Yes, I Slept With Him.

The other day, while doomscrolling, I came across a post. A rather provocative post. This particular post reawakened certain feelings in me that lay dormant. The post reminded me of two similar incidents that once happened to me. In the context of this post, I will share one, as the other is still healing.

In this post, this man was explaining how he found out his woman was cheating on him. He explained that he was at the gym, “paying rent”, as they say. While lifting weights and building muscle, his phone pinged. He looked at the notification, only to realise that it was from a number that was not in his contacts. At first, he thought it was a spammer or perhaps the wrong number. What sparked his curiosity, however, was the fact that it was a view-once video on WhatsApp.

In between his sets, he said that he clicked on the notification. Indeed, the number was not on his contact list, nor did the number have a saved name. He had no prior conversations with the person, nor did he have any message that showed how the number adhered to the WhatsApp encryption rules. That orange text that appears between messages. The only message from this number was the view-once video. Curiosity got the better of him. He decided to open the message.

It's safe to say that he was no longer able to continue working out after seeing the video. The video crushed any will to continue. It ruptured all his emotions. It was a video of his woman with another man.

He said, tears beginning to well in his eyes, that his woman seemed intoxicated. Or perhaps high. From the video, it is clear that the recording was done without her consent. Or so he believes.

In the same breath, the action itself was definitely consensual, as the woman seemed comfortable. It seemed to him that this wasn’t the first time she had been with this man. Perhaps it was the first time it was recorded. But to him, it was definitely not the first time she was with this man.

In the video, from his description, the man was on top of her. The phone kept moving around her body. He said that he watched it a few times to confirm whether it was his girlfriend.

At first, he thought it was a random clip. Perhaps a wrong number that one of the partners in a couple might have crossed. Or perhaps the message was intended for a friend or someone else. But the fact that the woman in the video looked like his girlfriend greatly bothered him.

He kept repeating the video. Searching for clues to confirm or reject his suspicions. Indeed, these two were not dancing the adult dance for the first time, he said. It was clear how comfortable they were together, he said. To the extent that the man didn’t wear any protection. She might have looked a bit drunk or high, but not to the point of being taken advantage of. It looked to him like a wild night ending in the adult shuffle.

He said that the woman had a very similar body to his woman. As he watched the video repeatedly, he was no longer watching the action. He noted certain features about his woman that only appeared when she was naked. He didn’t say which. But he does say that he saw them.

At first, he thought that perhaps they were from the bad quality of the video. But the more he watched, the more the features became distinct. The more he watched, he would pause the video when it showed the woman’s face. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, his woman.

You know, something like this once happened to me. Way back in the day, I found a video of my then-girlfriend with another man on her laptop. It so happened that I had borrowed her laptop, and when looking for a movie to watch (this was way before Netflix or streaming), I came across her sextape.

Like that man, watching the video broke me. Broke something in me that took me close to a decade to mend. It is like someone thrusting a sharp, thin spear slowly into your heart. This spear is laced with the emotional poison that eats at everything it touches.

You see, when a man (or woman, I would believe) is in love, the person they love becomes their everything. They become their centre of pride and joy. They take the high seat reserved for the honoured guest. For they become that guest.

You treat them as royalty. You treat them as beings that walk only on rose petals. You treat them as God-sent angels.

So when you see them with another man, you feel a deep betrayal that is difficult to put into words. To you, they are your everything, but chances are that to the next man, they are merely a piece of meat to add to the body count.

In my experience, she cheated with a DJ who, on Facebook, made it clear what women are to him. To him, women are there to please his sexual drive. Nothing more. To him, women existed to satisfy his lust. Nothing more.

And yet, my then-girlfriend found it just to sleep with this man. A similar incident happened once again, but that one I am still healing from. Once healed, I will share it.

When that happens, it makes you question yourself as a man. It makes you question your masculinity. And as unpleasant as it sounds, it will make you question the value of a woman. Such experiences lead men to a dangerous place where they lose respect for women. It leads them to take the red pill, where they feel women are to be seen and never heard.

There is another ex who I dated that I had the greatest respect for. Like most girls I fall in love with, I saw her and tried my best to treat her like a Queen. I worshipped the ground that she walked on. Everything about me became about making her happy. Until she, too, cheated on me.

Like the one who cheated on me with a DJ, she cheated with a rich man. What’s wild is that years later we met. Being a gentleman (and seeking closure), she asked if we could go on a coffee date to catch up.

Obviously, this incident came up on the date. She explained to me how dating that man was one of the worst decisions she ever made. That man, according to her, treated her like she was nothing. As much as she was gifted with expensive gifts and so on, she said that she was basically his sex slave, something he used when his wife was away.

Hearing this revelation broke me. I did not tell her, though. What broke me is that, to me, she was a perfect woman created by God. She was someone I saw a long-lasting forever with. Yet she never saw it that way. Instead, she cheated on me with a richer man. A richer man who, to him, she was just another body on his count. She was something to just take the edge off.

Cheating on a man (and I believe women as well) makes you see women differently. It makes you believe that being Mr Right is being Mr Wrong. It affirms that the Nice Guy always finishes last. You realise that the ideal man that most women describe is a fallacy. It is a myth created by the fairy tales in Disney movies. It puts you in this state of mind that makes you, a man, find it difficult to love a woman fully.

The fact that 65% of women divorce in the country, to a broken man, is not because of women's empowerment. It isn’t because women are seeing marriage for what it really is. No. To a broken man, it reaffirms that women can not be trusted. It reaffirms the lethal effects of the red pill that women are not to be respected.

When you are broken as a man, you start seeing things. You start seeing how most women are narcissistic. Whether they like to admit it or not. They believe they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. You start seeing how most women have mastered the art of emotional warfare.

They use heavy emotional language to attack you. With the same heavy emotional language, they will use it to defend themselves. The false allegations against men- this is the mastery of emotional warfare on full display. And you know what? It works.

Trust me when I say that it takes a lot of effort to rebuild yourself as a man after you have been broken by a woman. It is not an overnight event. Personally, it took me roughly 8 to 9 years to fully heal. Ashamedly, it took me that long to start respecting women again. It took me that long to feel love again.

I personally believe that if a person cheats, the healthiest option is to talk about it. It will hurt; this is true. But talking about it allows a person to ask the necessary questions to understand what caused the cheating in the first place. It allows them to heal.

Perhaps you, as the man, were coming on too strong. Love-bombing, as they call it. And the girl got overwhelmed. Maybe you were not paying attention to her certain needs. Having an open discussion about the situation can help both parties understand what went wrong.

If it's something that can be fixed, well, good. If it's something that can not be fixed, well, good as well. At least for your next relationship, you will know which areas of yourself you’ll need to work on to experience a better love.

Because not talking about it does not help. Especially if you are older. Especially if you are like me, who have experienced being cheated on and have experienced being the cheater.

Patterns never lie. You will know that your partner is cheating on you. Like that guy who shared his experience, I think he knew that his girl was cheating. The video only confirmed it. Unfortunately, it was a view-once message. So his physical proof evaporated into the digital air.

Without the proof, he cannot confront his woman about it. Especially if she is the defensive type. No person likes being in the wrong. It hurts our ego, our pride, our narcissistic nature that we all have. It damages our supposed good image. In the case of relationships, it distorts the image of being a loyal and good partner.

Hence, when you ask your partner if they are cheating, they often deny it. Some do so calmly. Others do so wildly, shooting back at the allegations. But you will know that they are cheating.

Again, patterns never lie. Hot coals don’t suddenly become cold when you touch them. Spring always follows Winter. The sun always rises at dawn and sets at dusk. The rose always grows the thorns before it shows its flower. Patterns are what govern the universe. No matter how good you are at hiding your cheating ways, patterns never lie. Yet the common cheater will deny the existence of these patterns.

And these denials only make things worse, in my opinion. The other day, I saw a show on television where a woman had lied to a man. She said that the child he helped raise was his. He believed she wasn’t. The girl was reported to be 16 at the time. After 16 years, it was revealed that the child indeed wasn’t his. What annoyed me about the show was that the presenter and crew chose to console the child and mother while completely ignoring the man. No one cared about the pain he was experiencing.

I am sure he had his suspicions over the years. And perhaps that’s why he wrote to the show. He said that, in our African traditions, his ancestors were rejecting the child. So he wrote to the show to know whether the child was his or not. I am sure the mother denied it all. For 16 full years, that is. But the truth eventually prevailed.

What if that woman had explained from the start that the child wasn’t his? Things might have been different. He could have maybe stayed, loving the woman. Or he could have left and found a woman who would love him and not betray him. Who really knows?

What I do know is that infidelity in relationships is common. So common that Jesus said that infidelity is the only valid reason for a man and woman to divorce. With modern science and therapy techniques of today, infidelity isn’t a death sentence for a relationship.

Understandably, the guilt of it might be too much to bear. The threat of the love of your life leaving you because of it is something that makes one understand why most choose to keep it a secret. But God is Love for a reason. In love, like in God, there is no room for lies. They cannot live in the realm of that which is holy.

I feel for that man. For I know how it feels. There are very few pains of the heart that hurt as deeply as that of being cheated on. Even worse when the person doing it denies it. When the truth eventually comes out (and it will, even if it takes 16 years like that man on the TV show or years after the relationship ended), it shatters that which you believe was unbreakable.

If you are reading this and you know you are cheating, and you love your partner, do the right thing. Tell them about it and be open. Allow that person to have closure. Yes, the relationship might end. This is true. But if the love between the two of you is strong, talk about it. You might find it actually adds more cement to the relationship.

It will not be an overnight event. It will not be a pleasant discussion. It will not be easy on all accounts. It will take time for the person to heal. Therapists suggest that if the person keeps bringing up the affair, even months or years later, let them. This is their brain looking for ways to understand and help heal the heart.

I pray that man finds closure. The reality is, he probably won’t. I am sure she is denying everything. I am sure she is throwing back her own allegations. I am pretty sure he is losing the emotional warfare. I pray that he finds closure. I pray he is a sensible man and won’t make his girlfriend another victim of GBV violence.

Being a broken man gives you an indifference to women. An indifference that far exceeds being nonchalant. Trust me, I was once such a man. But being a broken man, you miss out on one of God’s greatest gifts: love. The one emotion that can turn hardcore gangsters into upright citizens. The one emotion that can make a mother sacrifice all she has just for her children to live. The one emotion that can transform the village fool into a King.

Being cheated on is not a pleasurable experience. It is one of the worst hells there is. But it happens. Unfortunately, such is life. Especially today where cheating is not seen as the traumatic experience it truly is.

It is shocking how soapies, movies and influencers treat it as a novelty, something trivial like kicking a soccer ball. Something to treat as sport, something to enjoy. A twisted, sadistic pleasure made fashionable by those who lack morals.

Please tell your partner if you are cheating. Save them from the emotional torture of them knowing without knowing. The unknown carries more powerful fears than the known. If they know you are cheating, their heart will be crushed. But at least it will be at ease. Your guilt will punch your ego, but it will heal. Allow a safe space for both of you to clear the air.

Love is always in the air. But secrets like cheating fill the air with mustard gas. If you wait too long to clear the air, none of you will come out alive. And in our country, that could be taken quite literally. In our country, that is a woman who could be a victim of GBV. In our country, that could be one of the approximately 77% of men who commit suicide.

Communication is key. It is the key. The key that can open doors to locate where the trust was lost. The key to open the floodgates that will pour down the healing power to repair the broken soul. The key to mend that which is broken.

Communication, however, does require maturity. Maturity to comprehend the full extent of one’s actions. Maturity to comprehend the consequences of those actions. Maturity that is vital in any adult relationship.

The honesty to come clean is better than the filth of keeping it a secret. If you happen to be in this filth, do yourself a favour. Come clean about it. Free your ego from the guilt. Cause the truth is, your partner already knows. Respect them enough not to insult their intelligence.

Save a soul from being broken. It is the noble thing to do.