experiences

From Both Sides Of The Fence: Cheater vs. Victim

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When cheating occurs both sides endure pain. Both sides feel theirs is greater. But whose is really? Can pain really be measured?

From my experience, the cheaters feel their pain is the same as their partners. They feel pain, loss, heartache, and failure. They feel dark, lost, alone, weak, and broken. They can’t believe they hurt someone who loved them.

More often than not a cheater doesn’t realize the depth of a partners love, until they see the pain their partner experiences when the cheating is revealed. In most cases, cheaters did not set into a relationship to cheat. At some point, needs were not being met. This does not justify cheating. Cheating is however a symptom of an already broken relationship. Things were broken long before an affair began.

Cheaters often wish the victim would quit talking about it or bringing it up. At times, cheaters are walking on eggshells with even the thought that their partner may be revisiting such bad memories. At other times the cheaters may appear nonchalant saying phrases like; “Get over it, Cant we move on already, Can we make up, etc.” Or perhaps the cheater plays that they are the victim.

Typically after finding out one has cheated, the story goes a little bit or a lot like this:

Cheater – I love you, I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Victim – Hind sight is 20/20. Thanks for showing me your version of love, jerk/b***h!

Cheater – I did it because ____, I did it because you didn’t ______, I did it because I was drunk/lonely.

Victim- There is NO excuse! Tell me the real reason please! Why wasn’t I worth the truth?

Cheater- How long will it take to get your forgiveness?

Victim – Can you be any more shallow? Can you exercise some patience here and help me clean up this mess you made before you ask such a ridiculous question. There is no time limit. I have no idea. I am still trying to figure out if I can even stand to be near you!

Cheater – Why are you always so negative now? Man you are in a bad mood!

Victim – Well, you should have thought of my mood when you did what you did. For wanting something positive you sure infected this relationship with your negativity. You did this! Not me!

Cheater – How do we move forward?

Victim – Move forward? I am still trying to figure out how I will survive today!

Cheater – This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted you. I didn’t want to hurt you!

Victim- Again, hindsight is 20/20. If you wanted me you should have been faithful. If you didn’t want to hurt me you would have been honest. You would have had some class, and character.

Cheater – He/She/They didn’t mean anything to me.

Victim – Wow, really? Sure means something to me now that I finally found out!

Cheater – How can I make things better?

Victim- I don’t know. But I do know your words mean nothing. You are a liar. Actions speak WAY louder! And your actions just spoke loud enough to last me a lifetime.

Cheater – Can you forgive me? What do you want?

Victim- I don’t know what I want! I don’t know anything anymore. Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t. I have been played the fool. This is SO embarrassing. Was any of this even real?

Cheater- Do you still love me?

Victim – Either doesn’t answer at all, or says I don’t know.

While the cheaters often carry guilt and pain, in my opinion it does not even compare tothe_past_love the pain that the betrayed partner carries. But I guess it truly would depend on the situation. Again, pain is hard to measure. (Everyone’s tolerance is so different.)

Once betrayed by a partner and the intimacy you once knew has been shared with someone else the entire relationship appears to have been a hoax. Nothing seems real. The betrayed feel violated emotionally, mentally, and sexually. You just feel dirty.

What doesn’t change is the amount of pain it inflicts on the faithful partner, the one who had hope and the one who believed. The one who never questioned anything. 

Yeah, that one will forever be changed. 

For more info on signs of a cheater click here

Success

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© Angela Bininger and The Empowerers, 2009-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 
 

Claiming Our Past

“If we don’t claim our past it will claim our future. It is not possible to know where we are going, if we can’t admit the places we have been.”

I have seen countless situations where people deny their past. They deny what they have done, or what has been done to them. They deny their experiences. Their fear of admitting mistakes or failures enables them  to continue in their negative cycle. Simply put, it cripples them and they can not grow as a person. Instead they keep making the same mistakes, again and again.

By denying our past experiences we set ourselves up to fail.  If we can’t admit where we have been or screwed up in life, how could we even begin to correct it? By hiding it or denying the experiences we are merely doing a patch job. As we know, patches only hold so long.

By laying it all out there and owning every experience: nobody has anything over us. We can walk in peace, with no secrets. We live in light  instead of darkness.

There is nobody worth keeping secrets. We are worth more than that. By owning our past and our experiences we begin to walk in truth. We can then break the negative cycles and patterns; and begin to experience peace and happiness.

We have to own our experiences, and learn from them. It is the only way to level up in the game of life. If we can’t admit them, how can we ever truly recognize what needs changed?  

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Can We Understand Others Thoughts While Still Trying To Understand Our Own

The human mind has approximately 12,000 – 60, 000 thoughts a day depending on ones thinking level. Some thoughts are pure while some are not so pure. There are thoughts that are nonsense and not worth the time or energy of even thinking them. There are thoughts that bring joy, thoughts that bring pain, thoughts that bring laughter and thoughts that simply make us smile.

As people we struggle to understand those around us as well as their thought processes. We attempt to understand their lines of thinking,  just as we do our own. And sometimes, we may find ourselves being  judgmental of other people’s actions or decisions, and even more so  as we try to understand the notorious question “What were you/they thinking?”

How is it possible to understand others, when we are still trying to understand ourselves? We all have a dark side, or have all walked through dark days. Some may chose different forms of darkness, but we have all experienced the same emotions at some point through our journey. Granted, our situations may vary slightly or tremendously. However, we have all experienced loss, fear, abandonment, love, joy, pain, guilt, and shame. Unless of course, we are one of the select few in the world born with no conscience.

It would be best to say that the only person that knows a persons thought process and mindset, is that person. To try to believe otherwise, is naive. How many times have we found ourselves in situations where we overhear ourselves say out loud ” I would have never expected that out of him/her!” Truth is, perhaps they didn’t expect it out of them either.

It only takes a few bad thoughts for a few days in a row, out of 60,000 a day …. and there could be chaos.

We are all human. All born to make mistakes. Although the levels of mistake-hood may very, the lessons and consequences of our actions bring about the same emotions. To understand those around us, we must first understand ourselves.

© Angela Bininger and The Empowerers, 2009-2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Boys, Hold your balls!

I played a few different sports as a youngster but basketball was by far my favorite, and I am passionate about teaching the skills that someone was once patient enough to teach me. If you have ever had a coach, you owe at least one season of your life to coaching something. A.) You get to give a little back, and B) At times it is just hilarious!

I coach a junior basketball girls team along with a boy’s team. I find it very fulfilling and look forward to every practice and game. So while at practice the other night with the boy’s team I’m doing various exercises. We are doing passing drills, layups, setting picks, learning plays, followed by this intense dribbling exercise that I taught them. When we finished the dribbling exercise I said, “OK BOYS, HOLD YOUR BALLS” as I proceeded to tell them the next drill.

I notice some parents giggling on the sidelines through my peripheral view, then I made eye contact with them. One mom then pointed to a 3rd grader on my team who was doing exactly that, holding his balls.

I guess I will have to be a little more specific next time! Crazy kids!

 

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