The Torture of Realizing that You Were Cheated On
“I really like you too but there are some limitations to our relationship.”
I am not sure what I am feeling right now, but my tears don’t stop and the realization that we are over is hitting me now. I am helpless all over again. Everything that felt most real all these days just changed overnight. Now I don’t know which direction to look at and it feels so overwhelming that I want to throw things around me, just so that I understand that what’s happening now is real and the world I lived in all this time wasn’t.
You aren’t with me, maybe you never were. Maybe I just assumed you felt the same way I felt about you. I’ve been lying to myself that things will be fine but I understand now that they never will be.
We really are over and I am not okay with this.
What will I do now? Will I be okay? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t but right now I feel that there’s a huge pit in my stomach. I don’t know what to do knowing that I might never laugh with you again, we might never see each other again the same way we used to until this happened tonight.
I keep remembering how we met, and how I thought we connected instantly. Now I think, maybe it was just me. When it comes to love and relationships, you learn everything the hard way. I still remember the first walk we took together, not really knowing anything about each other but when the walk ended, we both weren’t the same. We were levels closer and I was smitten like never before.
Falling for the introverted extrovert
You flew under the radar compared to others. I wasn’t initially attracted. You wore these nerdy glasses and were irritatingly intellectual. You laughed at silly things and made fun of the colour of my contact lens. So much silly humour that I wondered if you actually used your humour as a mask for something darker.
You reached out to me casually, maybe for a coffee or a walk. You weren’t my usual type, and I had no plans to fall in love with you. I didn’t connect right away, but at a point, I realized that we were more similar than I imagined. Or maybe it was just in my head. I didn’t know. After spending time with you I realized that you were interesting and might very well be a genius. It was poetry to my ears when you spoke about your wide range of weird hobbies including philosophy, music, sports and a lot many things that I didn’t know existed.
You’ve had a terrible past and yet somehow used humour to connect with me. But were you really connecting? I had no idea. The more brilliant you were in one area, the more awkward and incompetent you were in the most basic of others: you couldn’t initiate the first conversation with anyone. You forgot to eat and took a lot of time to respond to deep questions. But I found these quirks endearing. Initially, I found you talking to me a lot and telling me things that you never told anyone.
My brain somehow concluded this must mean the connection is special. You cared about your family, but just like me, there was an emotional scar that was still fresh. There was always an aura of mystique that surrounded you, a kind of power and presence in your energy that even you weren’t aware of.
You might have unexpectedly swept me off my feet with your thoughtfulness, depth and intensity. Watching you losing yourself in those intense thoughts, and that faraway yet intent look in your eyes, was everything I needed. You were strange but I felt drawn towards you.
Losing Control Felt Good
For the first time in my life, losing control felt good. I was happy, I couldn’t ask for more. Those late-night walks to have doughnuts, the kisses in the rain, the stolen gazes, everything just felt right. It felt like 24 hours a day weren’t really enough for us. We’d find excuses to spend time with each other. Saying goodbye was the hardest part, even if we’d meet again in a few hours.
Underneath all this smitten love, I always saw how disciplined you were and how strong your willpower was. There was something that always told me that in the future if something went wrong and you decided for us to be over, you were never coming back.
The Fallout
With each day, I kept getting closer to you while you kept getting more silent than before. There were no more giggles, even though we spent most of the time of the day together. I told myself, maybe we are very comfortable in each other’s silence. I could see that things changed between us. I didn’t understand why silly things would make you so pissed. You’d tell me that I can’t talk to anyone about us and it worried me a lot.
It felt like I kept falling back into my patterns of just giving in the hope of one day being approved
I wondered why our routines changed so much and why you couldn’t hang out with me like you used to. Every time I asked you, you’d deny it and tell me that you’d spend most of your time with me. I let it go and thought to myself that maybe this is it. We’d fallout like this and these feelings will one day fade away. But then something I never expected happened.
The Truth
We kept fighting with each other for silly things. There were no more conversations, and you made me realize in a bitter way that I can’t claim your time or show up at your place as you could at mine. I made my peace with everything and decided to move on. Until I found out the truth.
The truth that you cheated on me with one of my friends.
And the worst part, she had no idea about us either. I found out from her and she did from me. I wanted to confront you but I gave you a chance to come clean. And you did come clean, but I already knew this. Why does it feel like it is my fault? Realizing things is making my heart pain so much. So much that I can’t breathe.
You put me in a place where I can’t even console her without feeling bad for myself first. Thinking about this is killing me. How did I get attached to someone so much in so much less time and still manage to get this hurt and feel all these feelings? It feels like my soul is detaching from my body right now. It’s just so hurtful that it physically pains me to bring this on paper. You say you are sorry.
But sorry doesn’t seem like something that I need right now
Although I knew this before you told me, coming from you, it felt like my heart would stop beating. After talking more about this with her, I realized that things I thought were special and intimate to us, weren’t anymore. Even though I told you I’d forgive you, I just can’t bring myself to. After all this, I still care for you. I am still worried about how you’d be feeling. Even though this changes everything, I still keep thinking that maybe things will be the same again.
I know that I am not supposed to do this to myself, but feelings are messy and complicated. I wish they could be turned off when faced with situations like these. Since I found out, I have been going back to the timelines and realizing the lies that you told me.
Betrayal is confusing. While this isn’t the first time it happened to me, it sure hurts like I am swallowing a cactus. Knowing that there is probably more than what I found, I am losing my peace. I feel humiliated and broken. I don’t want to re-live the traumas from my past but this experience has brought all those traumas that I never acknowledged to the surface.
As crazy as it sounds, I have always imagined how things would end between us. Knowing you, I thought that one day, you will independently decide to leave me with no warning at all because you feel that taking this forward will only hurt me more.
Even though you’d miss being with me, or our conversations, I would never hear from you again. You’d conclude this ‘relationship’ without any warning and I’d be devastated and haunted by it for years. Today, I know it ended.
It ended because despite having a choice, YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME
The Acceptance
I couldn’t say anything to your face because for whatever messed up reasons, it still bothers me to see you upset. We met multiple times after this episode where I tried to make you ‘comfortable’ enough to get talking to me. Every time you’d either say you are too guilty to look at me or just say that you need time. I still ask myself, why I thought suppressing my feelings to make YOU comfortable was important for me.
I have always believed that people come into your life for a reason. While we all look for the ‘forever’ in a relationship, I knew that relationships can only end in two ways, separation or death. Before meeting you, I had decided that there is no forever, and all I will look for is the promise that you’ll try your best and you’ll be worth it. I knew that everyone is responsible for their own happiness.
But I somehow left the key to my happiness in your hands and today I am heartbroken.
It is easier to go back and think that it is somehow my fault that this keeps happening to me more than often. But there’s only so much pain my heart can take anymore.
Moving On
Being cheated on isn’t an easy thing to deal with. Particularly, when I have to look at you every single day and pretend like I am okay, while I am feeling multiple feelings, all at the same time.
I feel angry, I feel pain, I feel sad, my whole world just crumbled and I couldn’t do anything. This whole experience has me questioning myself, where did I go wrong? Could I have done something to prevent it? Could I have found out earlier? Will any relationship in my future work for me? Will I ever be able to trust anyone again?
I thought that moving on could be easier because YOU are the one who destroyed us, but it feels worse than all the other break-ups I’ve had. Because I didn’t wish for this to happen. I invested my time and poured my heart out in ‘us’, only to find out that it was all being flushed down the gutter.
But each day, I pick myself up and do my best to figure out a way to keep going. There are so many questions that I want to ask you. But it feels like I’ve lost all my strength trying to make YOU feel ‘comfortable’. I know that everyone doesn’t get the closure they are looking for. And neither will I.
I was betrayed and it hurt me, and my self-esteem so much. But it also showed me that sometimes, no matter how good your intentions are, if you don’t learn a lesson, life keeps throwing the same lesson into your face until you do. Maybe this time I finally did. So, this is on you!
© Shaik Rohia Munavar
