The Christmas season came around and there was anything but the togetherness you’d hope for during the holidays. I was wanting to be in the North Pole with Santa and the elves sprinkling happiness and joy for all the world! Spreading warmth and serving hot chocolate. But in reality, I could not have been further away from that desire. I felt full of sorrow and sadness…alone and weak and cold to the bones. Pitiful really.

We got an unexpected weekend away and went to his parent’s house in the mountains. The scenery could not have reflected what was happening between us any better…there was snow and ice everywhere I looked. It was cold as fuck. We were attempting to have a good time, ignoring the obvious. I made homemade guacamole and we watched football. Went to a meeting, out to dinner. We didn’t talk about anything that was happening, but I felt it in the pit of my stomach. The cabin ambiance was beautiful though. His mom had decorated it for the season. We kept the lights low and the appearance of having the right vibes took center stage. White lights sparkling everywhere. Candles lit here and there.

When we went to bed that night, he fell asleep immediately. I laid there for hours with anxiety coursing through every inch of my body. Tossing and turning, trying to ignore it. But something wouldn’t let me. The angst was not going away. I got out of bed in slow motion. Walked out of the bedroom through the dining room into the living room. His phone laid charging by the fireplace. It felt as if I was being led to it…where my answers awaited. There I would discover why there was so much distance between us. Why things didn’t feel right and why they hadn’t for months…

There were other women. So very many other women. He was on multiple, multiple dating sites talking to other women. On Facebook talking to other women. Women in AA. Even a therapist of his child. Not just a few. So many that he would never be able to tell me the truth about them, because he actually couldn’t. There were too fucking many.

There were messages between him and his ex that painted a completely contradictory picture than that of what he told me. They spoke and messaged every single day as if they were still in a relationship. They mostly weren’t talking about the children, and she certainly wasn’t co-parenting, so what was this? They were friends?! They talked every day?! They were flirty?! This didn’t make any sense. I thought she was crazy and ABUSIVE to your CHILDREN? I thought you hated her, and she was the most fucked up person you knew? He was welcoming her into his life, into their lives, into our lives. Blamed everything on her but couldn’t take accountability of his own part in the pain that his behavior caused.

What. The. Fuck. Oh God…what do I do??? Fucking dreadful. DREADFUL.

“Reader, do you know what ‘perfidy’ means? I have a feeling you do, based on the little scene that has just unfolded here. But you should look up the word in your dictionary, just to be sure,” The Tale of Despereaux by, Kate DiCamillo (I don’t know that any book has inspired me more).

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The love between us seemed so big and so real, but then this?? This was anything but!

In the middle of the night, I went into the bedroom, turned on the light and started packing my stuff. He woke up and asked me what was wrong. He refused to tell the truth. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. He was such a coward about it. It hurt so fucking bad, I couldn’t even formulate anger. It was just pure pain, the kind that makes you numb. After I realized his total inability for even the smallest kernel of honesty, I went to bed alone without a word.

The next morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and took a mountain walk. I have a hazy memory of him trying to talk to me in the background, but I didn’t respond. I walked down to the lake and onto its frozen surface. The setting could not have been more perfect. My skin was burning from the cold, but it was even colder with him inside that house. I sat down on a dock with my coffee and cigarettes. The pain had rendered me into stillness, which, in a way, was quite peaceful. I had no thoughts.

After a time, I walked back to the cabin and told him to take me home. We shared an hour of silence in his truck until finally he spoke. On edge, he begged me to say something, anything. “Yell at me,” he said. “I don’t care just say something.” Oddly, because normally I would have had plenty to say in situations like these. The last person that betrayed me got punched in the face and never spoken to again as a response (not proud of that). I was appalled by his appeal to yell at him. I simply said no and continued my silent stillness the rest of the way home feeling sick to my stomach.

The time that follows is a blur…we wouldn’t talk for days, then talk again and try to work it out. Then we wouldn’t talk for weeks, then talk again and try to work it out. Then we wouldn’t talk for months, then talk again and try to work it out. Over and over…love, hate, love, hate, love, hate.

I do believe he tried, but he couldn’t leave the other women alone. He was incapable of being honest with himself, let alone me. He couldn’t build an appropriate co-parenting relationship with his ex. He used them. Every. Single. One. The magnitude of it all made my head spin. At the same time, it was amazingly crystal clear…those interactions did too much for him, for his ego. They were a distraction for him, from him. They gave him a sense of security. It didn’t matter how false it was or who was hurt in the process (even if it was his own children). He was disturbingly detached from his self, his emotions, and his actions. He wasn’t at all who he said he was.

But how was I able to understand this so readily? “Click” another number to the combination on the safe…There’s a saying in AA, “If you spot it, you got it.” Ouch. Though cheating was not on my resumé, I was a master runner in other ways.

He told me once in a rare moment of transparency that I was his mirror…

He also told me that he did these things because if we broke up, then he wouldn’t have to face the pain of it. There was always another open door to walk right into. That, in a sick way, I understood.

He was running from his dark too, from the things common to many, but no one wanted to talk about…and with this, a hauntingly miraculous thing was also starting to happen…he was exposing in me all the deepest, darkest crevices I would have never explored on my own. Because of the tremendous love, he was the only human on the face of this planet that had the ability to rip me open and force me to bring me to my own attention.

~

Full disclosure…at one time, writing this was to be a project we were going to do together. Life, however, had other plans. Still, there is great purpose here.

It’s so easy to write off another in the name of some justified emotion given to us by something unjust done to us. Fuck him. He’s a dick just like the rest of them. End of story. Hand back the pain. Punch them in the face or freak out or badmouth them. Hurt them in return in some way that feels fair. It’s seemingly easier, right? We don’t have to utilize any care or understanding. We don’t have to look at ourselves at all. How convenient…

Yet, at the crux of this situation, was what he was reflecting back to me and what would have been a shame to miss…and the real question being, why was I still there?