Part 22-All men are cheating, lying, dogmen scumbags!

O M G! Why does it seem that the universe is conspiring against me to make my life a misery and turn every person I thought I could trust into a lying cheating scumbag?

Does every man cheat on his wife? Should I just accept this as being normal and stop letting it upset me?

You're not going to believe this....

I was sitting at home alone watching tv and mulling over my feelings towards Lola now that I know she's seeing a married man, trying to decide whether to condone the fact that she is doing to some other poor cow exactly what the lovely 'Kate' has done to me, or to issue her with some kind of 'him-or-me' ultimatum, when my dad payed me one of his now regular weekly visits.

He arrived all quiet and mysterious as always and for a few moments we sat together pretending to be engrossed in the punch-up between Cain Dingle and Debbie's cheating scumbag of a boyfriend in the far-from-peaceful village of 'Emmerdale'.
There it was again, I couldn't help but think, cheating, lying men evereywhere I turned. Was there no escaping the fact that all men are pigs? I felt my hackles rise once more but tried to save dad from having to listen to a rant by biting my lip intently.

He might be a man but he wasn't stupid. "What's up, Love"? he asked, all innocence.

"Nothing, nothing." I tried to brush him off-save him the torment of being part of my world.

But he was insistent, kept going on, "You seem upset, Love. Tell your old dad what's wrong". And this from a man who had spent the last 32 years buttoning it and saying nothing!

And so I explained to him all about how my good friend Lola was seeing Matt, who had a wife, and how that made me feel as if she was cheating on me too, just like Mark had with Kate, not to mention poor Pamela and her cheating fiance, and that here I was in my own home trying to find a few small moments of escapism and yet I was faced with yet another lying cheating Dog-man on bloody Emmerdale!

"IS THERE NO ONE HONEST OUT THERE ANYMORE"? I screamed.

Poor old dad. I could tell I'd embarrassed him because he flushed bright purple. He wasn't used to such out-pourings of emotion. Mother was a cold fish, to say the least.

For a minute he said nothing and I wished I had taken a leaf out of Mum's book and kept it all inside, after all it hadn't done her any harm had it. She was lucky enought to be married to a saint! Maybe if I'd just been a little less of an emotional wreck Mark would never have left....?

But then dad seemed to muster up a voice he had never had before and my whole world came crashing down around my ears as he spoke....

"Ruby, perhaps now is not the best time to tell you this, but I don't want to go on lying to you, and although if it makes you feel any better I am fairly certain that not ALL men cheat on their wives, there is one more who does that you should know about. Ruby, I'm having an affair".

It was like that night with Mark all over again. My stomache lurched like it was going to introduce me to dinner again (two slices of Dairylea on white bread and a Snickers bar incidently) and I felt my head spin. I was utterly lost for words.

Even my own bloody father was a cheating, lying Dog-man, scumbag! How could this be? This had to prove the theory that ALL men cheat! I was tempted to ring Cass and tell her to start rifling through Dave's pockets, but I managed to stop myself.

Dad explained that he had been so unhappy with my mother (well, come on, tell me something I don't already know) but could never bring himself to leave her and break her heart (ruin her social standing more like, but whatever), but recently he had met a woman who made him feel happy and though he had tried to resist temptation, eventually he had given in to his own needs and desires and at last found love in the arms of another.

See, when you put it like that it's almost easy to condone. And where my mother is concerned, surley these were extenuating circumstances? But he'd cheated on his wife-that made him no better than Mark or Debbie Dingle's fella, didn't it?

That's why he has starting coming to visit me I realised,  because it eases his guilt about cheating on my mother. He said he felt so much worse about it after seeing what I've been going through with Mark. And there was me thinking he just wanted to be there to comfort me! Bloody men!

Well, after that bombshell you can imagine where my head is at. I haven't given a second thought to the fact that I'll find out whether I got that promotion today! Yes, even though the interview went particularly awfully, and the universe appears to have it in for me just now, I still have my fingers crossed that for once life will deal me a good hand. Who the hell am I trying to kid?