It may be winter, but this year’s hunting season has already begun.
“Mate poaching,” or stealing someone away from their current partner to claim as your own, is not the answer to your happiness. It doesn’t matter how dreamy you think they are or that you “know” you are meant to spend the rest of your lives together. It doesn’t even matter that their current partner is horrible, doesn’t understand them, or have the time of day for them. None of those things matter. They are taken. Even if you were to poach them from their mate, they are not going to make you happy anymore than you’d be able to make them happy. The reality is that a person poached is more likely to cheat in the future, not susceptible to outside-initiated change, and is currently undeserving of your trust.
We all know the saying: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” Is it always true? Maybe not. I, like most people, would like to believe that a cheater will realize they have been in the wrong and change their ways. But that’s not how it tends to go. More often than not, “once a cheater, always a cheater” is true. Sad, but true.