Woman Says Her Boyfriend's Excuse For Cheating On Her Was 'His Body His Choice' & Now She Wonders If He's Right
If it's "his body, his choice," then it's "her body, and her choice" to leave him.
fizkes / Shutterstock A woman on Reddit took to the “r/relationship_advice” subreddit in order to…well, get some advice on her relationship. According to her title, it would appear that her boyfriend cheated on her, and the advice she’s asking for is how to go from there.
The only problem is that his reason for cheating on her doesn’t make a lot of sense to her, which is why she’s confused about how she should treat the situation.
He claims he cheated on her because he can ‘choose who has access’ to his body.
The 21-year-old woman wrote post about her 23-year-old boyfriend who cheated, making sure to provide the people of Reddit with the context in order for them to understand just how much he betrayed her.
“I found out on Thursday that my boyfriend of two years was cheating on me for months with one of my childhood (EX) best friends (20F) and it has completely and utterly wrecked me,” she revealed at the beginning of her post.
She continued, claiming she was unsure how she would ever recover from that betrayal and emphasizing just how much he and their relationship meant to her — how he “had the nerve to cheat on me after telling me daily how he's ‘never loved anyone as much’ as me.”
During their conversation about his infidelity, she claims that at one point, she asked him why he would do that to her, to which he replied “I can choose who has access to my body.”
If you’re confused, just imagine how she felt.
Photo: Reddit
“This has mentally f--ked me up,” she continued, “and I still can't comprehend this situation. He texted me today that this ‘doesn't have to end our relationship’ and some paragraph asking me ‘why’ do I ‘care?’ when ‘it's his body’ and not mine.”
As any normal person would, she explained that a fundamental part of their relationship was remaining faithful to each other as they had never agreed to open their relationship up.
He claimed that he now “‘understands’ how much I ‘value his physical body’ (I never said that) and will be ‘fully aware’ of that going forward in our relationship.” It’s common sense that in today’s society, monogamous relationships are the default, so why didn’t he think of it before?
Photo: Reddit
His excuse co-opts the ‘my body, my choice’ argument that people with uteruses use for abortion.
“My body, my choice,” is a slogan that is very commonly used in the pro-choice argument when it comes to people with uteruses having access to abortions. It’s used to fight against people who would rather restrict women’s bodily autonomy and freedom and basically means that the predominantly male government shouldn’t be able to legislate against bodies that are not theirs.
This 23-year-old man on Reddit who simply wanted to sleep with his girlfriend’s best friend has a much less righteous cause. Not only is his cause less righteous, but this also isn’t similar in any way to the right to an abortion.
He entered into a relationship with this woman. Most people understand that as someone entering the agreement of a relationship, you do not cheat on the other person unless otherwise specified. Especially not with her best friend.
His girlfriend isn’t trying to control his bodily autonomy, she simply asked for respect toward their relationship. Plus if it’s his body and his choice, then it’s her body and her choice to leave him, which is what everyone told her to do. Everyone’s advice was that she should leave him, and “choose” to prevent his “access” to her body — and her time.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.