I broke up with him, actually. After an entire year of living in fear and perpetual anxiety about his womanizing ways, I decided to let go of it all over the weekend and to say goodbye to him, permanently. We were getting ready for a weekend trip and the night before, while he was in his shower, I found out that he'd been texting another woman and that he was hiding it from me.
If I hadn't caught him, I would have never known.
Who knows how many more there have been in the past/present that I don't know about.
What don't I know?
How much don't I know?
I cannot help but wonder if everything is a lie and that I have been simply living in his web of lies along with other women who care caught on a different side of the web. That night, I didn't sleep. I felt nauseous. angry. disappointed. sad. annoyed. I felt all the things I didn't feel when I had caught him a year ago. And I had not been angry then. I had never been angry that the history of our relationship was full of cheating.
This is someone who was caught cheating 1 year ago -- via email -- with some woman he knew for only 48 hours and that he (and she) mutually professed love for. He mistakenly sent the email to me (IDIOT) and then proceeded to cry and beg and apologize when confronted. I was in such shock that I took him back the next day and following that, we went to couples therapy. The day right after couples therapy, he did what I thought was impossible: he cheated. With someone else different from who I had caught online! That's right, he was seen cheating with another woman and caught red-handed by my best friend who thought she saw us walking together. When she realized that it was another woman that he was holding hands with, she called immediately to let me know; and he followed-up to provide more and more lies to cover up all of his already dried and crusty and dirty lies.
Sadly, I took him back 3 months later and began my self-isolation from all the people who actually loved me. It's been a year since then and a lot of heartache: perpetual fear and anxiety is what it's been. I cannot control what someone else does. I have no control over his loyalty towards me. No way to know what his intentions are, his thinking process, or his sense of morality and justice. None.
But I've thought that if I loved enough, was accommodating enough, then I could melt his heart so that he becomes... less pathological.
How wrong I was. How wrong I've been. How much time I've wasted.
The worst part of it all is that he does these bad things, yet I end up with the bad feelings. His bad actions lead me to have self-doubt about myself to wonder:
"why am I not enough for him?"
"Why isn't my love enough for him?"
"What is it about me that's not good enough that he needs more? Other people?"
"What have I done to warrant his repetitive pattern of cheating, lying, hurting, and betraying?"
Oh, and the mixed feelings that come with anger and hurt is grief! Grief and loss because I want love, companionship, unconditional acceptance, support. And he is gone and I miss his presence. I experience his absence very profoundly in my heart. In my space. In my day-to-day life. And yet I know, rationally, that his role in my life has primarily been negative over the past year. But I do miss him. And I can't help but think I love him and want the best for him.
Oh, the mixed feelings.
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