Personal Damage From My Ex

The thing I do not understand about cheaters is why make the decision to cheat at all? If a person is unhappy in a relationship why not make a change and at least be honest about being unhappy with a partner they are with. I am sure there are a few individuals like my ex-girlfriend who want their cake and eat it too. The truth would have been painful but at least I can respect someone who is honest enough to make a relationship decision or exit a relationship with me in an appropriate manner. I could of at least began to work on myself and focus on changes I could have learned from the relationship or use that time to seek a new relationship. Cheating really is a cowards way out of relationships, completely disrespectful towards a person whom you at least once cared about, and horribly selfish. I do not think that people really understand the damage that cheating does to another person until they have been the recipient of such behavior. Once I found out I was cheated on my first thoughts were about how bad of a boyfriend I was. What was I doing wrong that someone felt it necessary to go outside the relationship to get their needs met? My self-esteem went into a never ending abyss that with each day and seemed to slide lower and lower. I had feelings of intense inadequacies, second guessing all decisions I had made in the relationship prior to her cheating and fell into a horrible depression. I felt extremely embarrassed and ashamed as I found out others close to me knew about my ex-girlfriend cheating before I did. I became angry because I found out that my ex's family not only knew she was cheating but were implicit in keeping it a secret in order to protect my ex. I felt incredibly used as more and more details came forward, like some sort of consolation prize to return to if these other escapades did not work out. My trust was shattered as we attempted to work through the relationship and my trust of women in future relationships was ruined by one selfish female. As time went on and I recovered from this relationship and the incident of cheating, I learned that the cheating had very little to do with me as it did my ex-girlfriends major character flaws and attitudes about herself. Cheaters are often very unhappy about themselves and need outside reinforcement from others to find happiness for themselves for a short time. This short term happiness needs constant refueling in the form of compliments, attention, and supporting their feelings of being needed from others. It is really an ugly and sad pattern that will often continue until the cheater finds happiness from within. The troublesome aspect of individuals like my ex-girlfriend is that the cheaters do severe damage to others along their personal journey in finding happiness from others in maladaptive ways.