The most loyal cheater i know

I was a cheater.

And still, somehow- I was the most loyal person I knew.

I was the ride-or-die girl. The show-up-when-it’s-hard kind. The kind who memorized your favorite drink, knew your mother’s birthday, stayed up late while you cried, and held space when you didn’t know how to ask for it.

I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never wanted to betray trust. But I didn’t know how to bring all of myself into a relationship without the fear of being too much. Too curious. Too sexual. Too alive. So I compartmentalized. Split my truth in two. I’d pledge my loyalty with one hand over my heart, while the other reached for someone new.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love the people I was with. I did. Fiercely. But I also knew, deep in my bones, that love and sex weren’t the same thing. A warm body next to you doesn’t mean a warm heart is behind it. And for me, physical connection was exploration, expression, even therapy.

It wasn’t about disrespect. It was about trying to feel alive in a world that often felt so cold.

I was primal. Turned on. Tuned in. Ready to take on the world with sex as my favorite vice, my compass, my release. And yet—I was still loyal. At least, in the way I understood loyalty.

Because what is loyalty, really?

Is it devotion? Allegiance? Faithfulness?

I stood up every morning of my childhood and pledged allegiance to a flag- one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. But what does that mean in a country that gave me rights to my body in 1973 and stripped them away again before a full generation had passed?

Rules change. Overnight. Systems evolve. Structures collapse. So why wouldn’t the rules of love?

I can love my country and still criticize it. I can be devoted to healing this land and still want to live elsewhere. Still long for something different. Still prefer another flavor, another rhythm, another tongue.

Why wouldn’t that same logic apply to relationships? I had the right to speak up. To say what I wanted. To admit that monogamy wasn’t always my language. But I didn’t.

I wasn’t honest- with my partners, or with myself. And that? That was the betrayal.

Not the sex. Not the craving. Not the wildness. But the silence. It took years- and a long, uncomfortable mirror- for me to see it clearly.

I am loyal. I always have been. Not perfect. Not easy. But devoted, in my own messy, evolving way.

Because loyalty isn’t about restriction. It’s about respect. It’s about honesty. It’s about showing up for love in the way you can live with- not the way you were taught.

So now, I write the constitution of every relationship I enter. I advocate for amendments often. Because people change. Desires change. And love, if it’s honest, should have room to expand with us.

I believe in loyalty more now than ever. I believe in having hard conversations and putting in the effort to find common ground. I believe we don’t discard people, or places, or countries because they’re problematic or difficult.

And true loyalty starts with the self. A devotional practice to show up in the face of your flaws, to being imperfect and messy, and loving yourself through it all.

I believe in the kind of love that lets me bring my full self to the table- not just the parts that make others comfortable.

I don’t have to cheat anymore because now I’m as loyal to myself as I have always been to my partners. I no longer betray my desires or hide parts of myself away to make others comfortable. Yeah, it gets messy sometimes, but I’ve pledged myself to liberty and freedom, indivisible from who I am.

And this time, the allegiance is real- not to a flag, or a fantasy, or anyone else's rules- but to the raw, honest, ever-evolving truth of me.

Because the only loyalty that lasts is the kind that starts within.