How Women Stay Strong Through Their Partner’s Infidelity

Throughout my years of high school, I have seen many young women become victims of various types of abuse and do nothing to try to get themselves out of the situation. There have been several instances where female students were constantly judged by what they wear, and instead of being different, many have felt pressured to fit in with the students around them. I have heard several stories of abuse that have not been shared with others because young women are too ashamed and humiliated to speak on the struggles that go on daily throughout high school.

The number one naive thing I see at our school is the acceptance that women have for their cheating boyfriends. I sought out participants who would share their stories, and two women were willing to talk about their hard times in high school, which I’m sure many young women can relate to. One student has not let her past mistakes have a negative effect on the woman she will become in the future, and the other is a woman who waited too late to see through her mistakes. As a result of numerous, heartbreaking discussions, I can be the voice these woman have not been able to have. We, as young women, need to fight for our acceptance towards a better future for ourselves, and we need to want our voices to be heard through these hard times in high school. Believe it or not, many young women go through the same struggles. We need to stop being scared of how we are going to be judged and accept the strong women we need to become for ourselves.

One young women named Whitney McElvy, an outstanding twelfth grader at Mission Bay High School, has been used by a young man whom she had a relationship with during high school. Luckily, she is willing to let me see inside her life during that time. During Whitney’s junior year she began a relationship with a young man who was her close friend throughout junior high. Although Whitney knew this young man had a girlfriend, she choose to have a relationship with him because her feelings for him defied all things that told her this relationship would end badly. Like most relationships, it’s exciting and fun in the beginning, but all the excitement usually doesn’t last for long. She began to realize he would take her around his friends and flaunt her, to show them he was talking to two girls at one time, but she only hoped things would get better so she stayed with him. It was only when she found out that he was showing inappropriate photos of her to his friends, when she stopped their relationship.Though she struggled with her emotions when their relationship was done, she overcame her experience by focusing on her art and school work. Whitney has now gotten accepted into Columbia College Chicago and Academy of Art University. Although some girls don’t come out as good as Whitney did, she overcame her embarrassment and has learned to be wiser in the future.

A woman who is now thirty years old has been in love with the same man since she was fifteen. Many would call that high school sweethearts but Melissa, the woman whom I’m talking of, says it’s the mistake of her life. Melissa’s life at fifteen was centered around her Mormon church and school work until she began a relationship with a boy that was older than her. She was enthralled by his popularity and the way he chose her out of so many girls who yearned for his attention. As time went by, she slowly stopped going to bible study to spend time with her boyfriend. She left behind the long skirts her mother would tell her to wear and went instead for jean shorts. As her appearance began to change, she also changed. Her goals and standards for herself began to wash away with the value she once had for herself. Although everyone, including her mother, told Melissa she was going down the wrong path, Melissa didn’t listen and lost her virginity to the boy of her dreams. Over the course of a few months, Melissa found herself pregnant and contemplating having an abortion. In the end, she had an abortion and to this day she still finds herself crying over her first child. After the boy graduated, he went on to ask Melissa in her hand of marriage, she immediately said yes. In the beginning their marriage was great until she found out he was cheating on her. Somehow she found it in herself to forgive him and accepted him back in her life. Throughout their years of marriage, she had two children with this man and on the side he had a little girl with another woman. Melissa is still married to this man and she still finds it in herself to forgive him for the numerous counts of infidelity.

Through these two stories, I have learned so many things from these women that will help me in my life and my relationships in the future. I do hope these stories change the way young women in highschool see themselves and I would hope they would want something better for themselves than a boy or man who can’t see the strong individual they are. We, as women, need take our independence and run with it as far as we can. Then when we find ourselves and better ourselves, we can choose what type of relationship we can have for a better future.