The Party Life - Threatening a Good Relationship

I have a friend from back in school who recently came to me about a very serious matter. Because it’s such a sensitive issue and my friend is a very private person, I’m going to give very little detail about the situation – leaving out any specifics that may be identifying. But I will say exactly what I told him because his situation and the conversation we had around it really touched me. I thought it would be perfect to share here because it may help someone else and I’d be able to get feedback from other people.

He came to me because he was having some issues with infidelity. He’s generally a quiet guy, but because of the industry he’s in (whether it be entertainment, athlete, etc), he’s being put in more and more situations where he’s having to put on this façade for the outside world and be this “party guy.” He said he’s not used to all the attention he’s been getting, and he’s starting to feel the pressure of having to juggle everything. With all this newfound popularity and living this party lifestyle comes GIRLS. And that’s where the biggest problem lies. Before he wasn’t in the public eye as much, him & his girlfriend only had regular/everyday issues – now they’re dealing with the cheating stuff over and over.

Even to this day, from the outside looking in my friend & his girlfriend have a really great relationship. They’ve been together since before all the popularity, etc, and he’s a great boyfriend to her. If his professional goals call for him to go out, he takes her with him. Everyone who knows him, knows his girlfriend, and envy the closeness they have. There is no doubt he loves her & she loves him. Everything is great at home, so why does he keep messing up? How does he get a handle on things and stop before he really loses a great girl?





My advice to him was to first get to the bottom of what is going on. When I asked him why he thought he may be cheating, he said he thinks it may have with the fact that he has insecurities & isn’t used to all the attention he’s been getting.

Insecurities + a sudden surge of attention can be really dangerous to relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proposing that this is a good enough explanation as to what is going on, but it is  a good start. Contrary to popular belief, not EVERYBODY who is in the public eye cheats on their significant other. So what separates the people who cheat from those who don’t? My friend needs to get to the bottom of his own situation and understand himself a little more before he can truly say he won’t do it again.

*Important note: I said this to my friend as well, it’s important to know if he’s cheating because he’s facing some tough decisions and he just needs to make better choices – or if he may be cheating because his heart isn’t committed to his girlfriend because deep down he may not feel like she’s the one. If it’s the latter, the two of them could save themselves a lot of pain and time and move on. He insisted this wasn’t the case for his particular situation*

Another factor in his cheating is the girls coming after him. My friend said the girls see what he has with his girlfriend, and see how good he treats her and how much he has her around and they want what she has. So they come after him. The popularity & party life are enough to bring girls around, but girls seeing what they think is a good relationship can double a man’s numbers in girls trying to tempt him to stray.

I felt like, it’s a temptation for everybody – especially someone in a situation similar to his, but it’s up to him to distinguish himself from the guys who fall victim to the fast life. Guys can have something great at home & completely mess it up. The thing is, people are going to want something that looks good from the outside, and what my friend and his girl had is great – but he’s tarnishing it by bringing his infidelity into it. If he keeps it up, eventually it won’t even look so great from the outside anymore and he’s just going to be the average athlete/entertainment dude who has a serious girlfriend at home whom he just regularly cheats on & everybody knows. And then the vultures (girls who look to be involved with a guy they know is in a relationship) will move on to another guy who’s situation looks “perfect” or who has a relationship they envy and try to fuck this guy’s relationship up.

Deep down people try to tarnish good relationships because they don’t have it, and they want to prove on some subconscious level that they only reason they don’t have what somebody else has is because it doesn’t really exist. So they go after people who have “good relationships” as a way to say “Look, it’s not just me. Even the guy who everyone thinks is so great to his girlfriend isn’t really all that. If he was, why would he be here with me?” Then they don’t have to feel like it’s their own fault they don’t have a good man.

My friend was feeling me, nodding to the conversation we were having. But, the issue still stands. He said to me, it’s easy to say he’ll change but then what happens when he can’t? One thing he could do was to be overly conscious of the fact that these girls are just trying to get what he has – or bring his relationship down to the level of everyone else who is miserable. Keeping that in mind could help motivate him to not let someone else have power over the relationship he’s built with his girlfriend. Another thing to think about is how these girls are probably laughing when they see him out with his girlfriend acting like everything is all perfect. In their heads, there’s probably a “Yea, right” moment. And he needs to take into account the effect his actions can have on his girlfriend. She’s the innocent one, but his actions can have her out there looking crazy. She’s his #1 supporter, everybody knows that – and when she’s out representing her boyfriend and what he does, cheating on her with different girls can have people laughing behind her back. Girls are ruthless, they’re more than likely going to hate on a relationship anyway but he’s giving them more ammunition. Add the jealousy factor because they seem to have such a close & loving relationship. Then add her boyfriend’s public persona, and the fact that he actually is straying from the relationship – and you have 100x the attention and hate. That’s a recipe for disaster in a relationship.

He needs to make sure he isn’t letting her put all the effort into the strength of the relationship. She’s been working with him, forgiving his mistakes & standing behind him being his rock – and he needs to return the favor. People who try to maintain a healthy relationship while living the fast/party life can oftentimes get swallowed alive. They wind up having to choose one or the other, or they lose the relationship before they even realize how bad things have gotten. In cases like that, you can’t look around you and compare yourself to the bullshit everyone else is doing. When you have people around you who are living like they’re back in Sodom & Gomorrah – having sex with whoever, whenever, however & not thinking about the consequences; displaying little to no loyalty, integrity, or moral character – then your little indiscretions are always going to come out looking better. You have to pick a few relationships that you know are good and genuine and deep – and hold yourself to these standards. Take a step back from the emptiness of the party life and really hold yourself responsible to your relationship, aside from the party/entertainment people who are around you. They don’t have anything to go home to, and eventually neither will you if you let yourself get caught up and brought down to that level. 

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