What I Thought Was Love

Let’s set the record straight.

This is not a difficult post to write. It is something I feel deep inside that I am finally letting go.

The man I shared my adult life with – and no other man on the outside – is the most attractive man I thought I knew. Everyone who met him either loved his energy, his charm, or his professionalism in his field. He can make people laugh and leave them wanting more. Then there are some who would say he is a “narcissist, attention grabber, or so loud and full of himself.” Those words are not coming from me, but are quotes from the very people he knows.

I used to love his music, his energy, his gift of gab. I used to look at him as the most handsome man I’d ever seen.
As an artist, I thought he was the perfect specimen of a man. I even sculpted his body out of a chunk of clay. I created a woman at the side of that sculpture to represent that all men came from a woman, according to what I remember from the Bible. I was so proud of him and loved every inch of him.

I was happy with my life. I never saw what was coming. He was a master of disguise. He used to always say he compartmentalized every single person in his life. I used to hear him talk horribly about other people, the way he handled everything as though he was entitled. I never knew that the exact things I saw him do behind others, he was doing with ME right in front of me.

I now know that my entire adult life was never love. I no longer like his music. I no longer like to hear him play the guitar, or the facial expressions he makes when he plays. I don’t even like his smile anymore – I feel there is something sinister behind it now. Every time I see him smoking weed, drinking heavily, his mushrooms, the drugs, or speaking so badly about someone and then turning around and calling that same person his “bro,” it makes me feel ill. I do not miss the rage or anger when I reacted to his lies, deceit, and secrets. I do not miss the way he would always say, “What are you talking about?” – his famous words when I felt he was backed into a corner for the truth, and nothing came out of him but that one sentence, followed by extreme rage.

He uncovered something in me in these last three years. His denial brought out things in me that I never had before – things I did not like. So, I planned for myself. I planned to take care of myself. I made a point to make sure I was safe in decisions, legal issues, and took care of my own well-being. I kept my faith throughout it all. I walked away from his hate, from his rage, from his constant scheming, in order to learn more about myself after losing myself for 37 years.

No, this is not difficult to write. It is awareness. Awareness of how I used to think so highly of this man.

Here is the next remark I will say now, and sometimes to myself: So you really thought I was a third-grade level, a complete zero, and a colossally fu*king idiot? As I sit here with the truth, and my truth won almost one week ago… so what is my new nickname now?

Other women will probably only meet the charming, guitar-playing, life-of-the-party version. They won’t get the version I lived with behind closed doors. That’s not my burden anymore. I know the secret. I know the pattern. And I am no longer available for it. We are old now, where she will never get to the extent of knowing him behind closed doors. I was only someone he could manipulate, and now he has no one else to do that to. Now I get threats, intimidation, and hatred from someone who claimed I was the love of his life. Think hard about that. A man who got away with many years of lies, deceit, and secrets tried to turn the table and blame it all on me.

When I hear him scheme against me, when he makes threats after the court order last week, and when I still hear him being so cruel, I no longer see the man I once admired. I see a man who is desperate to change the truth, desperate to rewrite the narrative, desperate for others to believe in him. I see the fakeness. I see how he uses people to his advantage, and those people are so taken by him that they cannot see past his charm or his gift of gab. All this because I know his deep secret. Three years of him telling me, “Forget all about the affair and act like nothing happened,” to denying what I witnessed for the last three years. Now that I know his secret, that did it for me. I no longer have the love, desire, or emotions for him—only disgust, and his rage that goes along with it.

All he had to do was be faithful. To not lie and keep secrets. And most of all, communicate with me. He had a sure thing in his life for 37 years and he ruined it all out of greed and being an attention seeker. The one he ran to from his marriage, he was #3 in her life. She didn’t have any long-term plans to be with him, but to use him during her own marriage. So, he wasted two years with someone who he was #3 to, rather than try to work on someone who had him as #1… so he is off to his next supply…

Now, he is at the bottom of my list too. Not a priority. Just a hiccup in my life.