What Being Faithful Meant to Me

I know it’s pointless now, but I just have to get this out there. We had different ideas of what being faithful meant, which is why you didn’t understand why I ended things, so now that I’ve had some time to think it over, I’ve come up with a list for you. It’s true that you never slept with anyone else, but there’s more to being faithful than sex.

This is what being faithful meant to me.

Being faithful meant that I was your only option. It meant that you had no backup plans. I had no backup plans if things weren’t going perfectly with you, but you had plenty of backups for me, didn’t you? You never deleted Tinder from your phone, and even though you weren’t on it all the time, the fact that you felt like you needed to have it there let me know you thought of me as only one of your options.

Being faithful meant you stopped flirting in its tracks. It meant that when a girl started flirting with you, you immediately stop her and send her on her way, not let her keep throwing herself at you because you like the attention then use the excuse that SHE was flirting with YOU. I saw the way you smiled when they flirted with you. You loved it. You enjoyed getting attention from other women.

Being faithful meant not flirting with other girls. I know in your mind that there is such thing as “harmless flirting,” but the truth is, flirting is meant to lead to something more, so every time you were flirting with another girl, you were hoping it was going somewhere. Sure, you stopped it before it went “too” far, but to me, the very fact that you gave that affection to another girl was cheating.

Being faithful meant keeping our relationship public. It meant letting people know that we were dating, not using the excuse that you’re a private person to avoid changing your relationship status on Facebook from “single” to “in a relationship.” You have no idea how much it hurt when I saw your replies to girls asking about me in pictures to see you respond with “just a friend.” Weren’t we more than that to you?

Being faithful meant reserving all of your romantic gestures for me. Of course, you can and should have friends, but certain things should only be for me. When you stayed up late texting other girls and sent flowers to a female friend, who was “having a hard day and just needed someone to let her know they cared,” that was cheating on me. That was giving other women something that should have been mine.

Being faithful meant not doing anything I was uncomfortable with. Time and time again, you did things that you knew I didn’t like and that hurt me. It didn’t matter to you that I asked you to stop texting your ex who was not over you or that I begged you to stay away from the topless bar your friends always go to. You did what you wanted with no regard for my feelings.

Being faithful meant not getting emotionally close to anyone else. It meant that I was the first one you should come to when you need advice or even just to vent about work. But you always seemed to invest emotionally in other people, and I was still the last person to know what was going on in your life. You even called your mom before you called me when you went to the hospital.

Being faithful meant not putting anything else in front of me. It meant that I was the most critical person in your life and our relationship mattered more than anything. I made you my world, but you were too busy putting other things like video games and going out with your friends first to see how much I wanted you just to make me a priority.

I hope that the next girl you end up with is luckier than I am.

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About the Author: Originally from Michigan, Melody now enjoys working as a freelance writer from her home in Nicaragua, which she shares with her amazing husband and their crazy cat that was raised on goat’s milk from the time her mother abandoned her at just ten days old. They’re excited to be expecting their first baby, who they thought was a girl, were told was a boy, and then was told was a girl. She also recently finished her first novel and is working on making a cat coloring book.