The Love Playbook: Rules for Love, Sex, and Happiness

by La La Anthony

  When I ask her to clarify that, she says that everyone has cheated at some point in his or her life. It could be with a boyfriend. It doesn’t have to be in a marriage. We’ve asked a lot of people, and this has held true. It has sparked debate and heated arguments, but eventually people have to admit that they have cheated at least once in their lives—whether it was on a high school summer boyfriend or girlfriend or a husband or wife.

  She says she doesn’t believe it’s possible for a person to go through his or her entire life and not cheat. I tend to agree with her. I’m not 100 percent in agreement with this, but I’m leaning in that direction.

  So . . . what do you do if you find out you’ve been cheated on? It may feel good to go after the other woman. But you’re not in a relationship with her. She may be foul, especially if she knows your man is married or in a relationship, but getting into it with her isn’t addressing your problem. Your purpose in life isn’t to teach her a lesson. And you will end up looking silly. Because, after all, she’s not your problem. She has no obligation to not sleep with him. That’s his responsibility.

  You have to hold your partner accountable. You have to see things the way they are, not the way you want them to be. He participated. You’re not with her—you’re with him.

  You have two choices if your man has cheated: leave or stay.

  If you stay, then you have to forgive him. You can’t harp on it and bring it up every five minutes and hold it over him. If you decide to stay, you have to make the best of it. Reboot, start over, and make it fresh and new.

  If you eject him off your squad and decide to leave, don’t cry wolf. Don’t say, “I’m leaving!” and then not leave. Every single time you do that, your power diminishes. Then you become the doormat that will put up with anything. You are always talking about leaving. But you never do. So he knows it’s only talk.

  My dad told me this, and it stuck with me: “Be careful with shock value. The only person you end up shocking is yourself.”

  Don’t jump up talking about you’re outta there when you know in your heart you’re not going anywhere. What happens when he says, “All right, go”? What will you do then? Stand there looking stupid? That was me when I was young. I liked attention, and I would be really dramatic, putting on a performance. I would storm out, hoping he’d run after me. I’d go to a friend’s place, hoping he’d call and say he couldn’t live without me. Then the call never came. And I ended up having to go back with my tail between my legs. And worse, he called my bluff and had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted.

  If you’re going to stay, stay without drama. But if you’re going to leave, make a plan before your performance. Know where you’re going. Change your numbers (so you’re not tempted when he actually does call in a week or two), don’t leave a forwarding address, and don’t look back.

  You can leave and come back. But the leaving has to be real and longer than a day or two. You have to mean it. And you have to be resolved to never come back. I have seen relationships where the woman left, and he changed or something different happened and they got back together.

  The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is Pink and Carey Hart. I don’t know the details about why they broke up, but in 2008 they filed for divorce. After a couple of years apart, they got back together and even had a baby. And things seem to be going well. Carey told People magazine when they got back together: “We’re rebuilding. Sometimes you have to take a couple of steps back to move forward.”

  Sometimes time apart helps one or both parties realize how much they miss and love the other person. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. And sometimes people need to be reminded that the grass isn’t always greener.

  I love that Pink and Carey Hart were able to get back together. Most people would allow pride and their ego to get in the way of a reunion. It’s easier to hold on to whatever broke you up than to pull out the tools and try to repair what’s broken. So kudos to them and anyone else who is able to bring their family back together.

  Note on leaving: It gets easier once you’ve done it. I know this from watching my mom. I know it must have been very hard for her to leave my dad. And while it took her a while to leave my stepdad, she finally did it and never looked back. She had nothing, but she knew she would be all right because she had done it the first time and landed on her feet.

  Sometimes it takes you leaving to appreciate your relationship. If you have a lot of single friends, it’s easy to look at how free they are and want that life back. But after a few weeks of partying and hanging out, you will realize that you miss your married life and your husband and all that goes with it. I don’t recommend testing the waters just because. You should have a good reason to leave. But I just know that people are always looking over the fence, thinking someone else’s life is better, more fun, more fulfilling.

  But the truth is you have to work to make your life all of those things because there’s really nothing new out there.

  A friend of mine left when she found out her husband had cheated on her. She didn’t intend to go back. But after a couple of months, she found she really didn’t want to live without him. She loved him. But she didn’t know if she could forgive him.

  When she left, she fell into this single lifestyle with her friends, going to clubs. Guys were hitting on her and she said she felt dirty. And all she was thinking about was being with her husband. But she also couldn’t shake that he cheated on her.

  As the months went on, she missed him more than she was mad at him for cheating. At his core, he wasn’t a dog. He was a good guy who made a mistake, so she decided to forgive him and go back. And they’re doing great today.

  “But . . . it will be a lot easier to leave if there’s a next time,” she told me. “And this time it will be for good.”

  Leaving the first time, you’re going into the great unknown. It’s scary. But if you leave again, you know what you’re doing and where you’re going and that you will survive, pick up the pieces, and make it.

  I feel that relationships, especially marriage, should be sacred. You’ve committed to being with that person, and if you don’t want to be with that person anymore you should let them know. Cheating is one of the most painful things a man can do to a woman because it renders her powerless. It makes a woman feel less than. And it forces her to make a decision about whether or not she’s going to accept the behavior or walk away and move on.

  So when I’m confronted with this question, I don’t answer it the way I really feel, which is: “Get the fuck out of that relationship!” Because it’s more complicated than that.

  Here’s what I do know: Just because a man has cheated, that doesn’t make him a cheater. Things can happen. And while we’d like to think our man should always be in control of himself, the truth is sometimes he’s not. I’m not making an excuse for why a man would cheat. I’m just saying that everything needs to be considered and all of the consequences to what you do next have to be weighed.

  Just because he cheated doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. Good people do bad things all the time. And people do make mistakes.

  (As I’m saying this, there’s a huge voice inside still saying, “Fuck that!”)

  My friend Charlotte recently came to me because she found out that her boyfriend of three years had a one-night stand with this chick at the club after a basketball game (yes, he was an NBA player). She wanted to know what she should do.

  The first thing I told her was to not go calling all of her friends and telling them what he did and throwing a big pity party. She will get a lot of people to attend, but when the pity party is over and she decides to stay with him (which she did), people will be looking at her as if she’s crazy. Or worse, they will have a very negative opinion about him and she will have to now choose between her man and her friends and family.

  This gets real tricky with family members becaus
e now your dude is sitting at family functions and everyone knows he cheated and you took his ass back. You both look lame. And trust me, everyone will have an opinion about your relationship. So my first piece of advice is to keep it tight. If you must confide in someone, limit it to that one person in your starting lineup of friends who is both wise and won’t judge you later.

  The next thing I told Charlotte was to do what she felt she needed to do. If she felt she needed to stay because that was what was best for her family, then she should stay and not worry about how it looked. If she couldn’t live with the betrayal, then I understood that, too.

  What I know is that every situation is unique and even cheaters are different from one another. Is he a dog and is his cheating chronic? Is he disrespectful and embarrassing with his cheating? Or did he make a mistake and is working hard to get you to forgive him? Is he trying to make changes?

  You have to weigh the good against the bad. If the good outweighs the bad, then maybe you should stay. Maybe. Because here’s the other truth: Sometimes you just can’t forgive and forget. Sometimes the feeling of what he did is so painful that you simply can’t see him the way you used to or you don’t love him the same way. And once that happens, it’s hard to come back.

  Maybe you just need a break—at least a temporary one—to see if you can live without him.

  Another piece of advice I’ve gotten from my mom is to never say never.

  I remember being young and telling my mother, “I’m never staying with a man who cheats on me. Period. End of discussion!” I was adamant about it.

  “Never say never!” my mother would say, shaking her head.

  Of course, she was right. My first love cheated on me . . . and even had a child (or maybe two) while we were in a relationship. And after that I vowed never again! I’m a little hardheaded, I guess.

  I was the kind of person who had a lot of rules and lines in the sand in my life. I had determined what I would and would not put up with from an early age and decided I would stick by my guns, no matter what.

  And while I was madly in love and even let him creep back in, when he showed his true colors, he was gone for good. I’m one to let a man know up front what I expect and that’s that. If he messes up, I’m gone. My mother used to shake her head when she’d hear me say, “I’d never stay with a man who cheats on me.”

  Her response was, “Live a little and then get back to me on that.”

  What my mother knew is that “never” is a very long time. And “never” doesn’t take into account extenuating circumstances. As a general rule, if a man cheats on you, you should leave him because a man who cheats is a cheater and it probably won’t be the last time. And who wants to be in a relationship with someone who is a cheater?

  But . . .

  What if you really love that man and he really loves you and while he did do something that violated your relationship, what if it was a one-time thing? Should you throw away your entire relationship for a one-time mistake?

  Only you can answer that question. And when I’ve been confronted on several occasions with this issue from friends, that’s what I ask them: Can you live without him? Can you live with him knowing he was with someone else?

  For me, I know it would eat at me. It did eat at me. It’s a hard thing to just move on from a relationship. But it’s not impossible. As far as I’m concerned, staying with him gives the man the upper hand. Remember, this is a game and if you want to win you always need to have the upper hand.

  But what if in staying you find a way to turn it to your advantage? I know quite a few women who have been cheated on, unfortunately, and yet they stayed. They make their mate pay by spending his money and getting away with crazy things. A couple of my girls have even “gotten him back” by cheating on him.

  That’s all very messy to me. If your sole purpose is revenge or punishing him, then you’re totally out of the game. Because while you’re doing that, you’re also destroying any chance you have of repairing the relationship. What’s the point in that? Where’s the love? And where can you grow if you’re spending time being vengeful?

  Life has taught me that sometimes you have to reevaluate your lines in the sand.

  My approach is to shut it down. Just as I left Washington, D.C., when I had had enough of Doug’s mess. I found out that leaving for a period of time is very effective—especially if you’re leaving for real. No contact, no back-and-forth, no arguing and complaining. Just be gone.

  Leaving gives you time to think and connect with what it is that will ultimately make you happen. In this case, I do believe the old adage “Time heals all wounds.”

  My mother was right about living a little. Time and age give you a totally different perspective on things. What I would “never” put up with in my twenties, I’ve softened a bit about in my thirties. Life has taught me that sometimes you have to reevaluate your lines in the sand.

  I’ve had to adjust my lines quite a few times. One of the first things I shifted on was dating an athlete. I said I would NEVER date an athlete. Until Melo, anytime a basketball player or any athlete approached me, I would roll my eyes and keep it moving. He didn’t stand a chance. Then I met Melo and I had to move that line in the sand from “never” to “just this once.”

  Another one of my personal lines was having a baby out of wedlock. I would die before I had a baby without being married. Well . . . I had Kiyan, and he was three years old before we actually got married.

  So I stopped saying what I would never do. I still have a few things that I believe will be deal breakers—like him having a baby with someone else while married to me—but honestly, you really don’t know what you will do until you’re confronted with the situation.

  What I do know is that whatever decision you make, whether to leave or to stay, it should be your decision. And it should be based on what makes you happy.

  How do you prevent your man from cheating? You can’t. But what you can do is not let the relationship get stale. Don’t give him a reason or an excuse to go out there. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we get in a rut in a relationship, and it gets boring and routine or hectic and tense.

  My husband and I spend a lot of time apart. Sometimes there’s too much time apart. I used to think it was great because when we’d see each other it would be like a honeymoon. I had to reevaluate our situation and decide that the time apart was too much. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. But out of sight, out of mind, too.

  Realizing this, I won’t let us go more than a week without checking in. If one of us has to hop on a plane for one day, then that’s what we’ll do. You have to look at your relationship honestly and see if there are some things you can do to keep it spicy. And make sure you’re not slacking off in any area. (Not that a man needs a reason to cheat, because he doesn’t. But you want to do all you can to make sure he doesn’t have room to even think about it.)

  If you feel like you’ve done everything right, then it’s time to look more closely at him and decide if he’s the kind of man you want to spend the rest of your life with. Some people just cheat to cheat. But if someone cheats and feels like he had some valid points, then you should listen and be honest with yourself.

  Now don’t get me wrong; women do cheat too. But for the most part when a woman cheats it’s not because she’s bored or she just saw some “hottie” that she has to get with. There are women who love sex and variety and all that comes with it—just as men do. But those women aren’t generally the marrying type. If a woman who is married or in a committed relationship cheats, it’s usually because there’s something emotional missing from her relationship. It’s a connection and a love that she’s looking for that she’s not getting at home. There tends to be so much more there when a woman like that cheats, which may make it harder for that relationship to survive.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Looking for a Trade:<
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  The Grass Is Not

  Necessarily Greener

  Trade: In professional sports, a transaction involving an exchange of players’ contracts or draft picks between teams. Typically trades are completed between two teams, but there are instances where trades involve three or more teams.

  People look at my life with envy. I feel it. I even hear it. “How did she end up with him?”

  People see the clothes, the cars, the money, the lifestyle, but that’s all they see. Now, don’t get me wrong. I feel blessed to live this life. But there’s a whole spectrum that people rarely get to see. You see the lifestyle of the rich and famous, but you don’t see the day-to-day drama and stress. You don’t see the loneliness, the doubt, and the pain.

  I rarely get to see my husband during the season. And if there is a FIBA World Championship or it’s an Olympic year, I don’t get to see him much when the season ends, either. There are eighty-plus games a season, and he’s on the road for half of them. When he’s not on the road, he’s practicing or getting ready for a game or he’s tired.

  Of course, I get to go to the games. And, yes, I get really great seats to the games. But after ten years, sitting courtside at a basketball game is not a highlight of my life. In the beginning it was exciting, but not so much anymore. What I enjoy now is being home with my husband and my son or hanging with my friends and family.

  Having a relationship in the public eye is so much more difficult. In 2012, Melo and I had some difficulties in our relationship that ended up on the cover of newspapers and on blogs. It was hard enough for just us to deal with it, but we had the added pressure of being bombarded with questions from the media about our relationship. Imagine that. Imagine every time you and your man have trouble, people are following you with cameras and microphones trying to get to the bottom of it before you two have even had a chance to do that.