Betrayal: A Catalyst for Transformation

Before we get to "the liberation", we must first explore the illusion of "the good".

I was 17 when I met Raymond. I was 28 when I left him.

We first interacted in the days of Myspace; he found my profile through a mutual (IRL) friend we had. He sent me a message and although I don't remember his opening line, I do remember we hit it off instantly. Right away we typed novels to each other, day in and day out.

At first I viewed it as a friendship, as I was dating someone else at the time. After that break up, I was picked up from my family's home for a date with said mutual friend. Little did I know, Raymond and another guy were waiting in the car. That was the first time we met in person.

Fast forward a few months, Raymond was really laying it on thick with me and putting in the work to become my boyfriend. I kept turning him down for a while but after a very thoughtful date one night I simply told him, "Okay you can be my boyfriend now."

And so he was, for over a decade. We never wanted kids and didn’t want to get married but we had a very committed and loving relationship, or so I thought. Everyone thought we were as compatible as you could get and had a once-in-a-lifetime love.

I left him in December of 2020 because he was no longer even pretending to treat me right and couldn’t keep his word for anything. The details are meant for another post, but it felt like chopping off my own right arm by leaving him. I didn’t want to, but I finally had to respect myself.

It was immensely painful moving out on my own, but perhaps even more painful that we didn’t sever ties completely and kept seeing each other.

Later, in May, I was finally confronted with the fact my whole life had been a lie.

We met up for a chat that left me absolutely devastated. During that conversation he admitted he cheated our entire relationship, in all three of the states we lived in together. One of them was my best friend (who continued to lie to my face every day), and one of them was a girl in his new friend group that I trusted him to hang out with without me. I was stunned and had an extreme physical reaction to this betrayal.

I couldn’t eat for two weeks. I didn’t feel human for two months. The grief was unbearable. At times I thought I wouldn’t survive it, and I welcomed that thought.

I could accept the fact our relationship had run its course and was now over, but I couldn’t accept the fact that nothing over the past decade was true or real. I was completely faithful and loyal in that relationship. I didn’t even know it was possible to experience such disrespect, especially by someone I genuinely trusted and cared about.

My entire identity was tied to that relationship and the intense love I thought we shared. Without it, who was I? Nothing and no one felt like the answer.

I met the weakest version of myself and stayed with her in a dingy, dark corner for two months.

But that leads us to the liberation.

This was a Dark Night of the Soul. This was death, awakening, and rebirth. This was the Big Bang. I collapsed under the weight of myself until I was so tightly confined that I had no other choice but to burn out or to explode into the cosmos.

I chose the cosmos. Enter Authentic Self, stage right.

Faced with the fact that my reality was not in fact real allowed me to start anew and analyze everything under a brand new microscope with new functionality: clarity.

I became hyper aware of myself, my actions, my beliefs. I was met with confusion as most of the things I had put my faith in didn’t make any sense to me anymore. My job, people’s expectations of me that I strived to meet above my own desires, the ways I spent my time and the things I valued in life, were all things other people dictated to me.

Everything turned on its head and warped into something unrecognizable. Staring in the mirror, I was unrecognizable too. But my Higher Self was never going to let me drift off into the abyss. I’m meant for the macrocosm.

I began a meditation and yoga practice, became (mostly) vegetarian, switched career paths, lost forty pounds, started reading books and discovered self love. It truly feels right, for once. If I'm honest with myself, something always felt slightly off in the past decade. I am emancipated from that burden now. The growth I've experienced is unimaginable.

I was meant to experience what I thought was love early in life, because I would have been constantly searching for it if I hadn’t found it. Having the experience allows me to let that narrative float away. Society tells us that being in a relationship is the most important thing and that if you’re alone, you’re worthless. I know now that is absolutely untrue even though it was something I bought into in the past.

Not even six months later my life is now on a beautiful trajectory in peaceful solitude that never would have sprung up if I continued down the path I was on chained to someone else.

I know now that I lost myself in that relationship, and never would have met my authentic self without this traumatic event.

If you’re relying on someone else for your happiness, you’ll never find it. If you’re searching for yourself in someone else, you’ll never meet.

Let the Big Bang create your celestial opportunity. Then, and only then I believe, will a relationship truly add to and not subtract from your life in a healthy way.