Obsessing about the ex (i.e. damaging your mental health)

Would you like to beat your brain with a iron hammer every other second?

No, you're not reading the local Maniacs-R-Us news, but it is exactly what you are doing when you keep obsessing about your ex.

I am guilty too. I have spent hours fantasising about what he's doing and who he's doing it with. I have stalked his Facebook within an inch of my life and found every possible way of tricking my friends to reveal more about him after specifically demanding that I did not want to hear his name.

It was the edge that meant I was struggling to move on from a year long relationship, a year after we broke up. It meant that I was stuck in a rut between a rock and a hard place and it was all because of me.

I asked myself many questions which all ran along the lines of:

1. What is he doing now?
2. Who is he doing it with?
3. Does he still miss me?
4. Does he think about me nearly as much as I think about him?
5. Does he want me back?
6. Has he changed?
7. Will he take me back? Will he contact me?

I spent many a fine summers day pondering the meaning of love and what it had meant in our relationship - nothing. I wondered, cried, screamed, drank and became depressed. 

I was eager to know about what he was doing, but every time I found out what it was, it hurt. It hurt to know that he was now searching for his soulmate in another girl. It hurt that he had moved on so quickly. 

But more than anything, it hurt that I had just stalled my recovery by finding out more news about him.

If you have spent many hours and months wondering why you aren't feeling any better, it is because even if you have physically detached yourself from the relationship, you are still emotionally invested, and prisoner to, the ex-dumdum.

The more time you spent unpicking the old scabs of "what went wrongs" the longer they will take to heal.

I noticed that every time I stopped myself focusing on him, the better I felt. I was free to think other influential thoughts which were all about being good to me. I dreamt about the perfect job and all the activities I wanted to try. I focused on what I wanted to do rather than what he was doing.

It is important for us to realise that those who choose to walk away from us are essentially giving up on us. They have made the decision that they are better off without us in their life and it is a decision made with full consciousness, so why must we chase?

If you have found it difficult to maintain No Contact and are obsessing about what your ex-dumdum is doing in every moment they are NOT contacting you, it means you are letting someone else be the hero in your story.

It prolongs the hurt.

You have to mentally remind yourself each time an unwelcome question about he-who-must-not-be-named sneaks into your head. Focus your energy away. Close your eyes and breathe. Then force yourself to think something else.

Eventually, your brain gets the message that it is a forbidden topic, and it remembers to forget. 

It worked for me and I started noticing that I spent less time each day focusing on the past and more on living for the future. I cared less and wasted less time.

However, this is not the perfect formula. It is something that depends on the situation and the physical proximity to the ex-dumdum as well. It works only when you have started No Contact.

I have often asked other friends why they miss their good-for-nothing exes so much and it seems everyone is an expert on everyone else's problems. Everyone can see that the other person should not waste time on a useless boyfriend, but many people don't recognise that the mental torture they are putting themselves through is just a similar place to be.

I am happy to give advice to the outside world at times when I am often hurting. But it is also about sharing the little wisdom I have learnt.

It is time to let go of the things that make you sad and just be happy.

I'm so proud of you

Sometimes when I am sitting alone late in the night and wondering how I ended up at this point in life, I feel a desperate urge to reach out to someone and just tell them to make it all better. I want to call my dumdum-ex boyfriend and ask him to hold me and save me.

But then I hold myself back. I stop and sit on my hands if I have to, to stop myself from contacting him. 

Self compassion takes years to learn – you have to unlearn the self destruction first. 

And it is important that you make the choice to distance yourself from this man. It is important that you find your peace of mind far away from where you may be constantly running into him.

But more than anything, keep trying. You have to wake up every day with a purpose and with a dream to make that day better than your last.

I had a problem with the “wow did this just happen?” moment when I was facing relationship abuse. I was falling apart and I was in shock at the same time. I used to just stop and go into a daze because I couldn't believe anyone could treat me that badly. 

But this is not all bad news. It means you’re waking up. It means you have finally decided to see that the treatment you got was unacceptable and have started to take action.

It is never too late.

It is also easy to talk. The dumdum-ex was always full of ideas about how he would prove his love to me etc, but unless you see actions, take it with a whole bucket of salt. 

These men are all weak. It takes a strong man to keep promises and to cherish a woman. A weak man gets by without these qualities.

I’m also sure everyone goes through a phase of wanting to be “friends”. A part of me still hopes that one day me and dumdum could be friends, but it is a deluded, misunderstood and a very very small part of me.

I am proud of myself everyday for making the choice and deciding that enough was enough and I needed to get out. I am proud because I finally realised that it is NOT okay to feel hurt and pain and cry myself to sleep every night of my life.

If you are in this situation, use this chance and wake up. Realise that you need to get out. And if you've made the decision and are taking baby-steps away from the disaster zone your life used to be:

Good luck on waking up, be proud of you.

So-called friends and why you don't need them

One of the things which I have barely seen discussed as much as romantic relationships are friendships.

We spend a lot of our time chasing after the dream of finding our own Price Charming (or for the more mature ladies amongst us, the Perfect Man), and yet we often forget about the other important relationships in our lives, which often tend to last longer than our dating partners.

Over the past few years I have struggled with many different types of friendships and come across people who I called my best friends, but who just wanted to see me cry and drown in my own pity. I have also come across those people who trusted me with everything, until one day they simply got bored and walked away.

This post is about those "so-called" friends who don't really have our best interests at heart, and why we need to move away from such friendships.

Friends are the family we choose.

This is a popular quote that is often thrown around when we get emotional about our friendships and realise that sometimes we can relate more to our friends (and vice versa) than our families.

But if we choose who we give entry to into our lives, isn't it also our responsibility to choose who stays and who leaves?

My best friend a few years ago was someone I didn't even like much. We got along at times, but while I tip-toed around making sure that I didn't upset her - as she had a tendency to go off in a strop and would just stop talking to me - she simply did what she liked.

I was good friends with her for 7 years, during which my self-esteem hit the absolute bottom because she would tell me how I'm not pretty, and how I would never be successful etc. She would exclude me from parties, meet ups and even conversations and I never felt wanted unless I was playing the role of the maidservant.

We looked similar and everyone noticed it. But she would make a joke out of it and insist that it was an insult for someone to say that she looked like me.

It hurt and I just smiled.

Then, a few years ago, I started realising that even though I claimed that she was my best friend, I never actually liked her.

I didn't trust her and I wasn't myself around her.

That was the wake-up call. I didn't break our friendship (or so-called friendship anyway) but I simply started making other friends. As I got to know more people, I realised that there were many others who I had never spoken to but who I could be more genuine with.

There are 7 billion people on this planet. We are never going to be able to meet all of them. But if we stay 'stuck' in one friendship, we may never have the opportunity to actually meet someone who we could be real friends with. Move on and meet new people whenever you have the chance to - the next person you meet could be the one you 'click' with.

When I was going through my break-up, my ex-best friend didn't even bother calling me to ask if I was okay in the 4 months after I told her what had happened. But it didn't matter because I had found my real best friend, who was there for me on the countless days when I just wanted someone to hug me and give me a shoulder to cry on.

The signs that I noticed which proved that my ex-best friend wasn't a true friend were:

• I was always the one making the initiative to meet up with her/contact her 
• She never kept her promises to call me
• She didn't understand that I was going through a tough time and I needed someone there for me
• Whenever we talked it was always about her - how she was doing, what had happened with her boyfriend/family/friends etc
• I had to think twice before I said/did something in front of her
• I felt like I had to neglect my own feelings to make sure hers were fulfilled

What you need from in a friend is the ability to be who you are unashamedly. If you feel yourself pretending just to keep the world turning how they expect it to, get out. The relationship is not helping you in any way.

While friendships are about give and take, you should only take which mirrors what you give. It takes two people, just like in a romantic relationship, to cultivate a friendship and if they are not giving you what you need, you need to break free.

This leads me onto friendships which, while you have changed and developed, haven't grown with you.

Don't hold onto relationships which are past their expiry date simply because the substance tasted amazing in the past. 

This means that you have to realise that you simply outgrow some friendships and it is time to let go of those friends who you may have known for the past decade, but who no longer have a 'fit' into your life. These are friends who you shared your first ice-cream or Barbie doll with, but who have taken a different route to you.

Holding onto friendships in desperation is the same as holding onto a failed relationship - the energy you are using up in just sustaining this is harming you.

You need to accept that people do change and sometimes the changes mean that you cannot be compatible any more. The bff or friends-till-we-die scenario is out of the window.

It is time to realise that YOU need to be your own best friend. That way you are best friends with someone who trust completely, who understands you perfectly and who believes in you. If this doesn't apply to you then you have found your flaw. I have struggled over my life to trust myself and to realise that if I don't believe in myself, no-one else can.

I am now working on trusting myself more. This means being accepting of my mistakes and agreeing with my decisions. I have learnt how to forgive myself for the past and am learning how to be more hopeful of the future.

Being 'busy' in a bid to stop thinking

I've tried this many many times over the past few months of being No Contact with the dumdum-ex boyfriend. Being 'busy' in a bid to stop thinking is when you try to do lots of things and fill up all your spare time to try and tear your thoughts and energies away from the one person who seems to demand permanent residency in your mind.

There are many possible activities that you can try:

• Sports/gym
• Art
• Reading
• Writing
• Starting another hobby
• Going back to a hobby you have neglected
• Socialising

The list is seemingly endless.

But what didn't work for me was doing everything on the list. I was so afraid of having spare time when I'll get bored - and hence start revisiting the ghosts of relationship past, that I signed up for anything and everything.

I would leave at 9am and return at 10 or 11pm so exhausted that I would simply collapse into bed. 

But as 'busy' as I was, I still thought about him almost every moment of every day. I would be in the gym with music blasting through my ears and I would be thinking about when he used to try and persuade me to go to the gym with him and wish that I had gone.

It took time, but eventually, I realised that it wasn't working. I was pushing myself too far and it was taking its toll on my health without being particularly helpful to my recovery. 

Sure, I was meeting more people, but I often didn't have the chance to cultivate those relationships because I had to be somewhere else almost all the time.

Then I tried a different tactic. I focused on the activities that I genuinely enjoyed. I started painting again. It was something I had enjoyed many years ago and I wanted to try it again.

It is easy to become busy enough to forget the pain, but it follows you and haunts you throughout. I realised that even when I had a few minutes free, all the pain would come rushing back and sometimes that sudden "it's-all-coming-back-to-me" moment was so powerful that it would knock me sideways into depression.

What is important is that you find your identity again after a break-up. You must spend time being good to you and helping your self-esteem recover. Spend time doing everything and anything you had to think twice about when you were in a relationship - book a holiday abroad, take our those sexy heels and go on a girls night out!

Find who you are.

Often, as was the case with me, we forget who we are in a bid to keep the other person happy. We subconsciously start to neglect our needs and become happy doing whatever the other person wants to do. Life is about so much more than that!

It is about discovering your inner needs and making sure you achieve your dreams too, rather than helping people build theirs and forgetting about yours.

So, take a breath, and go out and do what you want. Lose the fear of their being something wrong with who you are and start to believe in yourself again. 

Your time is now, honey, believe it.

A hundred years from now

It has been a long time since I posted and what has led me to post today is the poem that touched the very topic I have spent many moons thinking about. 

It goes like this:

It will not make much difference friend, a hundred years from now
If you live in a stately mansion or a floating river scow
If the clothes you wear were tailor made or just pieced together somehow
If you ate big steaks or beans and cake, a hundred years from now
Won't matter what your bank account has or the make of car you drive
For the grave will claim all your riches and fame and the things for which you strive


There's a deadline that we all must meet, no-one will show up late
It won't matter all the places you've been, each one will keep that date
We will only have in eternity what we gave away on earth
When we go to the grave we can only save the things of eternal worth
What matters friend the earthly gain for which some men will bow
For your destiny will be sealed you see a hundred years from now

                              - Warren Parker

For a long time I have thought about what it means to be successful and whether the pain and hurt we suffer in our lives will really matter a few years after our death?

This poem highlights the very important part of why we are all new to the game of life: we are merely learning our way through our years and hoping to achieve something to leave a legacy behind. 

This is the reason why it is important that we continue to strive past our differences and hold on to our hope, because it does not matter who hurt us or who we owe a lot to today, but what matters is that we forget the pain and remember the pleasure.

I am not religious, but my friends who are part of a strong faith, put their hopes in God and wish that they may live life in a way to meet all the requirements of what it means to be a good person.

I have always sought material things. Yes, I do respect love and friendship, but I have felt that being rich and having a well paid job will help me get what I want: happiness.

But that is not true. If you are running after love, or money, give a little thought to whether what you had would matter in a hundred years. I hope I will be missed by my family and friends and that they will remember me and think about me, but a few generations later I would be a nobody.

Do you have a dream? Then go out and make it happen. No one will remember your mistakes in a hundred years, but if you achieve something great, they will certainly remember your name. 

There will always be space for the Einsteins, the Bill Gates, the Steve Jobs, the Barack Obamas of this world, but for you and me - we need to work and achieve the dreams that will make our fleeting time on this Earth worthwhile.

I am by no means saying that you cannot be Einstein. If you have it in you, go and show the world.

But, what is important is gratitude. For you to make a difference, you must make a difference in the lives of the people you meet. Change the world by kindness, by offering a helping hand where one could mean so much.

In this day and age, I often hear people complain about how chivalry is dead or how everyone is only interested in their own personal gain, but scarcely do I hear stories about kindness of a stranger or the love of a friend. 

If you are looking for the formula for happiness, there is no better place to start than to express gratitude for the things you have and to do as much as you can for others.

We all have limited time on Earth, and someone once told me that it is not about how many moments there are in your life, but how much life there is in each of your moments. 

It is about seizing each moment and squeezing every possible happiness from it.

I have been in a position where I was depressed and suicidal and could not imagine continuing. I was scared about what the future held for me and whether anything would ever get any better. 

If you are feeling down, broken and feel like you can't cope, think about the end of your life (I promise I'm not being morbid!) and think about the day your life flashes before your eyes. This is the day you won't think about all the things you did, but all the things you didn't do.

For all those ladies and gentlemen hurting in the world, this is the time to imagine the end where you have made the absolute best of what you have. 

It doesn't matter if you never make enough money to live in a castle or have a maid feed you peeled grapes on your chariot. 

What matters is that you made a difference in someone else's life by simply doing the best you could.

You never know, a hundred years from now, you could be the magic that enriched someone else's life rather than just a message in a bottle.

The speech that should change your life

Every once in a while I get inspired by something or someone. That is not to say that the inspiration lasts beyond the time span of a few minutes, but it means that I feel like there are dreams I have to achieve to make a change in the world.

This time, it was a graduation speech. It was Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech at Stanford. Perhaps you are already familiar with this particular speech, but for those who are not, the link is below:

This speech is very well-known and has been watched my millions around the world and even converted to different languages (as a quick glance through youtube search results will show you), but have people really appreciated its value?

For me, there were some quotes that I had heard before, such as "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish", without knowing where it had come from. But when I watched it again, recently, it really opened my eyes.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish is the battle-cry for every person who devours the knowledge and experience with an intense curiosity to find out the underlying causes of things. It is the willingness to be a beginner and truly set off on a search for whatever it is you need.

To be happy in life you must have goals you want to reach always. If you have achieved a dream - dream another one. Dream bigger. If you are no longer 'hungry' it means you have lost the passion for life. You must always want more for yourselves.

Note, this does NOT mean that you are greedy for everything you don't have yet, but that you set yourself new challenges every day. You have new aspirations that you are working towards. Because without that, you don't have a reason for making your life better than it is.

One of the points he raises is:

"You've got to find what you love. 

And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. 

And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. 

As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. 

So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

This is something which applies to each and every one of us, no matter what our situation is. I am guilty to have settled into a relationship which I knew from the beginning was below me and didn't give me the love or security that I craved. But it was the uncomfortable familiarity which I was finding next to impossible to let go of.

And the truth is that we are ALL guilty of settling somewhere in our lives. Bet you're shocked?

• Perhaps it's the well-paid job which takes up too much of your time?
• Maybe it is the boyfriend who doesn't treat you with love and respect?
• Is it the physical strength or stamina that you CAN improve, but you keep telling yourself that it is too late?
• Maybe it is the date that you didn't really want to go on, but you'd rather be dating then happily single?
• Perhaps you're comfortable living in the familiar town where you know many of the people,which doesn't offer any new challenges or new society, but where you are too comfortable to uproot yourself from?

Raise your hands if you're guilty of any of the above. If not, find out another place you may be settling.

Steve says "As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it." And it is true. If you don't feel fulfilled, the chances are that you simply haven't found the thing/person/idea you need yet. And for you to find it, it is vital that you keep looking. Don't give up just because it has been too long and you feel like you're running out of time.

When I was a teenager I already felt like it was too late to become successful at anything specific because every successful person had started much earlier. Most business tycoons started in their late teens, most Olympic medallists started when they were 7 or 8 years old.

But that's not true. Someone once said you are never to old to dream a new dream. And it's true. 

You have a choice. You could go your entire life believing that it is 'too late' or you could take a jump and have a go at making that dream come true.

I once heard a story (real life) about a woman who had always dreamt about being a lawyer. She was in her thirties, fresh out of an abusive marriage, with young kids, when she finally decided to go for it. She went to an amazing law school and qualified to start practising as an attorney. Sure, it could have have happened earlier, but what is more important is that it happened at all.

I know how hard it is to find that one thing you love. Sometimes it feels like passion or love of a subject/thing/product is something that happens to other people, and not to me.

But it's not true. We are all capable of living satisfying, fulfilling lives and we have the ability to do just that if we find what we love to do and stop settling for 'good enough'.

But to do that we must get our priorities right.

Do you want to simply be married and have a family or do you want to be married to the right person and have a loving family? If you don't know your priorities you will have a hard time feeling fulfilled.

Jobs' goes on to say:

"you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only

 connect them looking backwards. 

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."

And though this applies to everyone, everywhere, it especially applies to you if you are working on yourself after a break-up.

After a few months of No Contact with my ex-boyfriend I started to question whether anything I was doing was actually helping. I didn't feel better and I didn't feel like I was missing him any less or getting over him in any way.

But I am trusting the process. I am trusting and the future is indeed going to be a better place and there is no way in hell that I am going back to that past/situation again.

That is what Jobs is trying to say. You may not feel like the process is working and the healing is happening, but you need to have faith in the process. 

Have faith in the idea that it does indeed get better and there will be a time when, looking back, you will be able to connect the dots. You will be able to see how you healed and how you learnt to love again.

The last part of the speech takes quite a dramatic turn and when I first listened to it, I was in a place of total despair, and this affected me quite strongly.

He says:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. 

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

And every time I have truly listened to that, I have believed it. I have never felt to humbled by the idea of life itself.

Try it and see. Ask yourself that if this was going to be your last day on Earth, what would you do? Ofcourse, this doesn't mean that you max out all your credit cards and have a go at robbing the local bank dressed like Catwoman.

It is the idea that whatever is holding you back from doing what you truly want to do simply doesn't matter. IT DOESN'T MATTER.

So ask yourself that question. Look into the mirror and ask yourself if you are truly living as you wish to. If you were dead tomorrow, would you have truly lived?

The speech is a miracle in itself, but it can be your miracle if you take the right lessons from it. It is the tool, the rule-book and the Step-by-Step guide to the rest of your life. Choose to use it.

Being afraid of the future

I am happy to be the first to put my hand up and say that I am guilty of being absolutely petrified of the unknown - the future.

When I first ended my last relationship, it wasn't that I enjoyed the mind-games, the physical abuse, the emotional torture or that I missed the friendship that made me go running straight back to him, but the fear of there never being anything better for me out 'there'.

By there I didn't just mean the sphere beyond him, but ever. I didn't believe that I would ever fall in love again or find someone who makes me happy if I let him leave. I believed that me and him had too much in common, and I had spent too long with him to let all my love, emotions, dreams and hopes go to waste.

I was also worried that if I accepted that we were not going anywhere, I would have wasted all that time I spent with him. Precious time from my life would have been worthless.

But then I started to wake up.

Eventually you have to wake up and see reality without the haze.

I took a long, clear look at the relationship, and tried to assess my situation without the confusion and cloudiness surrounding it. This meant that I did a relationship inventory of all the things that were good and all the things that were bad and forced myself to decide.

I will let you in on a secret: I never did decide for sure whether the relationship was worth it or not. One day, I realised that I had simply had enough of the pain, the mind-games and the abuse and I wanted out.

When you are looking to end a relationship or just wondering where the relationship is going, the first step is to step back from everything that is happening and look at the bigger picture. Sure, it is a cliche, but it is true.

Take a break from the current drama or fight that is engulfing your energy and think about everything that has happened over the course of the relationship.

For me, a good starting point was when a male friend, who was undoubtedly fed up of me going on and on about how I just couldn't give up something so good, asked me to list all the 'amazing' things about my ex boyfriend. These were the things  of the past which led me to forgive all his mistakes in the present.

I wrote them all down and I realised how short the list was. And I had also repeated myself many times in different ways:

• He understands me
• He likes the same things as me
• He listens to me

They were all slightly different ways of saying: we get along very well or that we connect.

Then my friend asked me to write down all the bad things and I realised that the second list was much longer and more detailed. Maybe the first list meant more to me, but the reality said otherwise.

So though I was afraid of the future, the present just wasn't good enough to justify the fear.

Imagine that you were so terrified of never having anything better in the future that you decided to stay in the relationship. Then your future will not get any better than your present! You are deciding to put up with the familiar pain rather than gamble on the possibility of a better future.

The only way to cure this fear is to understand what is causing it. It could be a whole book's worth of reasons. Some examples are:

• The relationship is bad most of the time, but when it is good, it is really good - the pain is worth the good times
• If I give up on him and he goes running off to another girl and then finally becomes a perfect guy, I would have missed out
• What if I just run from a bad relationship to a worse one?
• There are no good guys left anyway, so might as well put up with him

And this is my time to tell you that ALL these reasons are wrong. They do not justify your fear. Pain is never going to be worth the good times because you have to get through the pain every time. You will not be able to enjoy the good times as much because you'll be thinking "It's time for pain after this".

If he becomes the perfect guy with another girl, then let him! YOU should not be the one suffering through his inability to mature. Also, in my experience, I have found that guys don't simply become "perfect" or even "better" unless they want to and take positive action. So, if he hasn't wanted or tried to become the good guy for you in the however many years you gave him, he won't do it for you. 

And have you considered the possibility that YOU might become the perfect person in another relationship? That there might be someone out there who brings out all the best in you? Perhaps someone who supports your dreams instead of demanding you to support them all the time?

There IS a possibility that you may run from a bad relationship to another bad one. But this possibility will be tiny (if not zero) if you have learnt your lessons from the last relationship. 

If you have woken up and smelt the dumdum stench and realised that you don't want another one like him. It is your choice to decide not to settle for another fool.

If you really think there are no good guys left, then you haven't tried. The fact that I had a horrible experience with one guy led me to see that there were many male friends who would never do that to a girl. They DO exist. And they are waiting for that someone special, just like you are.

Having said all this, it is important to realise that our fear of the future is rational. After all, we are only human. Fear of the unknown is not unusual, especially when you are leaving your comfort zone.

But the strength to face that fear comes from the belief that you will not settle for anything less than you deserve.

One of my favourite quotes is: "We accept the love we think we deserve."

If you are accepting poor love, you think you deserve it. So it is time to recognise your true worth and demand that you be treated right. It is hard to step out of a difficult relationship, but if you have thought it through and hit the point where you may not be sure if it's the right choice, but you want out - take the chance.

The day I realised I had had enough, I cut all contact with the ex and started No Contact. It hurt, but it gave me the push I needed to start believing that I needed to make a better future happen, the present just wasn't enough.

Cheating and its 5 lessons

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, my first relationship ended when I found out that my boyfriend had cheated on me while I was on holiday. Though I was devastated at the time and then diagnosed with depression, looking back, I learnt some valuable lessons about cheating.

1. It's them, not you

For a long time I believed that I was the reason he had cheated. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me to drive him to cheating. I hadn't told him I loved him and I had probably not satisfied him in many many ways.  

But I soon realised that it actually had absolutely nothing to do with my flaws (and there are many!). It was all about him and his insecurities. 

The reason why a someone cheats is essentially down to their selfishness and uncaring nature. Beware of the dumdum who tries to point the finger at you. He is NOT trying to give you a valid reason, but he is simply trying to get you to question your actions so that you may overlook his. This is a neon-flashing-lights warning that he needs to go. Now. 

In my case, I believe it came from his inability to believe that he could ever be good enough for me. 

I was partly to blame for that, but nothing I did or could have done should have driven him to cheating. Which leads me to the second point.

2. Nothing justifies cheating 

Sure, there are common circumstances between many incidents which are later labelled as cheating. Some are: 

"I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing." 

"She pushed herself on me. I didn't make a move." 

"YOU were unfaithful too." 

"I wanted to be loved. I needed to feel wanted and she gave me that." 

"It was just the heat of the moment." 

If you are the person cheating, beware of trying to pass off your lack of morals for these excuses. They just don't justify anything. 

If the other person really loved and respected you (see the posts on essential relationship values) then they wouldn't have been so quick to let it all go. And no matter how drunk the person is, they know what they are doing. 

So stop trying to find reasons for their actions and realise that there is NO possible excuse (apart from maybe that they were abducted by aliens and told that the Earth would be blown up if they didn't cheat and even that can be debated) which will make it 'okay' to cheat. 

I spent hours, days, and months trying to find reasons and explanations, but even the ones I did find seemed feeble, simply because no explanation exists. There is no checklist available to tell you that if he one or more of the boxes are ticked then his reasons are valid. 

3. You deserve better

I thought that I would never find anyone like my boyfriend, but I think that every woman out there deserves someone who is crazy about them and faithful. 

I found it very very very difficult to let go and kept running back multiple times, until it just clicked that I didn't deserve this 'attempt' at love. I didn't deserve to be an option for someone. 

If you think that there is nothing better out there then you need a serious reality check, because cheaters are definitely a minority. Most sane, loving guys know that they only need the love of ONE good woman rather than free access to the lady-parts of twenty. 

You also deserve the peace and security that comes from a healthy, well-functioning relationship. No, it is not normal to keep tabs on your boyfriend every time he pops out. 

It is NOT okay to have to snoop through his emails, phone, Facebook, because that is simply low. You shouldn't have to degrade your own dignity to have to make sure he doesn't cheat again. 

 4. She is not any more beautiful or better in any way to you 

When I was despairing over what she had that I didn't or oscillating between "what a whore!" and "Poor girl, he's playing her too", I didn't see that it wasn't about comparing myself to her. 

She wasn't giving him what I gave him, she was just different. A golden rule is to not compare your exes to your current guy, in the same way, when guys cheat with a woman, they don't choose her on the basis of "Needs to be better than my girlfriend at x, y, z". 

As difficult as it may be to believe, sometimes it is just about the first girl who will let them have a go. And in NO way does it lower who YOU are. 

I spent hours in front of a mirror judging every part of me and often collapsing into tears because I couldn't see my beauty and believed that I was ugly enough for no-one to want me, but it is NOT TRUE. You are beatiful enough for him to want you in the beginning and for another man to want you in the future.   

 5. Once a cheat, always a cheat

This point is something of a controversial one and I can only comment on what my understanding of the situation has been. 

I found that though I wanted to get back together and give my ex boyfriend another chance to prove his love and his faithfulness, he just wasn't willing to do so. 

Most men who cheat enjoy the thrill, the love, the "sex without strings attached" and the drama of the chase too much to just be willing to change in the aftermath of being found out. I believed that if he loved me enough, he would change, but it isn't about love. It is about their grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side attitude. 

Unless he is willing to put in substantial effort and commit to undergoing therapy immediately to rectify whatever self-esteem issues led to him cheating, it is unlikely he will change and as women we need to be strong enough to accept that.

The essential relationship values (part 3)

In the last two parts of the essential relationship values series, I mentioned the importance of trust and respect. The third essential relationship value is an obvious one: love.

As tempting as it may be, I am not going to try to define love here. There have been hundreds of highly intelligent people who have tried and failed to find a satisfactory definition of what it means to love.

For a relationship to flourish, love has to exist.

Love needs hope and the courage to make the relationship work. I found that in my last relationship, I didn't have the hope or the courage. I had the dreams - I wanted to marry him and maybe have a family with him someday - but I didn't hope that we would work out. There was a part of me which always felt that the future would not be one with us together.

Courage in love is the ability to see the relationship through the hard times and sticking together in the face of adversity. It is not a coincidence that wedding vows often say "Through richer or poorer, in illness and in health" because these are the vital tests of love.

I have seen my mother stand by my father at times when it was really hard. When we first moved to London, times were tough and money was short. My mother walked everywhere - to pick up groceries and drop us off and pick us up from school - despite a bad leg which throbbed with pain following a car accident. We had to save what we had.

My mother was from a very rich family and when I was young we had eight or nine servants to do almost everything and she never had to lift her finger. Then when the going got tough, she put on an apron and cooked, cleaned and did whatever she had to to make it work.

That is love. The willingness to accept that things may not always be good, but that we are in this together.

Love is an action. It means that it has to be proved and acted upon consistently. I think what many people often forget is that relationships need work. They need continuous effort and care to make sure that they continue and succeed.

All too often, I have seen my male friends chase and chase a girl and then once they 'have' her, they get lazy. Then they start showing the real them and let the relationship go to waste. 

As one half of a relationship, love means getting as good as you give. So if you cherish, trust and respect the other person, but don't get the same treatment back - it's not love. It hurts to be the one not being loved, but it will hurt even more in the future if you let your life go by in the hope that "one day" they will have to love you back. The truth: no they won't.

Being in love is different to loving someone.

I have often struggled with the concept of explaining this to my boyfriend or dates, but most of my girl friends grasp this quickly. A relationship doesn't require you to be in love with someone, but it needs you to love them. 

Being in love is the honeymoon period, when every flaw in your significant other is beautiful and you can't bear to be apart for any amount of time. This is what gives you the fireworks and the butterflies. In contrast, loving someone is about being willing to do anything to make them happy without expecting a favour back.

Loving someone is a state of being, while being in love is an emotion.

It is also important to remember that love is not unconditional. I don't think there's anything called unconditional love. Love relies on the condition of trust, respect and value. If any of these are broken, love ceases to exist in the same, pure form it did before.

I have heard friends complain about staying with men who didn't treat the way they deserved to be treated for the sake of 'love' and I was also guilty of the same - though I never quite admitted I was in love with him.

But that's not love. Love is dependent on being treated well. Love gives the same as it gets. That particular 'love' is actually dependency, neediness, desperation or addiction. All of these can be cured, but love doesn't need a cure.

The essential relationship values (part 2)

In the first part, I explained that the most important relationship value (for any relationship, romantic or otherwise) is trust. This is the solid foundation on which the rest of the relationship values, and the relationship itself relies on.

The second essential relationship value is respect.

While respect may mean slightly different thing to different people, here I use respect as valuing the other person, their thoughts, opinions, abilities, body, and life. Basically, respecting them in their entirety.

Respect is an essential value because it allows the two people in the relationship to believe that each person wants the best for the other. 

Respect for thoughts and opinions does not necessarily mean that you must agree with your other half in all arguments. 

You are allowed to disagree, but you need to respect their right to have their own beliefs and principles. 

It means being open minded to others' having views that may clash with yours, but agreeing to disagree in a friendly way.

I found that me and most of the guys I was with enjoyed heated debates about almost everything from politics to the colour co-ordination of an outfit, but it worked well only when we were both able to understand that the point of the debate wasn't to force the other person to see our point of view, but to perhaps show them that there are other points of view possible.

If, like me, you enjoy persuading people to see why your way is probably the best way, then respect meant knowing your limit and not pushing the boundaries in an offensive manner. I have to confess that I have always toed the line when it comes to this.

Respect for a person's ability means to realise that there is no such thing as perfection. 

Being of reasonably average intellect, I would often get annoyed when my boyfriend couldn't understand simple things or lacked basic general knowledge. But whatever your talent is, might not be the other person's. He was an incredible tennis player though, and I sucked at tennis.

In a relationship, it is important to measure every person only against themselves.

This also means (for everyone who does this!) that you don't compare them to your exes! Yes, it is true that the new guy might not have the six-pack you can slice a carrot on, but he is who he is. As tempting as it may be, it is a sign of respect to the guy to give him the opportunity to be his own man rather than trying to stuff him into the mould of your ex.

Sex and physical attraction is an important part of most relationships, but it respect for the other person's body means valuing their choices. 

It means that the guy listens to you in bed. It means that he respects your decision to wait until you are in a relationship before you sleep with him. And it means that under NO circumstances would there be any physical abuse.

A friend recently complained about a guy she had gone on a date with. They ended up in the hotel at night after a 'incredible' date where they had got along superbly well and 'felt like we'd known each other for years!' But then he proceeded to ignore her directions in bed.

She spent the next day very sore and decided that she simply couldn't see him again as more than a friend. 

One of the main areas of respect for your body is the physical treatment you receive. If the guy pushed you around, he doesn't respect you. If he doesn't know that he hurt you because "he isn't aware of his own strength" (yes, I've heard this excuse) then tell him. If it happens even when you've told him, get out.

Without respect, you can't trust the guy to care for you. How can you feel safe with someone who doesn't care? If the person doesn't respect your opinions or another aspect of your life, such as your religion or background, how can you be sure that he is compatible with you?

I am by no means suggesting that you must date within your own race, but the person should be respectful of your heritage. It is a part of you.

When I broke up with my boyfriend I found out that he had been talking to his friends and family about me in an offensive way. He joked about my background and called me names. Then when he wanted to get back together, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that this guy had made a complete fool of me in front of the people he loved. I no longer had the respect of the people he was with and that meant I didn't feel safe and secure in the relationship.

Respect is also the basis for a secure future.

If you have children, would you want them to see you as a secondary human being in your own home? How can you expect respect from your children if they see you being treated without respect from others, especially their father?

To be treated with respect, you need to demand respect from everyone. It's not about being arrogant and stuck-up, but about knowing your worth and believing that you deserve to be respected in the relationship.

Click here for part 3.