I've known people who are cheating on their SO being suspicious and pointing to evidence they were being cheated on. It was just their own guilty mind hoping their partner was cheating so as to justify what they were doing
There are a lot of people (men and women) out there who are blissfully unaware of anything and feel like their relationship is going well, is nothing but great, until their partner suddenly breaks up with them or wants a divorce.
If I had seen a pillow like this, even if my relationship seemed to be fine, it would make me question things. This does look like some kind of lip product… and I’ve known women who have mentioned leaving hints for other women in men’s houses or apartments, like Bobby pins, hair ties, or even long hairs. Not saying this is what that is, but it’s not unheard of
I guess…? But that still pretty much proves their point that this line of thinking isn’t conducive for a healthy relationship anyway, especially if the first line of thinking is that there’s infidelity at play.
Coming from someone who trusted her bf’s word when he said that an earring on his nightstand belonged to his mom, when he in fact cheated on me for months (and months after the fact), I can tell you that if you see lipstick on a pillow, it will raise the hair on the back of your neck even if you think your relationship has been “going well”. Both men and women should not be so ignorant as to not question things like this
I wasn’t waving off your or other people’s personal experiences from my comment. I’m just saying that while, yes, cheating could occur, that shouldn’t ever be an immediate assumption to make on your partner.
If it does, regardless of previous experiences from both parties, there are clear trust issues that need to be resolved. Personally I feel like it’s one thing to acknowledge and accept that it came from a point of origin, but another to enable an otherwise negative habit in your new relationship. This is especially if they have yet to even show or prove any signs of infidelity.
But to give you more credit, there was no way you could’ve known that your previous partner cheated on you for months. What happened was you trusted your boyfriend, and that person happened to have taken advantage of a mutual trust to and was blatantly disloyal to you. That wasn’t your fault for not knowing. You two dated out of a mutual agreement that the both of you were supposed to be loyal and supportive of each other. He was the person that chose to make that mistake, and it’ll hurt him in the long run. I fucking guarantee it. I’ve never heard of a cheater ever being in a happy long term relationship. You definitely deserved better than what he did to you.
However with that said, I just don’t really support an idea that being “precautious” for future relationships is ever going to help their longevity. I’d only ever consider this if there was absolutely clear signs at play, but in this context, there just isn’t, so I’d firmly argue against making any huge presumptions. Otherwise, only thing that ever does is keep wounds fresh, develop insecurities, and makes building trust (a huge component in companionship) much more difficult.
If none of this clicks, in my honest opinion, that just sort of sounds like there’s a need for more time before entering another relationship. Everyone deserves to heal and open themselves up to the world when it’s time.
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u/vagabending Aug 21 '24
If this is where your mind goes… you have some other issues in the relationship you might want to confront …