At first, Afton put her career and big money ambitions above her emotional feelings and needs in her love life, so she was in with J.R. who she thought had the big money and contacts to make her get places in the music business. At this time, she called Cliff "a loser" when he was chasing her for a relationship. Afton later realized that selling yourself to people like J.R. comes with a price, so realizes that she made a mistake and is now the woman that she should have been originally. Her situation with Cliff then flipped the other way compared to previously, as she was now wanting a serious relationship with Cliff, while Cliff was much more casual with the whole thing, having never really forgiven Afton fully, even before the Gil Thurman business.
Cliff was an idiot though. Afton did love him and would have gone to the wall for him if he had invested his emotions and needs in her. As it was, he drove Afton away in the end, when she couldn't take his nonsense anymore. Mandy was much more suited to that version of Cliff, as Mandy was laid back and chilled out for the most part (a complete contrast to Afton), but he even drove Mandy away as well in the end, with his blatant political desires for going after Jamie.
