sometimes when you win, you lose

where do i begin?  a lot has happened in the past month, and i should have written when i felt compelled to do so…but i just couldn’t muster the emotional strength to do so until now, when i’m finally feeling normal again.

i broke up with scott on january 12.  i found out that he had been cheating on me the entire time we were together.  8 solid months of nothing but lies and betrayal.  he refused to admit it, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence and facts.  this girl even had pictures of them together…you can’t fake that.

at first i was a mess.  i spent january 13, 14 and 15 crying.  and yes, i went to work.  because the thought of sitting at home made me want to kill myself.  so i went to work, sat at my desk and wrote letters, and cried my eyes out.  i didn’t even care who saw.

for 3 weeks i listened to scott cry to me and beg me to come back to him.  he swears up and down that he didn’t cheat on me..but i don’t believe him and in my heart, i know that he’s lying.  i had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right from the day we met…but i brushed it off as paranoia and just let things go…

i have cut off all communication with him, because i truly believe that he is certifiably insane, and i am not being in any way sarcastic about that.  there is something seriously wrong with his brain, and i want nothing to do with a man like that.

i’ve bounced back really quickly and i’m surprised at that…but at the same time, i’m not.  i wish i could explain it.  i don’t even miss him.  all i’m left with now is a hole where he once was and lots of anger to fill it with.

this is a letter i wrote to him through a public blog:

thoughts on love, loss and walking away
Current mood:  strong

i am surprised at how quickly i’ve bounced back from you: i really thought i never would.  i thought that i’d wake up every day and want to cry because you’re gone.  but instead, i wake up every day and feel thankful that i was strong enough to make the decision to walk away from you.

i loved you, that’s true.  but the more i think about it, the more i realize that maybe it wasn’t real love.  maybe it was just that you seemed so perfect for me and i finally felt like i was going to realize a dream i’ve had forever, the dream of having a husband, a family, a home.  because if i loved you so much, shouldn’t i still feel it?  shouldn’t the weight of your absence be threatening to crush me?  shouldn’t i miss you? 

but i don’t still feel it, i don’t feel crushed, and i don’t miss you.  what i miss is what we had.  i miss the idea of you.  i miss the parts of you that were real.  but i don’t miss the constant suspicions and your constant refusal to answer my questions. 

i don’t know if you actually believe that you are telling the truth, or if you just kept telling me that you didn’t cheat on me with the hope that i would eventually break down and believe you.  either way, it didn’t work.  i still know that everything she said is true, whether you consciously know it or not.

when it first happened, all i could think was, "i have just lost the love of my life."  but as time goes by, i see that i didn’t lose you.  because you can’t lose what you never had.  and i never had you.  i had a piece of you.  but so did she, and god knows who else.  maybe i WAS the one you loved out of all of them, but that doesn’t make it ok and that doesn’t make me feel better.

i hope that someday you realize that love is more important than sex.  i hope that someday you love someone so much that the very thought of betraying them makes you sick to your stomach.  i hope that someday you realize how much you’ve hurt me and accept responsibility for your actions.

i do not wish bad things for you.  because despite the fact that i am angry right now, i know that someday i will be able to look back on you and us and smile about the good times that we had.  and because in one way or another, i loved you.

i will think of you often, and always wonder how your life turned out.  but i will not look back and wish that i was a part of it.  you need to know that no matter how much i cared for you, i do not and will not regret the decision to leave you. 

consider this my final outreach to you.  my final goodbye.