The Longest Relationship You’ll Ever Have… And It’s the One You’ve Been Cheating On

Let’s stop pretending.

You’ve been having an affair.

Not with your coworker.
Not with your ex.
Not with the man in your DMs who “just checks in.”

You’ve been cheating on yourself.

And the wildest part?

You don’t even feel guilty about it.

Because somewhere along the way, you convinced yourself that abandoning yourself was noble. That self-sacrifice was love. That exhaustion was proof of devotion. That pouring into everyone else while running on empty was what “good women” do.

But here’s the scandal no one wants to admit:

The longest relationship you will ever have, the only one that will outlive lovers, friends, marriages, and even your children leaving home, is the one you have with yourself.

You entered this world alone.
And you will leave it alone.

And in between?

It’s just you and you.

Your first kiss.
Your first heartbreak.
The night you cried on the bathroom floor so no one would hear.
The wedding.
The miscarriage.
The baby.
The screaming fight that changed everything.
The house that didn’t fix what you thought it would.
The divorce papers.
The “I don’t know how I’m going to survive this” season.
The rebuild.
The glow-up.
The relapse.
The quiet strength no one applauded.

Every single chapter, you were there.

And yet, you’ve been loyal to everyone but yourself.

I’ll be honest.

As a sole parent to two teenagers and one stepping into adulthood, me deep in grad school, my life is a nonstop production. I am Uber. I am therapist. I am financial strategist. I am referee. I am CEO of this household and the emotional backbone holding it upright.

I know how to show up for everyone.

What I forgot… was how to show up for me.

Recently, in between being cut from my position and scrambling to stretch benefits before they ran out, I found myself with an unexpected hour between a root canal for one kid and a blood panel for another. 

That’s the glamorous chapter I’m in.

Instead of filling it with errands, I grabbed a large black Smokestack from Rustbelt (my favorite!), drove to Glass City Metropark, and what transpired even surprised me.

The park was empty, too cold for company.

And in that silence, without distractions, without someone needing something, without a notification demanding my attention…I felt it.

Grief.

Not for a person.

For myself.

For the version of me I postponed.
For the dreams I hadn’t mourned.
For the softness I buried under “be strong.”
For the rest, I denied myself because someone else needed me more.

I realized something brutal:

I have been emotionally unavailable…to myself.

This week in grad school, we studied neurological diseases and watched Still Alice. Watching a brilliant woman slowly lose her memory, lose herself, shook me to my core.

Because what if we don’t lose ourselves to disease…

What if we lose ourselves to distraction?

To responsibility.
To heartbreak.
To survival.
To being everything for everyone.

What if one day we wake up and realize we don’t even recognize the person in the mirror?

That’s the real scandal.

You don’t talk to yourself kindly.
You don’t forgive yourself easily.
You replay your mistakes like they’re headline news.
You minimize your wins like they’re nothing special.

Meanwhile, you love others with a softness you’ve never extended inward.

Why?

Why is everyone else worthy of grace but you?

You hype up your friends.
You tell your kids they’re amazing.
You encourage your partner to chase dreams.

But when it comes to you?

You call it selfish.

Let me say this plainly:

Choosing yourself is not betrayal.

Abandoning yourself is.

So yes, buy the flowers. As Miley Cyrus said, you can buy yourself flowers.

But it’s deeper than flowers.

It’s about sitting in the quiet long enough to hear your own heartbeat.
It’s about forgiving the woman/man who did the best she could with what she knew at the time.
It’s about admitting you’re tired, and worthy, and still becoming.

Because one day the house will be quiet.
The roles will shift.
The titles will fade.

And the only person left in the room will be you.

The question is:

Will she/he feel like a stranger…

Or like the love of your life?

So before you scroll. Before you go back to being everything for everyone else, sit with this:

When was the last time you did something just for you, without guilt?
When was the last time you spoke to yourself with softness instead of criticism?
If you treated yourself the way you treat the people you love…how different would your life look?
Are you surviving… or are you actually living?
Have you been loyal to everyone else while quietly abandoning yourself?

And the one that stings the most:

If you met yourself right now, as a separate person, would you feel loved?

Be honest.

Because the greatest love story you’ll ever write isn’t about who chooses you.

It’s about whether you finally choose yourself.

So tell me…

Are you ready to stop cheating?

Or are you going to keep pretending you don’t miss yourself?

👇 Let’s talk in the comments. When did you realize you were neglecting yourself?