Mind Of Man: Def Leppard Was Right, Love Hurts
Posted by: John DeVore
Filed in:
guys
12:40PM, Wednesday July 1st 2009
I don’t believe that once a cheater, always a cheater. That specific aphorism is a bitter, moralizing form of self-deception. We all are cheaters; none of us is invulnerable to temptation. What defines a person is not whether they are faithless. It is a simple, easy thing to impulsively take that which you want. No, what defines a person is whether they chose to stay faithful. That is difficult, and that active decision, that vigilance, is the steep price love demands.
It seems there is only one way to get it right when it comes to relationships…. But there are ten thousand ways to get it wrong, and I am familiar with at least nine thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them.
Pay the price and you’ll get your reward: quiet joys, partial insulation from life’s inevitable scrapes and bruises, immortality. Your life will be lived twice. Come up short, and eventually, you’ll know what it’s like to sit at the bottom of a cold, black, silent ocean totally indifferent to your loneliness. “Happily ever after” is bulls**t – that’s just the beginning of a long trip with a lot of hairpin turns.
I will also, for the zillionth time, defend my gender on one specific point: if women were not cheaters, country music would not exist. At the darkened ends of dive bars lit only by the glow of jukeboxes, sit men hunched over beers, stunned by heartbreak, lamenting the ones that done them wrong. And we’ve been done wrong, as surely as women have. If all of this were easy, if we were truly entitled to perfect love, it would have no value. No one deserves anything good in life. Sorry. It must be earned. To the victor go the spoils.
Usually, when asked what qualifies me to write about sex and relationships, I joke that those who can, do. Those who can’t, write twee little love columns on the web. Ha, ha, ha. OMG it’s true. It seems there is only one way to get it right when it comes to relationships – and that one way is always specific to the couple who met at the right time, with open-hearts, and armpits pumping out misty clouds of barely perceptible, genital-swelling pheromones. But there are ten thousand ways to get it wrong, and I am familiar with at least nine thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them. Yes, I’m single.
I should probably confess something to all of you, and I realize admitting what I feel I have to admit, in the context of a website dedicated to all things womanly, is kind of like swimming in piranha infested waters wearing pork chop swimming trunks. I have cheated on women and been cheated on by women. I know what it’s like to intercept e-mails, to wonder where she is, to stumble into a party and see her making out with that ex she swore she was over. I am familiar with the pain. It’s termites squirming and munching inside your heart, it’s vomiting up every meal you’ve ever eaten, it’s ears on fire and throats full of fishhooks. Then there’s the pleading. I don’t like to think about that much. Not because I was pathetic, on my knees, sodden with snot and tears. But because it didn’t work.
And, unfortunately, I know what it’s like to smoke the crack pipe of infidelity. It’s all secret meetings, whispered promises, stolen moments, and forbidden sex in the backseats of cars, in stairwells with hands covering mouths, fumbling with belt buckles, lifting skirts. The unspeakable truth about cheating is that it is thrilling; it can seem like being saved from drowning, a hit of adrenaline that shocks the body into near narcotic dependence. Then there’s the crash. I know I wrote that no one deserves anything. That’s not entirely true, I suppose. I deserved to sit at that bar, our favorite spot from years before, and watch her walk in with a man whose hand had found that spot on her back that triggered warm smirks. He stared at her unblinkingly, as if she’d disappear while his eyeballs hid behind their lids. They were engaged, and I was a ghost. And like most ghosts, I walked out the front door because they could not see me. That affair, that burned so brightly, was just ash by then. Seems you can’t warm your bones with fireworks
We cheat out of supreme, short-sighted selfishness, or because the relationship is broken. Or both. And in the end, it all hurts. The English poet Maureen Duffy wrote, “The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It is a perpetual wound.” I’m pretty sure she ripped that off of seminal
‘80s hair rock legends Def Leppard, who sang how love hurts. Or maybe it’s vice versa. I will get back to you on that. The point is: so much of life is about loving and losing that love. Your parents die, your youth fades, your children grow up and move away, and til death do you part. This is not depressing. This is beautiful. This is why making the choice to love fully, in the moment, faithfully, is the measure of a life well lived. I hope I can make that choice again, if not, tough crapola for moi. In the meantime, that ache? That instant pain of betrayal, or the creeping, cancerous pain of betraying? Hey, congratulations on being alive.
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Christinaval
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 12:51 pm: [report]
Hm. Interesting. We are moral human beings, that means our minds can control our bodies. And I don’t think it’s “natural” to want to cheat. If you do, there’s obviously something wrong in your relationship. Women and men alike are cheaters, yes. But a cheater is no more than a coward in my book. I don’t think that being faithful to the person you love is a “steep price” by any means. Not well worded.
crazyincarolina
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:00 pm: [report]
This is why making the choice to love fully, in the moment, faithfully, is the measure of a life well lived. I hope I can make that choice again, if not, tough crapola for moi.
Ditto that…I heart John DeVore.
ChoJinn
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:04 pm: [report]
Being faithful is a steep price, indeed, in terms of the opportunity cost; at least I think that’s what the author was getting at in this great article.
Being selfish, or acting primarily in our own self interest, in the face of temptation is what is natural.
_jsw_
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:08 pm: [report]
@Christinaval: Your statements (“We are moral human beings, that means our minds can control our bodies. And I don’t think it’s “natural” to want to cheat…. But a cheater is no more than a coward in my book.”) tend to contradict themselves. If we need to “control our bodies” and if cheating is a cowardly act (implying that it takes courage to _not_ cheat), then cheating is, indeed, part of who we are, by your own admission.
John, another excellent column (have you written any bad ones?). Cheating rarely turns out to be a good decision, and it usually turns out to be a horrifically bad one, but there is always that pull. As you said, it’s how we react to that pull that matters. And, also as you said, most of us know what it’s like to be on both side of the situation. It would have been better if we were genetically programmed to be monogamous or societally programmed to have brief relationships, but then where would the joy of learning from ones mistakes be?
EarthGoddess
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:27 pm: [report]
Not the usual LOLs I get when reading your column, Mr. DeVore but a very interesting read this week. As I mentioned in the post about “overlapping” I had been a serial cheater for years, so I know the adrenaline rush you’re talking about. In the past I had a fairly short attention span when it came to men, so I was easily bored, but would never risk being alone. So, my eye would start to wander and I would end up with someone else. I guess I was addicted to the adrenaline. Now that I found my husband I have no desire to cheat, and I’ve been faithful to him for 4 years - my longest stretch ever since I began dating at 13. I think the key to it all is that he and I operate like a married couple for the mundane everyday things, but we act like we’re still dating and keep it exciting for each other. Now my addiction is always satisfied - I married the adrenaline. I think the boredom factor has much more to do with it than making some sacrifice and turning yourself into a martyr. Couples need to keep the fires burning ... because if you don’t, the other person will go find that fire with someone else.
Christinaval
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:37 pm: [report]
jsw…
I believe you twisted around my words or maybe I did not state them clearly. Bottom line, I do not think it should be so hard to NOT cheat on someone you love. Call me crazy.
Jessica Wakeman
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:41 pm: [report]
Another great column, John.
Joey Daytona
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:52 pm: [report]
‘...like swimming in piranha infested waters wearing pork chop swimming trunks.’
Nice image!
In the end we are left w/ the choice between living with the regret of having done something or having done nothing. Wondering “What if?” is one way to go through life, more evolved and civilized I suppose, but less exciting too. Some of us live for the rare moments of feeling sensations others only dream of… then we live with the pride or shame, or sometimes both.
jojo32
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 01:59 pm: [report]
Loved the column, but Def Leppard said “Love Bites”...?
No?
pornqueen
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 02:14 pm: [report]
Mr. Devore….Great post AGAIN, luv it!
Most of us have been on the receiving end of a betrayal and many of us have betrayed. I have been on both. I’ll probably take a lot of heat for what I’m about to say but… I’ve never felt more alive than when I was the one betraying. It’s like a drug that you can’t have enough of and we make stupid decisions just like a junkie to get our fix. The adrenaline is oh so true. I couldn’t have enough of the adrenaline! I gotta have it all the time! Now, I can’t describe the pain, hurt I felt when I fuound out he cheated. Horrible! Would not want to repeat it again!
John DeVore
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 02:20 pm: [report]
@jojo32 Um. Yes. Yes, you are right. Crap.
_jsw_
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 02:21 pm: [report]
@Christinaval: I didn’t intend to twist your words, only to point out that they too imply that it’s not necessarily in our nature to be faithful. True, it’s not hard to _not_ cheat on someone you love when the relationship fulfills your needs, but in other cases, yes, the temptation is there. The fact that you love someone does not mean that they fulfill your needs, and the fact that someone fulfills your needs doesn’t mean that you love them.
prgirl
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 02:28 pm: [report]
great column. so right, and what we all need to be reminded of every once in a while. And “Love Hurts” was sung by Nazareth, but all good;)
writergirl
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 02:32 pm: [report]
Excellent article again, Mr. DeVore. Even if you did get the lyrics wrong:)
roastchicken
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 03:11 pm: [report]
I’ve never cheated, but have I ever thought about cheating on a guy..yes. That’s when I knew it was time to end the relationship. So I did.
Great article.
chouette
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 05:56 pm: [report]
I disagree that “we are all cheaters.” Some of us just aren’t, and never will be. It’s about actually caring about the person you’re with, which some people take seriously. Cheating is the ultimate act of selfishness, and just because you’ve done it, Mr. DeVore, doesn’t make that the case for everyone else.
bumbler
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 06:23 pm: [report]
I have to agree with Chouette, I have never and will never cheat. I do love my husband enough that I would never dishonor him in that way, I also feel it’s a point of honor for me. Surprisingly enough I’ve never even been tempted maybe its not in my makeup *shug* What I don’t understand is how people who have been cheated on can go on to cheat on others. I was cheated on in an early relationship and it was devastating. I could never inflict that on someone else having gone through it and felt the pain myself.
Interesting article and well-written even if I don’t agree with every sentiment.
LostInStars
wrote on July 2 2009 @ 12:28 am: [report]
Can we date now please, Mr. DeVore? This was so painfully well written. Oh. <3
Mainer
wrote on July 2 2009 @ 07:02 am: [report]
I agree with this post - well written as well. I think that the reason we are so tempted to cheat is because we are so tempted to jump into relationships to begin with. We therefore find ourselves getting into relationships just for the sake of getting into a relationship. That’s what is agitating about solitude - it’s that inner voice telling you it is wrong, telling you to find a mate. It doesn’t care who it is, it just keeps pestering you to find someone. You find yourself settling and look up one day to find that no one really burns for you. The perplexities of human behavior are interesting, but they do account for a certain amount of despair among single persons. The irrelevance we sometimes feel.
Aristotle was famous for his answer to the meaning of life - it is achieving ultimate happiness. We are always in a quest to seek something better, to get that closer to ultimate happiness. We feel the grass is always greener on the other side - we can always do better. Settling is very disheartening because it means there may not be anything else. That quest for perfection and ultimate happiness is over. Then what? You live out the rest of your life wondering what-if. It is very unsettling from an existential point of view.
ksiggles
wrote on July 2 2009 @ 10:36 am: [report]
John—I really enjoy your articles, keep up the good work. No comments on this particular article but…
Love Hurts was by Nazareth. I’m dating myself here!
Shasta
wrote on July 2 2009 @ 05:08 pm: [report]
The struggle to remain faithful is the eternal struggle between our primitive selves programmed to seek novelty and our thinking, evolved pre-frontal cortex selves.
The questions becomes: “Can we have it both ways or do we have to give up one to have the other?”
Soul-quenching passion is the most powerful human need. And it is a need. Not a hedonistic pleasure. There is no drug on the planet that approaches the way it fills us up. Mark Sanford threw away EVERYTHING for it. EVERYTHING. He didn’t care that he’s become a buffoon. He didn’t care that his press conference was a laughing stock. All he cared about was the soul-mate that he had finally found.
The biggest issues is not finding passion, but keeping it alive in a marriage. If you have it in a marriage to begin with, at least you’ll have memories of it when it inevitably morphs into contentment.
Lily Q
wrote on July 3 2009 @ 01:39 pm: [report]
@john devore: “what defines a person is whether they chose to stay faithful.”
and after you choose not to stay faithful the first time, i think you’re exponentially more likely to make the same decision again. so while i’m willing to admit that my invocation of “once a cheater, always a cheater” may have been a tad harsh, the best i’ll do as far as a compromise is concerned is “once a cheater, almost always a cheater.” that’s fair, no?
californiaP
wrote on July 3 2009 @ 06:32 pm: [report]
The cheating-related pattern I’ve noticed among my friends & acquaintances runs more like: “Once cheated, next time a cheater”—almost like it’s a preemptive move to protect themselves from being cheated on again.
theoldman
wrote on July 5 2009 @ 03:58 pm: [report]
@ksiggles you’re not old enough to remember this song. Written by Boudleaux Bryant recorded by Roy Orbison in 1962. I was barely a teenager.
Cheating reflects an individuals need to validate their self worth. It is a need to prove if you will that the individual is attractive to others validate your self image. Nothing damages that self image like being cheated on. So the temptation to cheat yourself. Double entendre intended. Bumbles and chouette have the self assurance to see the down side and realize the consequences.
Molly Jean
wrote on July 5 2009 @ 04:03 pm: [report]
First, no, not all of us are cheaters. Some of us just aren’t. Second, I don’t agree that “once a cheater, almost always a cheater.” Things happen, people make mistakes, but people don’t always repeat mistakes. Who am I to judge a circumstance I know nothing about?
Finally, nice to read about getting hurt then getting back in the saddle again. Makes me rethink my whole motto these days about not dating (& God forbid, falling in love), in some super-control-freak-once-bitten-twice-shy-attempt at not getting hurt. Thanks for the eye-opener.
landesign
wrote on July 5 2009 @ 04:35 pm: [report]
@EarthGoddess. You are so right. Cheating is inevitable if a person pays little attention to their SO.
I cheated on my first wife and it was the best thing I ever
did in my life. Sure, I could have exited the relationship differently but how do you know how good it can be if all you’ve ever had was substandard? I got more attention in one week from my new love than four years from my wife, and I ended up marrying this beautiful woman, the real love of my life.
EarthGoddess
wrote on July 5 2009 @ 05:27 pm: [report]
@landesign: It sounds like we had very similar experiences and I know I made the right decision. If my husband and I hadn’t pursued our relationship from the beginning, when both of us were attached to other people, I would have missed out on my soul mate. Tomorrow’s our anniversary and we are so happy and have no regrets!
landesign
wrote on July 5 2009 @ 07:29 pm: [report]
@EarthGoddess. Well Congratulations!
Kinda nice knowing there are other couples out there who
have experienced similar circumstances that lead to a true
romance.
wowo
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 01:21 am: [report]
the sexy and wealthy women appears on
****k i s s C o u g a r.COM***
quite often for the young men. It is a place where older women and young men come together for the mutual online dating experience.
alphabete
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 11:19 am: [report]
Out of curiosity, what is so wrong with just ending a #&@$% relationship before beginning a new one? Is integrity less important than really good (but wrong) sex?
Mainer
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 01:03 pm: [report]
@ alphabete: Humans are a lot like our primitive selves in the sense that we do not like to leave the branch we are safely holding on to until we have a grip on the next one.
We also like to test drive the car before buying it. If we don’t like it, we continue driving our old car until we find something we like. Sometimes we go to the ferrari dealership just so we can test drive a ferrari.
We also like to see the preview first before spending the $15 on the movie ticket.
I’m out of metaphors.
EarthGoddess
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 01:08 pm: [report]
@Mainer: Well put. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
subpar
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 01:58 pm: [report]
@alphabete
People are scared to be alone. I haven’t been in a serious relationship in 2-3 years, but I’ve dated plenty of people casually since then. Makes it that much easier to NOT cheat on someone when you’re not in an exclusive relationship every second of your life.
KatWilder
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 02:27 pm: [report]
Just reading this after the disasterous McNair triangle. Food for thought ...
As a cheater (and I’ll never do that again!) and a cheatee (I hope that never happens again!), yes — “what defines a person is whether they chose to stay faithful. That is difficult, and that active decision, that vigilance, is the steep price love demands.”
Life itself is a bunch of active decisions., and we are defined by those decisions. You can say whatever you want about yourself, but your actions say a lot more. That’s why the Quakers say, “Let your life speak.”
My only quibble with your spot-on thoughts Mr. DeVore, is grammar: “a person” is singular, thus a his or her not a “they,. Sorry ...
alphabete
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 03:45 pm: [report]
I suppose I don’t see how that is supposed to make it alright to cheat. People are afraid to do lots of stuff. Humanity is very sad. If someone wants to be honest and true but don’t think they can be, it seems counterintuitive to exclusively be with one person.
I really don’t know how anyone can trust anyone else, because if they haven’t done something yet they’re probably apologists for it, which just leads me to believe that generally people will do what they must to have what they want, even if it means hurting another person or hurting more than one other person. I don’t assume all people are like this, I know they are not. I do, however, believe that being aware of mating impulses and acts is one of the sadder things to be visited upon the human species.
angel001717
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 08:27 pm: [report]
haha good article.
just wanna tell about my experience i had with my ex boyfriend:
we broke up because he “didnt want a relationship, a girlfriend” or whatever. a week later… guess what? he had a new gf. ever since i met him i had a feeling he was the cheating type… so i wanted to find out if that was true. i slept with him while he was still going out with that other girl. it proved that he didnt really respect relationships… but that didnt matter too much after i had the worst sex of my life (because i felt guilty and could not get into it)and i realized that i became “the other woman”. so now im mad at myself and him. but i still cant help excusing him. i can come up with so many “what ifs”. i just cant let him go. im not sure. any thoughts?
_jsw_
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 08:52 pm: [report]
@angel001717: He used an excuse to leave you, then hooked up with someone else within a week, meaning she was likely around beforehand, then cheated on her with you. And you’re wondering if you should try to get him back???
lovelie
wrote on July 7 2009 @ 11:22 am: [report]
Very engaging article. As someone who has been cheated on, as well as someone who has been tempted to cheat, I think it all boils down to self-control. I think alphabete shares my sentiment, in that the difference between a cheater and a non-cheater, is timing. Why continue on in a relationship, when clearly it has run its course? If cheating is simply an adrenaline rush that extinguises itself when one isn’t in a relationship, why not think of looking for a new way to seek thrills without tangling someone elses trust and dignity in for the ride?
angel001717
wrote on July 7 2009 @ 12:06 pm: [report]
ah jsw. good point. but he was my first - the first guy who showed any intrest in… well, getting into my pants. so thus my first boyfriend and the first guy i got any action with. and if there was any other takers i would forget about Michael and run to something (anything!) better. but as it is… i want some. and his “some” is the only “some” available to me. thats why its hard to say NO! and forget about is pathetic butt.
Frederica Bimble
wrote on July 20 2009 @ 08:16 am: [report]
It was “Nazareth” who said: “Love Hurts.” Still the same genre of music, though.
As for the article. It is natural to want to have sex but it is immature to want to “cheat.” Humans putting an emotional angle on a natural act. Having written that, if you know that you won’t be able to stay faithful to one person, then simply have the courage to be alone. That is what takes courage - being alone - not cheating on your partner or not cheating on them. I have never understood why people have to analyse such things when it has always been quite clear to me. I live alone. I do most things alone and I “get lucky” when I can but I haven’t met any man that makes me want to give up my freedom for them and only them. Cheating is a vulgar act - whether that is on an academic test, a board game, a sporting event, in love relationships, etc. etc. It goes hand-in-hand with lying, which is another act that I find illogical and mentally draining. I have been called “harsh” in my life because I am direct with others and it is a result of my Asperger’s but I think there needs to more people who are direct and say what they mean and mean what they say.
Frederica Bimble
wrote on July 20 2009 @ 08:28 am: [report]
That should read “not cheating on your partner or cheating on them.” Typo, indeed.
umiabze
wrote on July 26 2009 @ 01:39 am: [report]
brilliant post ... and well written too