What would it feel like to be cheated on repeatedly, left and dealing with an abortion on your own?

This exact situation is common? Including the abortion ending?

@papayalily more common than I’d like.

Women who allow themselves to be cheated on repeatedly have very low self-esteem. That would be the main issue in a therapeutic situation.

They need to learn that they deserve love.

They they need to love themselves enough to not put up with cheating.

@marinelife agreed, how would you console one—and slowly make her see this?

@phoebusg You have to ask her to look at herself and ask first “Does she love herself?”

You can also recommend the book Self Parenting, which makes people familiar with their own inner dialogue so she can make conscious any negative self-talk.

If used diligently, this book can make a difference.

@marinelife cheers, great answer :)

It hasn’t happened to me, but I’m guessing the experience as a whole would suck.

Horrible. Finding out your partner is a cheater is bad enough but then learning you’re also pregnant by them must be devastating, as if all the world is against you.

Pregnancies happen even when people try to prevent them, that’s a situation to deal with separately than cheating which takes consent.

Give your friend all the comfort you can by just be around if she wants to cry, rant or is restless, not much else you can do. It’s sad and bittersweet but going through this might make her more discerning in who she takes up with in the future with the possibility pregnancy can happen at any time. Better to face hard times with a partner who loves and respects you than one just with you for a “good time” in passing.

@Neizvestnaya great answer, thank you :)

In my experience, directly telling someone that they don’t love themselves (even phrasing it as a question) doesn’t really get a great reaction. Especially since self-love isn’t really black and white – you can love certain parts of yourself while hating others. Or just not put it into those terms.
However, I have seen some success with the self-parenting when approached more as a tool to help you deal with stuff instead of “you hate yourself, so you need to cut that crap out and use this tool instead”.

Years ago, I never felt worse about myself than when someone told me I had low self-esteem, hated myself, whatever.

I agree with @papayalily: When you find out you’ve been cheated on or disrespected behind your back is not a great time to be poked and prodded to take up self-love. During that time you feel like everyone just knows somehow that you’ve been wronged and there’s something wrong with you that allowed that to happen. It’s not always the case, stupid people do bad things to nice people all the freaking time.

I kid you not, I’ve overheard some smart asses say they feel less bad screwing over good, nice or strong people because they think those people can take it better, get over it faster or for some reason deserve to be taken down a few pegs anyhow. It boils down to pure selfishness on the cheater’s part, they’re looking to feel the least amount of guilt as they decide to do exactly what they want.

Sadly, a first natural reaction of stereotypical thinking is to blame the victim, they must have brought this on somehow. But that’s not always the case – it doesn’t make breaking someone’s trust is ok. Even if they “made you” do it indirectly—in your mind.

@phoebusg: Exactly! Everyone pads lightly around you, feeling sorry for you that you’re damaged somehow and attract losers. When it happened to me I was really angry and wanted to tell people I had been feeling plenty happy, confident, capable and all right with the world before I found out my partner was a sneaky cheat.

@Neizvestnaya they assume that you magically know everything about your partner, and who he/she is going to become. No, doesn’t happen that way. This could happen to anyone – save for the pregnancy part. That torture is saved only for those that give us life.

I think there is a difference between the person that was cheated on once, finds out, and ends the relationship and the person that is cheated on, finds out, and continues the relationship because they feel like the deserve it or they can’t do better. The latter group is usually the group that suffers from low self-esteem, not the former. I’m not talking about couples that decide they are going to try to fix their relationship after infidelity, I’m strictly talking about the ones where the person cheated on chooses to justify the cheating and accept it as what they deserve. The people that feel like don’t really deserve better seem to be willing to tolerate more than those that know they deserve better.

As far as what you can do, just listen to her and be a shoulder. Try to help her gain the strength she’ll need for getting past the relationship and dealing with the abortion. Once she seems to be coming to terms with everything, I’d suggest therapy for herself. One, so she can get help moving on from the betrayal and two, so she can have help dealing with the pregnancy and abortion.

@Seaofclouds exactly, I didn’t specify when the person could/would find out. Sometimes one finds out about all the cheating done at once. Thank you for your answer :)

Here’s a perspective from someone who has been on both sides of the aisle, so to speak. There are things that almost every cheater says as they try to justify their behavior about how the relationship hadn’t been working for them, etc, etc.

Perhaps people place too much of a premium on the excitement of forbidden love. The sex has to be good, if only because it is forbidden. Trying to maintain two relationships at once, and keeping them secret is a huge strain. It’s an interesting article. Highly recommended.

This is one of the most common things to happen but yet it is also one of the most horrible thing to happen in a woman’s life. Most likely it is either the guy just wanted to “toot and boot”, just wanted to try the women, was scared of commitment, looking for a good time, changed his mind, lost the connection, the sex he had wasn’t good enough, or anything that fits into this category. If I was in this situation where I was pregnant and left I wouldn’t get the abortion. I wouldn’t want to kill a life that wasn’t even given the chance to live. I would just carry on with my life. If some one else was in this situation where she wanted to get an abortion I would help her by being there for her. I would convince her to not get an abortion but it is going to be her decision in the end. I would help her through her life and help her raise her kid. Even if I wasn’t that close to her I would still help her. If I was able to meet her some way it means there is a reason why are paths crossed and that means I should help her. I hate seeing people go through this because it messes up there life BIGG time. They end up HATING there life, most the time.

@wundayatta and @lovable both responses much appreciated. I’ll check the linky later, but knowing you wunds I know it’s going to be good ;)