Is it my fault my ex gf became a serial cheater?

[TheDingo]

Long ago when I was 24 (now I'm 32) and the very first time I even wrote on this site, I cheated on a past gf. It devastated her and things were obviously never the same again.

 

Fast forward to present day:

I've learnt from others that she's been cheating on every single guy she has dated. The world is so small that one of my closest friends even dated her and she ended up sleeping with his cousin. She excused it that she wasn't always like this, that someone made her into this (sadly that someone is me).

Her fb page has the saying ''Everyone was born good and on a clean slate, society corrups you and makes you who you are''.

 

I ruined her. It's all my fault then. I met her as an sweet girl that didn't have it in her to cheat.

Edited June 22, 2017 by TheDingo

[SevenCity]

Possible you were the catalyst but she makes her own choices.

 

I've seen women [get promiscuous] after a bad breakup where they were lied to or cheated on.

 

But you're not holding her legs open - that's on her. You are responsible for hurting her but she is responsible for how she handled it.

Edited June 26, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Edited for language and member moderated

[TheDingo]

I ruined her life and her as a person, her self-esteem, etc. I will have to live with that forever. If I could go back in time to the sweet girl she was (even the way she's dressing up now isn't the same), I would tell myself not to cheat...to bring her happiness.

 

Someone else claims to really is bitter towards men overall. I'm that one man that made her into what she is.:(

Edited June 26, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Redact full quote of immediately preceding post

[frigginlost]

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, being cheated on can be a massive catalyst for someone to "just not care" anymore and sleep with anything that walks, runs, or crawls. The emotional pain cheating causes to some emotionally destroys them and they never give up that emotional attachment to someone again.

 

The best you can do is work on forgiving yourself and understanding that she is the only person that makes her decisions. What happened between you and her may have been the catalyst, but it is on her on who she becomes, just as it is on you on who you become.

 

If there is a good thing, it shows that you do have character that it does bother you. Just work on forgiving yourself...

[knabe]

Nope. She is choosing this and refusing to take responsibility. You didn't MAKE her anything. She is choosing who she is.

[PegNosePete]

Stop blaming yourself.

 

She needs to take responsibility for her own actions.

 

As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. So maybe you led her to the cheating pool, but she chose to drink, and continues to drink, all by herself.

[smackie9]

IMO the emotional impact from you cheating on her may have been the catalyst to the start of her behavior BUT this does not mean you are reasonable for her actions. She might have had preexisting mental issues....like the lack of coping skills or depression. It's also a possibility she suffered from PTSD. In any case she is not taking any responsibility. If she knows there is a problem, then she should have stepped up and got counseling to deal with her PTSD or to help her cope with the trauma she experienced and healed from the experience.

 

She has taken this too far:

 

Right now I see a vengeful individual screaming that she is the victim, and she is continued to be victimized, possibly in some way to make you feel guilty. She was so hurt, it's like she hates all men and now seeks revenge by cheating on them. She is one messed up cookie that needs to check herself into the loonie bin.

[harrybrown]

our actions do have consequences.

 

She knows how much this hurts, but she still hurts others.

 

She has to be responsible for her choices, just like you and I do.

 

Yes she is messed up.

 

Keep your distance. I do hope you can find a way to tell her you were wrong and are sorry, but from a distance.

[SammySammy]

Infidelity gave me a different perspective of relationships, but what I do is up to me.

 

You may have treated her bad, but you didn't "ruin her life" and you aren't responsible for her behavior. That's the excuse she uses to justify doing what she chooses to do. It's not a valid excuse though.

[Woggle]

It might have been the spark but it is still no excuse for her to take it out on innocent people. It only means she has become what she once hated.

[Space Ritual]

I ruined her. It's all my fault then. I met her as an sweet girl that didn't have it in her to cheat.

 

If you believe that, then there really is no reason for you to be posting, for it would be set in stone.

 

Come on, man. You are in your 30's. Did you put a gun to her head and tell her she better spread her legs for every guy that walks down the street?

 

Look, broken people with poor boundaries, loose morals and zero scruples like to blame any other possibility for their crappy behavior other than their own choices. It is called being immature. And what better place to be immature and have ZERO accountability than on Facebook? Anyone with two boobs, a vagina and a heartbeat can post they are lamenting the fact they have a hangnail and every guy East of the Mississippi who thinks they have a shot at getting a positive response will come a posting to "Get better soon, sweetie".

 

That is not far off the mark. believe me, and I don't have two boobs or a vagina...but I do have a heartbeat last time I checked. me...Well maybe 2 boobs as I am in my fifties now and look at what happened to Kenny Rogers? You ever see his Moobs on the Golf Course before plastic surgery? He was like Jayne Mansfield with a beard.

 

But I digress......

 

Why in the hell do you even care?

 

1. She is yesterday's news

2. You are giving someone you used to bang along tome ago far too much headspace.

3. You are putting too much credence in a Facebook Post.

 

Look in the mirror, slap yourself in the face 10 times and repeat you are in your 30's and not your teens. Then go online, and either block yourself form seeing this chick's social media or deactivate you Facebook account.

 

Come on man, don't let some stone age relationship drive you into a vortex of self imposed stupidity. Snap the hell out of it.

[misspalmy]

no you didnt, shes the one cheating, doesnt have to cheat just cos she got cheated on.

 

maybe shes doing it to move on from you, could be still in love with u, so using these men

[ExpatInItaly]

No, it's not all your fault.

 

What you did was awful and surely hurt her and affected her deeply. But to cause her to become a serial cheater? No, you're giving yourself too much importance to have the power to influence her all these years later.

 

She is accountable for her own actions. Period.

[lericenciel]

There is a saying, that hurt people hurt people. You did a bad thing to her, but you are not a bad person. She is hurting other people, and she isn't a bad person either.

 

I think she was just immature and blinded by romanticism before you cheated on her. Now she is exploring a different world. Maybe a world that you introduced to her? Everybody is growing. Things will settle down and she'll find what she wants eventually.

 

We need to learn to forgive ourselves and move on.

[SammySammy]

Some people find it easier to blame things on others. Looking at themselves with a critical eye would force them to face some hard truths about themselves. Force them to take responsibility and make some hard decisions.

 

So, they take the easy way out. Blame others.

 

If it's you that's blamed, it doesn't mean you're responsible. It just means this person refuses to look in the mirror of their souls and deal with what they find.

[elaine567]

 

If it's you that's blamed, it doesn't mean you're responsible. It just means this person refuses to look in the mirror of their souls and deal with what they find.

 

No-one else is actually blaming the OP here, he is doing that all by himself.

 

All this girl has done is post some FB "truism" about how society corrupts and the OP has taken that to mean that he is the Devil Incarnate and that he is somehow responsible for this girl cheating.

 

Who says she is "ruined"?...

Maybe she is a born cheater, maybe she doesn't believe in monogamy, maybe she is a young woman with a lot of options and an inability to say no, may be she is having the time of her life...

Who knows?

 

People tend do what they want to do and if she is unhappy then she may stop her cheating ways or she may just sail through life and still be cheating in the old folks home...

[Timshel]

I ruined her life and her as a person, her self-esteem, etc. I will have to live with that forever. If I could go back in time to the sweet girl she was (even the way she's dressing up now isn't the same), I would tell myself not to cheat...to bring her happiness.

 

Someone else claims to really is bitter towards men overall. I'm that one man that made her into what she is.:(

 

Hmm, well this is very unlikely, you'll be happy to have another opinion as such.

 

The more likely scenario is that the two of you were a festering poison of intimacy. Since you have remained enough in contact to know her sexual proclivities and she is conversely posting to successfully get a rise out of you; I'd say that you may both have the same diathesis.

 

Anyway, it may be a good idea to let this go and not believe that this woman's personal choices are something 'you have to live with forever.'

 

She will be fine, as an assumption that no person is 'making' her do anything she doesn't want to do.

 

It's ok to feel regret over a negative affect on another person...but assuming full responsibility when the person has freedom of action and thought is a smidge on the self indulgent/flattering side.

 

Best wishes.

[Chi townD]

Really easy to blame and justify her poor behavior on someone else.

 

This happened in your early to mid twenties. And she now blaming you for something that happened 10 years ago?!?!?!

 

Dude, you didn't cause this, this is her choice and how she's making poor decision for herself. You have nothing to do with her choices

[sandylee1]

There's no doubt being cheated on can change your whole view on life and relationships.

 

It makes people never want to marry again.

It affects their ability to trust.

 

It can put their walls up so high, that no one else can get in to hurt them.

 

However we ultimately need to take responsibility for our own lives.

 

It's like the victim of bullying, often becoming the bully.

 

It seems you've grown up a lot and won't do that again.

 

She needs to realise she won't find happiness this way. She must have been really deeply in love with you.

[TheDingo]

Thank you for the answers. Yes, I've learned from it and never want to put someone through that pain ever since. I also know what's it like getting cheated on.

The very next gf I had (after the one I cheated on) cheated. If that's not karma then I don't know what it is. Though I was willing to take her back until she said she had no idea why and wasn't sure about how she wanted.

 

I'm currently with another gf (she's 31) where we have talked about our future goals, having kids and our pasts. She has as much as a colorful past as me (in experience and relationships); probably slightly more.

[stillafool]

I ruined her life and her as a person, her self-esteem, etc. I will have to live with that forever. If I could go back in time to the sweet girl she was (even the way she's dressing up now isn't the same), I would tell myself not to cheat...to bring her happiness.

 

Someone else claims to really is bitter towards men overall. I'm that one man that made her into what she is.:(

 

Bull! If this were the case all of us would be cheaters. Almost everyone has been cheated on and hurt but didn't go on a f---king spree. She is responsible for her choices and uses her past as an excuse to do what she wants to do.

[Space Ritual]

The very next gf I had (after the one I cheated on) cheated. If that's not karma then I don't know what it is. Though I was willing to take her back until she said she had no idea why and wasn't sure about how she wanted.

 

Being paid back in your own coin can be a bitter pill to swallow. On top of being fed excuses that you may have in fact used yourself at one time. Must be mind numbing

[TheDingo]

Being paid back in your own coin can be a bitter pill to swallow. On top of being fed excuses that you may have in fact used yourself at one time. Must be mind numbing

That's one of the reasons I went single for a while till March 2016. As of now, I'm still dating my current gf and one of our future goals is having kids. I really look forward to having a family at this point.

 

Though if there is one good thing from the gf that cheated is she confessed to it the following day whearas when I did it (with the one before her), I was a big jerk back then that kept doing it until getting caught.

[TheDingo]

She must have been really deeply in love with you.

Yes, she was at the time. Though many people might want to say I wasn't, even after I did that, I did loved her (not in the way she deserved it though). I know it sounds illogical. I know.

 

Hopefully, she recovers someday. As of now, I'm moving forward with my current relationship.

[mortensorchid]

I don't buy that story that one person or event may be the cause of "making" someone into something. People have done / said horrible things to me (as they have everyone in the past) but we make choices as well to do/not do certain things too. And those choices - good and bad - are part of growing. If she cheated once or twice, you can say that we all make mistakes. If she became a serial cheater due to an event that she says you were responsible for, well then ask yourself what the individuals she was cheating with / on had to do with you. Chances are, they don't.

 

It's not your fault and her behaviors are not your problem either. Close the book and move on from this person. She's a train wreck and she likes having you and others think she is, as well as the attention she gets from it.