure to be as bitchy as I’ve ever been in my life to him. And, we had sex. On the couch. Standing up. On the bathroom counter. And, on the bed. And this wasn’t like any kind of sex I’ve ever had before. It was revenge sex, yes, but it was very angry sex as well. I encouraged him to be rough with me, and we both said angry things to one another during the act. I quite enjoyed it. 

He soberly awoke in the middle of the night, saw me lying next to him, and got up, beating the walls. He knew what he had done and felt that he was screwing up his only rescue from his current situation…his ex. She would know I was there. She probably already did. He yelled at me a little bit, and when he finally calmed down, he shut the light off and climbed into bed, and fucked me again. This time even more angrily. 

“You weren’t supposed to come here,” he’d say, “you fucked everything up.”

The next morning, she called while I was still laying next to him. He said he’d have to call her back. She found out, of course, that I had been there and that we had fucked. And for some reason…she didn’t break up with him. She let it go. She even sent me a few passive aggressive remarks via text and I promised I would “take care of him for her” until he made it up to North Carolina to her. 

The affair continued for weeks. I enjoyed the rough and angry sex. He’d be on the phone with her with his hand in my bra while I laid on his couch. Once I even gave him head while she was on the phone. 

And I didn’t feel bad for any of it. 

She suspected, of course, that I might be by, and her way of controlling the situation was by calling him ad nauseam every day. It was to the point of obsession. She seemed more and more pathetic to me every day. They deserved each other. 

One day I think she finally had enough of the stress and pulled money together to get him up there. As she drove overnight to FL to meet with him and pick up things, I was there with him. And not a few hours before she arrived, we’d had our last round of sex. Only this last time, it was sad sex. He knew it was going to be the last time, and it was finally weighing on him that he’d never see me again. He loved both of us, apparently, and couldn’t even complete the act before bursting into tears. He bid me a tearful goodbye and gave me a long hug before he watched my car drive away until he couldn’t see it anymore. 

Throughout the months, he’s texted me. The two of them argue like crazy, and occasionally I got texts from her telling me to send him money because he was coming back to me in the middle of the night. Apparently, once he had, in fact, packed his car, but never made it very far. I’m too busy sleeping in the middle of the night to field text messages like that, anyways. He’d call and talk to me about how he wanted to come here, but couldn’t hurt her because she took him in, and stupid things like that. Once or twice I’d actually believed him and wanted to take him back if he’d change, but deep down I knew he wasn’t right for me. I let his texts go unanswered, and haven’t heard from him in some time now. Best for my heart to let it all go. 

But I do enjoy thinking back about the way I treated him…and knowing that I don’t always have to be everyone’s doormat or pushover. I can be a bitch, too….and it was a lot of fun, getting revenge and having rough, angry sex when it was well deserved. I stood up for myself, and that’s something I’ve promised to myself that I’ll never forget how to do. 

Once, twice, three times a lady they cheated with…

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Ok, this particular subject I’m not real proud to write about. While I have never cheated on anyone that I have been with, I have three times now been the “cheatee”. I will say, in my defense, that I only knew that one of them was in a committed relationship when I jumped into bed with them.

I’ve always been really against the idea of cheating. While single, I like to mingle, but once the expectation is set and verbalized, you can expect me to be true to you until the end, regardless of how many hotties are buying me drinks on my night out with the girls. I’m tried and true, and loyal to boot.

So why then, did I find it ok to be the one he cheated on his lady with? I suppose I don’t really find it ok – and the first time it happened, when I found out, I was disgusted and felt really bad.

The first time, I was out for a night of underage drinking and shenanigans with some work friends. I was probably 18 at the time and we ended up at my coworker’s boyfriend’s place. Who had a roommate. He was mildly attractive, as I recall, but being that my coworker was so caught up (and probably f*cking in the other room) with her bf – the roommate was the only entertainment at the time. Somehow or another it ended up just me there later in the night with him. And one thing led to another….led to cowgirl….led to cuddling….and he got up in the morning to go to work, and left me in his bed, with the understanding that I would leave whenever I was ready to. Now, to this day, I scratch my head at people who do this. You just met me….I could clean you out while you were at work and you would never know how to find me! And when I later found out that he was to be married the following weekend, I should have cleaned him out!! It came out that he was engaged when I asked my coworker about him and if we’d be all hanging out together again. Being young, and naive, and, while this was a one night stand, I had never been part of something so scandalous. I felt so used! I felt so mad that I was that guy’s bachelor party. And I felt bad for the fiancee.

Slowly but surely, I got over it. The second time, however, I knew the guy was married. I was 20 when I was dating The Italian, and we had gone out for a few drinks with his best friend. The best friend was mildly attractive…to be honest I wasn’t really interested in him. But he kind of saw me as one of the guys (as I am often perceived) and he felt like he could tell me anything…of course The Italian was there the whole time…and the fact that we were all pretty inebriated had a lot to do with what happened. We were out drinking, and the best friend was out…without his wife. Since I had known them, I had heard about their ups and downs….and he was never shy to say in front of me how unhappy he was sexually. He just wanted it way more than she did and she refused a lot. At 20, I couldn’t relate. I wanted it as often as possible, and I was often the one being turned down.

Well, we ended up back at the place I lived at with the Italian, and on a dare, I shaved the best friend’s package, even with my bf’s approval. Apparently, the wife was so oblivious to the state of his package, she would never notice. Well, one thing led to another, and the three of us ended up in bed together.

That’s right. I had a MMF threesome. I want to point out that The Italian and his best friend weren’t bi….it was all about me, baby. A little DP and I had them both exploding at the same time. Nothing makes me feel more like a slut than thinking back on this memory. Sometimes I have to confirm to myself that it actually happened.

Now, I don’t ever recommend a threesome when you are in a committed relationship. Shortly thereafter I began thinking, well, if I’m being turned down…and the best friend is being turned down….can’t we just satisfy each other….with The Italian approving of the whole thing? In retrospect, I think of what an unhealthy idea that was.

No one regretted the situation afterwards (as a matter of fact, we later chuckled about it and reminisced on it), and I’m happy to report that a few months later, the best friend and his wife started getting along better. I doubt that the threesome had anything to do with it – but sometimes I like to think that it did, as I’m an optimist about pretty much everything. The best friend, for a time, did think it was ok to flirt with and grope me a few times when The Italian wasn’t looking…and he was there for me after I caught The Italian cheating on ME with his brother’s fiancee in our bed….I suppose karma caught up with me. And honestly….you can’t expect anything but Jerry Springer from a guy who is willing to let his gf suck off his best friend right in front of him. I suppose he was jealous that I got a little extra attention outside the relationship. That whole relationship crushed me….but in the end, after all the healing, I came out a better and wiser person.

The third and last time was an accident, too. I was probably 22/23 and used to frequent this bar with one of my gay friends, and happened to notice a bartender I thought was hot. I ended up getting in line for a drink, and, being already pretty shnockered, I made it to the front of the line when he said, “what can I get you?”. I replied, “oh, nothing (almost forgetting why I was there), I just wanted to get a better look at you”, and walked off.

Well, apparently that pick up line (that I didn’t even mean to be a pick up line….it was mere drunken honesty) worked. He had his eyes on me for the rest of the night. I had gone on a fishing trip the next day with a coworker, and my gay friend called me up after saying there was a “sexy PJ” themed party at the very same bar that night. I told him I was a little tired, but mostly, I just didn’t have any money for drinks. It’s ok, he said, The Bartender says he’s got you.

WHAT? I thought….well I showed up in my lingerie top and PJ bottoms, and drank free the whole night. He made sure to get to know me….and he had found out my name before I even arrived that night. I flirted, and drank….and flirted and drank….well, long story short, one night the place was closing down, and I was there with just him and one other person, and while they weren’t looking, he reached up my daisy dukes while I made out with him on the enclosed patio. A quick lookout later, and we were having a standing up doggy style quickie, my daisy dukes around my ankles and face down on a patio table.

Needless to say, I drank there free for the next several months and things continued. It wasn’t until I found him on Facebook one day that I noticed a woman in his picture with him. And….she wasn’t that good looking of a woman….but she was a woman….who happened to share his last name.

Well, at that point, I called up my gay friend to interrogate, and he confessed that he knew. And I was kind of shocked to find out that he wasn’t concerned about it! I have since learned that there is a decent sized portion of the gay community that doesn’t seem to give a shit about faithfulness. And I’m sad to say that.

Well, I couldn’t give him (or the free drinks) up very easily….after I found out, things continued for a couple more weeks. I did eventually ask him about it and he confessed that he had cheated with one other woman on her before. He didn’t seem too ashamed of it, either. Things did eventually end and I then had to pay for my own drinks or find other men to buy them for me (lol). But at least my heart felt a little better, though my wallet was a little emptier.

What I learned from being a three-time cheatee is that there are a whole lot less faithful people out there than I had hoped. For a while I almost accepted it as inevitable and something that everyone does…especially after being an eye witness to The Italian cheating on me…and maybe that is why I allowed myself to knowingly be “the other woman” for that couple weeks with The Bartender.

From here on out, I don’t want to be the cheatee. It doesn’t make me feel good, and I don’t want to enable others to be unfaithful to people who are counting on them. I can’t say anything for those who lie to me and tell me they are single…but next time I might just inform their significant other and save that stranger the headache of being with someone who is unfaithful to them. And heck….maybe it might make that cheater change his ways. Maybe.

I do feel bad about the part that I played in each of those situations. But, I suppose there is nothing that I can do about it now but repent and try not to get into that situation again. After all, as I have seen before….the karma train never misses a stop…and it could be me, once again, with the cheater on my hands.