August 21st

Chapter One

I can’t breathe. I know this was my idea but now, faced with the reality of it, I can’t do anything but hurt. In the logical parts of my mind I know this is the best thing for us.

Our relationship had reached a standstill. Or rather, a loop. Every few months we seemed to come back to the same problem. There are things we need to figure out for us to work and trying to figure them out together was only making them worse.

And unlike in the past, when we had been the unmarried equivalent of ‘separated’, this is not a ‘break’. We are not together anymore. For the first time in my adult life, I am a single woman. The last time I was single, I was seventeen and infatuated with A, who had so many red flags, I must have been wearing rose-coloured glasses. The relationship didn’t last long but the emotional scarring runs deep.

And that was just the first. My most serious, most consuming relationship was with N, who was so addicted to crystal meth and infidelity, it was a shock that there was any room left for loving me. But when it all ended, it became clear that there was never any room for loving anything. Clear that the rose-coloured glasses had stayed on.

But this isn’t about my previous exes. It’s about the most recent one. The one who was never meant to be an ex. T. He seemed to be perfect for me in every way, we have multitudes of things in common, and his values are so parallel to my own it’s scary.

I still can’t believe that I met someone who thought I was amazing, and liked the same things I did, and treated me with respect. Someone who didn’t blame me for everything wrong with himself, or scream at me for no reason, or make me feel the need to change.

After the abuse, gaslighting, and emotional torture I had been through with the last guy, he was like a good long breath of fresh air. And it was really good. We didn’t jump straight into a relationship. We were exclusive, but we spent some time just getting to know each other, and when we finally did put a label on it, it felt right.

But for a reason I still can’t fucking figure out, I had to break things. I don’t know if it was the distance, or the need for attention, or the lack of impulse control, but I cheated on him. A lot. I never had sex with anyone else, but I sent photos and videos to other men that should have been for his eyes only. At first it was one or two guys, but then they all found me attractive, and I couldn’t say no.

I found out he had been sending some messages to other girls when we first started dating, so I told him about the messages I sent to one guy. I didn’t want him to know the whole of it because I knew he would leave me. So I resolved myself to never do it again and let him think that once was all it was.

And we moved forward. We seemed to be in a really good place. We moved in together, we adopted a couple of cats, and we created a home for ourselves. And then just before our first anniversary, I cheated again. Worse this time. I don’t want to go into the details of it because it still makes me ashamed to talk about it, but it was physical this time. With a long-time friend. Of course, T found out about it. His intuition was always so perfectly tuned.

He made the decision to let it go. We knew it was going to be hard, but the idea of leaving me hurt him so much more than knowing what I had done. I know exactly how he felt; I’ve made that same decision before. And I know that it is a long and torturous process. I never did really get over it. I’m still not.

For a long time, I hated myself for everything I did to him. Not long after the physical instance, he went looking, as people whose trust has been shattered do, and he found everything. All of the messages I neglected to tell him about, all of the people I had been talking to. And it broke him. Understandably, he told me he couldn’t do it anymore.

And that broke me. If I had hated myself before, it was nothing compared to this. I detested everything about myself. I could not look myself in the eye and hold my own gaze. I was ashamed of my own existence. Knowing that I had done this to the person who meant, and still means the most to me was heartbreaking. And I had done it to myself.

But he decided to stay. Whether he did it because I sent myself flying into a self-harming, borderline suicidal depression spiral, or because he genuinely couldn’t bear the idea of leaving me, I still don’t know. For whatever reason, he decided to stay.

I know now that we should have stayed broken up. That was the end point for us, we just didn’t know it yet. From then, there was a long period of dissociation, sleeplessness, pain, and apologies. And so, so many questions. Questions that I was glad he asked but hurt to answer because I knew I had to give him the truth and that only hurt him more.

The trust between us was completely gone. The things I had done to him had completely changed me at this point, but despite him knowing that, it didn’t fix what I had broken. I had broken us. We thought this was something we could move past, that just by deciding to and wanting to, we could make it happen.

But we ended up two years into what, in truth, was a toxic relationship, and although we had reached a better place together, and we felt not quite so broken, we were only ignoring the fact that we were already over.

So when I began suggesting that I needed to not be in a relationship to truly heal, we both knew that it was only a matter of time. And sadly, on August twenty-first, it was time.