De(con)struction

I could not blame him for loving her.

But in doing so he hurt me. He told me that their relationship was over, he wanted out, they had not been intimate in over a year. He gave me every reason to believe his heartache, his loneliness.

But there was always something there telling me it wasn’t right. That he was keeping some truths from me.

Our relationship began with so much passion and excitement. It was just sex. On top of 25 years of friendship. He knew I adored him. I knew he had always desired me all of those years.

It. Was. Amazing.

I left my husband (our marriage had fallen apart way before the affair) and the plan was he was to leave his wife. The woman he had had a tumultuous relationship with for many years. He had cheated many times, so had she. He had an affair resulting in 2 bastard children.

Yet she kept him.

Yet he stayed.

And stayed.

And stayed.

And then I came along.

I was always a secret.

It was a fall down the rabbit hole, love bomb fast and overwhelming and then.... breadcrumbs.

The meetings dried up but he continued to say he wanted to be with me. He strung a fantasy in the stars of our future together. Where we would live, what we would do in the evenings, where we would vacation, how often we would make love.

He told me a million times he loved me.

But his words never matched his actions.

Over time he pulled back.

I craved him. Thoughts of him consumed me. But he was overwhelmingly absent from my presence.

I fucked up. I sought the attention he once gave me in other mens arms.

And when I told him what I’d done. It caused a crack no gold could fill. He made me feel guilty about my odd infidelity because truly how could I be the one solely in the wrong? He was married yet I was the one unfaithful? I knew, in my gut I knew he was with other women. His wife. His boys mother. Someone else. I just knew it.

My rationalization angered him and he told me after one intense fight that he would never want to be with me after his divorce.

I was shattered.

I cut off contact with him until I couldn’t take it anymore and reached out.

In that time of no contact I was in the depths of depression. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. That I had made the biggest mistake of my life in being unfaithful to him. That I’d lost the only man who would ever truly care about me.

The trauma bond was already formed and cemented in my soul.

My spirit was absolutely crushed under the weight of the loss of him.

I reached out. We met and we talked. We tried to go back to being friends but the whole thing started again. The push. The pull. The attraction and the pain.

After many months I ended it again. And then one more time when I realized the whole thing was a facade. He was never going to leave her. He had no reason to. He loved her in some way.

And so I can’t really blame him for loving her. For staying.

Because hurting people is what he does. And then plays the hero to everyone else.

So there it is. I left a lot out but only because it confuses me so.

I don’t know how to explain it.

What I can explain is how much he hurt me. How much I hurt me. Let's face it, I asked for this pain.

My fear of abandonment made itself known through this whole ordeal.

After my anger the fear of losing him and the fantasy exploded in my mind. It covered every thought with inky blackness. For a long time I lost hope. The thoughts of ending my life to escape the pain crossed my mind. Many times. Almost consuming me.

I close my eyes and I see him and his wife smiling on one of their date nights she had the pleasure of posting about on social media.

I can’t stop thinking about him.

I burned the pictures. I erased the texts. I cut the cord and went no contact.

But the hardest pill to swallow. He never really tried to fix us. He called sure. But beyond that.... nothing.

So I know.

I know he never cared. About me or our future.

What I’m learning is this. Through the pain comes growth. Through the hurt comes a lesson learned. I’m becoming more in tune with myself. My boundaries. I’m building careful walls around my heart and around my mind. I’m making new friends who have walked this path. I’m reading about spiritual growth and spending time pondering myself. Getting to know myself all over again. Because I didn’t like me. But I’m starting to.

It’s a beginning.

I’m starting a new chapter of the greatest love story ever written.

Me loving me.