A Woman's Perspective...
Okay so permit me to be a little... personal. I watched Oprah today because when nothing else is on TV sometimes she can be entertaining. And she was talking about husbands cheating on their wives. And I've never exactly been cheated on but I think I can understand the feelings behind it. It's not the actual cheating that gets us... well most of us. I think it's the fact that you've entrusted this person so much to the point where (especially in my case) you're not used to opening up to anyone and then you just open yourself up to someone and tell them everything... you're completely vulnerable and it's not exactly the best feeling in the world cuz you're taking a chance. And then it happens. Not the cheating... but the deception. I don't know any person who would be able to hold it together when they get the words "I have something to tell you." And like I said I've never been cheated on but I have been lied to the point where I thought I knew someone so well only to find out that they weren't even an ounce of the picture they painted for me. And meanwhile I had no reason to lie about who I was and so then you feel cheated. You feel like you missed out on something because you gave all of yourself and they gave you nothing back in return.
And I think I can describe what the moment is like once you've been told that everything you knew was a complete lie. I still remember it. You know they say women should stick to their intuitions and I think we try our hardest to do everything but that because we just want things to be exactly how they appear... and ironically we know that's exactly what we're getting put we try to soften things and make them look better. I don't know if it's appropriate to tell someone that you've lied to them for over a year maybe five minutes after you two have just been in an argument about something geared towards not wanting to be lied to. Why? Because I don't care if you're the biggest sadist or masichist... arguments are just so draining. And only to find out that beyond this one isolated incident that is still on your mind, he has the nerve to say I haven't told you the truth about anything.
I remember... once I got the initial "I have something to tell you" thinking in the back of my mind for just a split second that he was lying about who he portrayed himself to be but thinking that it was something else... thinking he was maybe too ashamed to say that he had been with another girl and couldn't tell me about it. And I don't know if this is strange or not but I was prepped to handle hearing that. But then he did the whole nevermind thing and I had to sit and drill it out of him. And when he said what he did... even if you may have thought about it... you're just never prepared for it... I literally had the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't feel anything, couldn't see anything and I just sat there and things went blank. There's this bottomless feeling and a gaping hole in my stomach. I sat there and just kinda... stared. You go through all of these emotions and there's no way to channel everything at once. It wasn't the fact that he lied... but the fact that he didn't tell me the truth. It was the fact that I had to back peddle and everything I thought I knew just felt... lost and completely non existant. And then there were promises and things that could never have been fulfilled because everything was all some made up fantasy he concocted on my expense.
But after all the anger of feeling betrayed and even more vulnerable than I had ever felt... I actually missed our friendship. I missed being able to tell him anything and I missed the companionship. It was fun, it was nice and shit it was something I had been used to for over an entire year and wasn't sure I wanted to give up. I missed him and I had to put the shoe on the other foot... would I have wanted someone to walk out on me at my most desperate time. I would never want that. But I'm not going to sit up here and paint a happy picture... it was hard as hell to forgive someone who lied to me... well the forgiving wasn't hard but coping with the idea that things I was used to were definitely going to change. And then having to almost get to know a completely new person... it did suck. One thing I refused to do though in my stubborness and my vanity (honestly) was blame myself for any of his issue. And never once did I question why it was that he did this to me. He did it to himself and I just happened to be involved. And yeah it was damn selfish for him to put me through that shit but... I don't think I would have been able to understand things on more than one side had I not been through what I was put through.
Now this seems brief but it hurt. I'm not going to bullshit about that at all. And it put me through a lot. And I'm not exactly sure that I'm fully over things because even now it kinda hurts. But (and I don't care if this sounds cliche) I'm a much stronger person for it. I don't know what made me start thinking about it... but when people start asking... why would you put up with that it's because they don't put themselves in someone else's shoes. They don't fight themselves outside of their personal feelings enough to understand all sides of the story. And in order to understand the world... you just have to even if it sucks.