I was just here listening to Bed of Lies by Nicki Minaj and all of the implications of cheating came to me. And I began to remember one of the books that I read in the past that had something to do with cheating.
Source
I can't remember the name nor the author but the storyline came right into my head and I couldn't help but compare what's happening to Angela and Todd in the Movie, What IF.
You see in that book, the wife of a certain man felt neglected and out of nowhere she started having feelings for someone at work. This colleague of hers was really giving her the attention that her husband wasn't giving her and she fell for it.
She kept blaming her husband for not giving her attention. I was glad when she did not go ahead with the affair to the extent that it could have ruined her marriage. She was fortunate to listen to an older woman who brought her back to light through the scripture.
When she found that she was wrong for blaming all of her loneliness on her husband and regretted everything; she went home to her husband and tried to rekindle the spark they first had when they were newly married.
A few days later, she found out her amazing colleagues had AIDS. She imagined how she could have been infected if she had followed her emotions down the rabbit hole of ditching her marriage or probably having an affair. And even if she did not ditch her marriage, but slept with her colleague, she would have placed her life and that of her husband in danger.
I remembered this story because, in this movie, Angela placed the life of her family in danger when she had an affair with a Senior Doctor, Ian Evans, in the hospital she was doing her medical internship. When she realized she was pregnant and couldn't tell if the father was Todd or Ian, she confided her mistakes with Lisa who helped her with the DNA test, and it turned out to be Todd's baby.
She was glad but she decided to end whatever it was she had with the senior doctor. He did not take this rejection well because he was suffering from an abandonment that wasn't even true.
Now Angela's family is threatened because Ian is doing all that he can to destroy her life and that of the family she chose to be with. Ian grew up with his dad teaching him how to dissect animals and his dad had lied that his mom abandoned him and choose his sister instead. Ian had a past where he killed his sister because of the way he felt about not being chosen.
Angela walked into a deadly situation when she had an affair with him. And now the results of her cheating are solely raining damage on her family. I am yet to finish this series so I can't tell you what happened afterwards.
I just wanted to share a piece of lesson that I couldn't help myself from typing and it's Lisa's word to Anne when she lost her company to her in the same movie. She said;
When you give someone your trust, you give them the power to destroy you. What IF
And when she said this, I realize just how damaging cheating can be especially when the person you cheated with becomes obsessive and can't handle a withdrawal.
You see the lady in that novel placed the life of her husband in danger of contracting HIV/AIDS if she had gone through with the affair. Now Angela places the life of Todd and her unborn baby in danger because Ian is showing signs that he will stop at nothing until her life is destroyed. He had already tried getting her expelled from the hospital but she managed to trick him to a confession that she recorded and got him out instead. So Ian is all out for this revenge.
As it is, even listening to Bed of Lies by Nicki Minaj, I realized even though she felt really heartbroken by the cheating partner she had; her lyrics provides that she had made lots of sacrifices for this human but he lied throughout the relationship and cheated consistently without any feeling of remorse
She says,
You had caught me in every web that you weaved Bed of Lies
She even said that she thought if he saw her and looked into her eyes he would feel the connection and turn a new leaf but this wasn't exactly what she got. She got more lies, that damaged everything that she felt for him. And she needed clarity to if he ever thought of her when he laid in his bed of lies.
You know when our partners cheat, they don't seem to think about how dangerous what they are doing affects us.
I have read several stories of women who had cheating husbands that brought home infections/diseases and secretly treated theirs and that of their mistresses without telling them. This amplifies what Lisa said about trusting someone so badly that your life gets destroyed as a result of it.
Women open up to realizing they had contracted terminal diseases late because they trusted their partners. It's not just women, even though a lot of men don't speak up, they face their share of danger as a result of an affair that their partners had like the case of Angela and Todd.
The truth is the people our partners cheat with know who we are and constantly monitor our movements just to be on the safe side. This monitoring is mostly to see if we have caught wind of anything.
This might seem like they are protecting themselves but you never know which one of them will fall hard for your partners and become possessive. Or maybe not love but because they had bad childhood experiences with love and as a result of the feeling of being unwanted they become obsessive and begin to plot your death just to have your partner to themselves.
Stay safe and be careful who you trust, it's a slippery world.