I used to be a loyal wife, a loyal friend, a loyal employee, a loyal daughter. I was not perfect, but I was a good person with good values. I was married, in a 17 year relationship, I had two kids and a job.
But my life started spiraling down. A new family arrived in the neighborhood. We became friends, our kids became friends, and we started doing amazing activities together. Then another family joined in, and everything was perfect, at least on the surface. I fell in love with the man of the first family. He was perfect for me in every single way. He was handsome, sporty, smart, interesting. We shared the same interests, same sports, same music taste. We called each other soulmates. I fell for it and I did what I never thought I would be capable of doing: I had an affair. Sex with him was out of this world; the senses, the touch, the smell, the taste, everything was perfect. I loved his body, I loved his soul. I loved him with all my heart and truly believed we would be an official couple one day. It had to be. It was obvious. It was meant to be.
I am a smart woman. But I kept believing him despite comments he started making, comments that should have raised a huge bright red flag: he had loved someone else more than me, he would not be ready to leave his wife any time soon, I was not enough this or I was too much that, or I did not offer him the right basis of trust when I was wondering what he had with the myriad of other girls swirling around him. Just friends he used to say. I kept believing him when his comments and behaviors continued to crush me. I gave him second, and third and endless chances while I was hurting so badly. So badly that this whole situation, my doubts about his feelings for me, the betrayal of our spouses, made me briefly fall into a depressive episode and lose my job.
I eventually tried to stop seeing him, but how… since we were part of a close-knit circle of friends. So we started again. And stopped again. I became the shadow of myself. I was trapped. The only way I saw to get out of this was to tell my husband and stop seeing this other man, at the risk of breaking my marriage. - As a side note, my marriage had not been working for years. We were good friends and parents, but there had been no tenderness nor intimacy between us for years. - So I told him, then my lover told his wife and the entire circle of friends blew up.
Then my lover left his wife and he rushed to tell me, even though we had not been seeing each other for a few months. I believed him again, believed again that he wanted to be with me, and believed him again during the six more months it took my husband and I to finally separate as well. Six months while my lover was telling me he was waiting for me, that he wanted to be with me, that he wanted nobody else. Except perhaps the other girls he started meeting through dating sites, except the other girl I know he slept with. He gave me excuses, and again I believed them.
Then came the day I was separated and free and ready for our first entire weekend together. A weekend where he badly humiliated me. A day at the beach where he barely acknowledged my presence, where he stared insistently at another woman, where he held me in the water and turned me around so he could continue watching her, and when he eventually dumped me in the water to go back and walk past her to make eye contact.
This event was finally the end for me, the last straw, the last thing I could take.
This was over a year ago, 14 months to be precise. And I am unable to let go. This man hurt me, betrayed me, destroyed me. And I still have feelings of love for him. I still bump into him all the time and my heart still pounds hard each time. I am a strong woman. Before him, I would never have tolerated a man treating me this way. I know he did me wrong, but part of me still wants to find excuses, part of me still thinks he was my soulmate. I am still trapped.
And I cannot get over the fact that I betrayed my husband, despite the fact that he understood and that we remained friends. I cannot get over the fact that I betrayed his wife who was a friend. I walk around the neighborhood thinking that everyone knows and that everyone hates me. I just cannot forgive myself for what I did and I still suffer from a major heartbreak.
I know I did wrong. But do I really need to be punished, and punish myself for life? Will I have to live like this for the rest of my life? Or is this what love can do to any mind that feels like a desert, empty of love and affection? Or was it just my mind playing tricks, making me believe in a love that was not there because I was starving love so much? Am I just human? Or am I really a monster?
..
I will make this public. Maybe someone can share a similar experience.
Please do not comment if you have never been there and can only comment that “cheating is bad and nobody should do that”. I was there too. I was like you. I thought this would never happen to me. Until I met him. Life has a strange way to surprise you.
Please be kind.
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