Month: December 2021

I’ll be the one to catch myself this time

Thank you, Adele. Indeed, I will

Music for the Mood: To Be Loved – Adele

I have realized that I have zero physical attraction to John now; almost disbelief in my repulsion when I see a picture of him. I do not in any way want this man back in my life, I do not desire anything he brought into it, and I cannot understand now even my most basic physical attraction to him. I have none now. It’s gone.

The past couple days I have been amazed by how little I feel for myself. I’m lonely, sure. I don’t like being 42 and lonely. And I am still angry that I have to work through this on my own. But I cannot describe how little feeling I have left toward John. I’m enjoying getting to know new, (seemingly) amazing guys through online dating and through my grad school cohort. I’m skeptical AF about who they really are, but that comes with the betrayal ptsd, right? I’m forcing myself to move anyway.

I think it’s a positive sign that I’m able to look at someone and at least wonder what it will be like to get to know them. I’m weirdly anxious about the physical and I hope that goes away.

My interest in John was always more than sex. I love sex, generally. That has very little to do with John, much to his chagrin, I’m sure. The physical was something I endured and willingly engaged in, and it definitely got better over time. In fact, that was our last in person conversation in September – how good it had gotten. Though he expressed that a man wants to believe that he’s always been good, that isn’t how it works, boo. Anyway, I loved the physical warmth of him most, and I know it will take a while to stop missing that. To stop missing the warmth of his arm around me, or his hand stroking my ass while we talked in bed, or the warmth of his hand holding my breast like he owned me while we fell asleep. I do not miss his snoring. But more than any of the physical, I loved talking with him about life, about how humans interacted, about how we observed the world. We thought the same way about seemingly everything and it felt so good to have another soul to dance with.

But now, knowing what I do about how little he values individual people, individual humans, especially those that pour so fully and unselfishly into him, I cannot. I just cannot make myself feel interested in the thoughts or feelings of someone so inadequate.

The sheer volume of people discovering this site is overwhelming. I hope you are finding something here – a normalizing, validating story. And if you’re just an unfortunate friend or acquaintance of John or Crystal, well, I sure hope you find what you’re looking for too.

I’m all good. Or I will be. Take care of him. Take care of her.

They deserve what they sow. As do you.

Why do I keep writing here? Because I can. Because I know there will still be bad days and sad days. Because it helps me. Writing has always helped me share what I never feel comfortable sharing with the real world. I feel more understood and seen in this community than anywhere.

Why did I create a social media presence and share this blog there, with their friends and family? Because I can. I want to be a real person with feelings to these people I’ve “known,” people I thought I’d one day actually know. Why not? After all … John showed zero compunction over more than THREE YEARS while he knowingly destroyed everything I believed to be true about myself and about him, about them, about us. Why not destroy that for him now? I have no obligation to give any fucks.

And I assure you, I do not.

It’s looking like a limb torn off…

Having a real Detlef Schrempf kind of day. And, yes, I know the title of this post comes from a different Band of Horses song but, honestly, those words are all too sad and loving. I’m more in the sad and unloving camp today.

That’s the thing about heartache, right? Especially the kind caused by a blindsided betrayal. You vacillate between disbelief and anger, aching to quench your thirst for retribution, and then sometimes, you still feel the disbelief but also just want to remember the way they looked at you, and hope they treat her better.

As much as I loathe thinking about it, I do hope John actually loves Crystal and wouldn’t dare cheat on her again. Let alone for more than three years, again. I still cannot wrap my brain around it. Certainly not my heart.

I don’t know how other eyes look at you. I hope everyone around you finds out who you really are. I’d like to know how those eyes look at you then. You certainly know how mine did. Once.

I’m looking forward to looking at someone else like that again, sooner than later.

“When eyes can’t look at you any other way,
Any other way, any other way
So take it as a song or a lesson to learn
And sometime soon be better than you were
If you say you’re gonna go, then be careful
And watch how you treat every living soul”

Music for the Mood: Detlef Schrempf – Band of Horses

Receipts

Here are my receipts. Go ahead, ask John for his.

In the interest of recognizing there are two sides to every story, you have mine in the many public posts over the past month (and years) here. These text receipts from Weds. Oct. 27 – Fri. Oct. 29 show his side of the story, in his very own words. The questions that I screamed into the void after yet another interminable night of no sleep, the morning of Sun. Oct. 31, are included too. I don’t know if he ever saw those, though I suspect he did. I suspect a lot of things because, after all, I knew this man for years. There’s only so much you can fake. And although I do believe I’m blocked now (he certainly is), I don’t for a second think I was then.

I’d love answers to all of those questions. I mean, on Sunday the 31st, he didn’t yet know I had already sent all of the screenshots below to her, as receipts. Or the unfathomable extent of the things I found on MY computer because he stupidly left them there.

I know that he knows all of that now though because I also printed and physically mailed all of these text screenshots to him the next day for good measure. To *their* home – just in case he found it convenient for his narrative to delete them from his phone (he prided himself on saving all of our texts from the very beginning – that used to be cute) or in case she didn’t receive the email at work, and/or he wasn’t really in Philly and she’d be curious enough to open a clearly personal envelope addressed to him from a chick in DC. I printed and included the blog post from that day — a written record of 11 hours of catharsis — longer now, of course, as more memories have come back. Before John read that post in the mail, I don’t even know if he realized how I came to have a copy of his wedding contract. I didn’t say, just included it as a screenshot via text when he kept lying to me the morning after I already discovered the truth.

I told him only in the Oct 31st post that I emailed the screenshots of our texts to her so he had to have read it. I implored him to be brave and do the right thing. To tell her.

It’s notable that he did try to call me two days after I mailed it, while I was walking home from work that Wednesday, but I missed the call and didn’t even notice it until days later. I had to Google the number. Apparently it was a work number, but not the one I had. He didn’t leave a message. I’ve wondered a few times what he could have possibly intended to say over the phone.

His only response came the Friday after, via text of course, exactly a week after he discovered that I knew. That’s included at the bottom of this CVS-length receipt below. The only thing not included here is my incredulous response which was simply, “Thanks so much for your concern. You have no right to ask that of me, let alone beg.”

Then I blocked and deleted him from my life. Granted, I still know his number in my brain. I wish I didn’t. And I am ashamed to admit that on several drunken nights when I’m trying to be numb and not think at all, my brain has remembered and probably texted, and promptly deleted, various things. Who knows what. I cringe to think about it. Still, I have nothing to hide. I’ve written everything in my heart and soul out here for anyone to read. Here are my receipts.

Go ahead. Ask John for his.

Karma has entered the chat. I hope he’s ready…

(Note: I know some of these are pasted out of order. The originals are gone & I don’t know how to edit the photos as is. Just consider the mystery maze symbolic of this whole fucking mess)

You may ask what I want after all of this. I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Every night while I watch the shadows cross the ceiling. Here’s a list:

– I want to go back to July 21, 2018 and shut you down.

– I want to go back to August 21, 2018 and let you go.

– I want to know the answers to all of those questions from October 31, 2021.

– I want to add two questions to that list, for Crystal: Did you know about me? Why did you go through with marrying his lying ass anyway?

– I want to know what he meant in that last message by “multiple messages and detailed accounts” — I sent her one message, with the screenshots. I mailed him the printout of the Oct. 31 blogpost and the screenshots he already has/had on his own phone. There is no multiple, no massive plurality. It makes me think he has no idea what I sent her but assumed it was the same as what I sent him (the blog post) and he’s covering his ass. Maybe she still doesn’t know? I can’t abide that. I won’t.

– I want him to hurt too.

– I want to know if she knew. I’m still not sure. But if she did, I want everyone in her life to know how objectively stupid she is. And also how much support she’s going to need when he does it to her again.

– I want to get all of this shit out of my head, out of my heart, out of my life.

– I want to stop having to write here because I have no other constructive way to get out the poison he intentionally left inside me.

– I want to sleep and eat again, with any semblance of normalcy. Though the 12 lbs I’ve lost so far is a tarnished silver lining.

– I want to stop having to pay a fortune to talk to a stranger about all of this shit because I don’t want to burden the people I love. A sweet and unconscionably young therapist who isn’t terribly helpful; instead, she serves as a human version of this blog where I still vomit words and feelings, but she actually responds. However, she also tells me things like “obviously there was something about you that he wanted to keep. That was worth the effort of the lie. For so long. Something he didn’t get in his relationship.” Seriously? I want a different echo chamber. That is not helpful.

– I want to go to bed at night without praying that I just don’t wake up at all; I don’t want to have to feel all over again every few hours. It’s too painful. When will that stop??

– I want to move the fuck forward and forget this ever happened to me.

It’s distressingly clear though that returns and exchanges will not be honored with these receipts. No one cares that the item never matched the description and was defective from day dot. There is no customer service to call. No manager to speak with.

It’s my burden to bear, my heartache to sort through, my trust to rebuild, my mind that races. I hate that I’m stuck in a loop of revenge and retribution right now but I also cannot stand for injustice. Who would I be if I didn’t fight for the little guy, the good guy, the one for whom no one else will?

I am losing sight of who the good guy is.