I Love You, But I Am Lying

I really despise seeing people in love, especially now that I am a single woman after 16 years of being with (cheating ***hole). What does it really mean to be in love? I think people fall in love too quickly. I certainly think that people tell other people that they love them, when in the depths of their soul they don't. It's like they are crossing their fingers behind their backs, hoping the other person with whose heart they are playing with won't find out.

Love is over-rated and at this point I have a suspicion that I want nothing to do with it. I never really want to fall in love again with anyone. The idea sounds great, having someone with whom you can turn to and grow with.

When I tell my friends that I will never fall in love again, they all say "Oh of course you will, give it time". Is that all we need to stop loving the person who touched the edges of your soul? Time? I don't necessarily agree with that. And I find that this is the problem. That it seems to be so easy for some people to just get over someone and to stop loving them so quickly.

I have a feeling that I will always love (cheating ***hole). It has nothing to do with the fact that we have kids together, it's the fact that I was and I still am in love with him. At the time, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't regret sharing my life with him, even if it did not turn out the way I believed it would. I do regret that he turned into a lying, cheating heartless soul.

About a month after (cheating ***hole) pulled my heart out of my chest with his bare hands, threw it in front of a truck and stood back and watched it get pummelled, I met rebound guy. I don’t know what I was thinking getting in a relationship with anyone at this point, but I did.

I wanted to prove to myself and to (cheating ***hole) that I did not need him to love me as much as I loved him. Actually, I wanted him to see me with someone else and come running back to me, with his tail between his legs and beg me to take his cheating ass back. Then, we would live happily ever after. Since I am writing this, it hasn't happened. Plus, I have realized who wants to really be with someone who lies about love.

I digress. Back to rebound guy. The first signs that this guy had a few screws loose was when he told me that he loved me after two weeks of us “dating.” I don't quite remember how I felt being told I was loved after two weeks of knowing someone. All, I knew was that this guy was not from my planet and in no way did I feel the same way about him. I celebrated the day that I told him to hit the road. I never loved or could love him.

My (cheating ***hole) told me he loved me too. I can recall the first time he told me he loved me. It was 1997. We had been seeing each other steady for a few months at this point. We were in my apartment and had been listening to music. He was sitting on the floor and I was laying on the couch. My (cheating ***hole) looked at me and told me he loved me. I told him I loved him too. Remember back then, he was not a (cheating ***hole) but the love of my life.

I used to believe everything that came out of his mouth. I had never questioned his loyalty and commitment to our family and to our relationship. I now question everything he ever said to me. I think this is pretty normal after someone recklessly plays russian roulette with your life.

If I was standing next to him watching a house on fire and he said “that house is on fire”. I would definitely think that he was lying through his teeth. I tend to think that he had many affairs that I did not know about. I wonder how he got so good at being a lying cheat, if he did not practice it before. As they say, "practice makes perfect."

Just before I found out that my relationship had ended, (cheating ***hole) had another woman on the side and was living a double life. He already knew that the relationship was over. It was me who was the slow learner and needed to figure this out on my own.

He never really told me what happened between us. Things had not been so great between us from the beginning. The last few years, things were pretty horrible, but true to form people with disastrous childhoods tend to push all that stuff under the carpet and never vacuum up the crumbs that are underneath.

My (cheating ***hole) said something to me about loving me, but not being in love with me anymore. I still have not figured out what that even means. He was probably trying to throw me off from figuring him out.

How do you stop loving someone? How do you go from calling someone the love of your life to your biggest regret? Why is it that some people have to “kiss a lot of frogs” before they find the person they were meant to be with? Why is that some people fall in love and stay in love forever? Or do some people just settle because the thought of starting over sounds too daunting of a task to undertake?

I really do not think that many of us know what it means to be in love. People are so quick to walk out on their partners and not willing to work hard to salvage their relationship. Look at the older couples who are celebrating seventy years together. Can anyone in my generation say that they will be with the same person for their entire lives? Do we as a society want to live with someone for that length of a time?

I thought that was going to the (cheating ***hole) and I really thought that I would be sitting by his bed, holding his hand and weeping when he took his last breath. Or that he would do the same for me. I imagined us playing together with our grandchildren and remembering how far we had come together as a couple and as a family.

But he sure proved me wrong. He simply did not want to try going to an objective party to discuss how we both sucked at making our relationship work. We did go to one objective party and the (cheating ***hole) sat next to me saying he wanted to fix our issues and that he loved me. The funny thing was, he was in a relationship with someone else at this point. The word love….I no longer trust it.

I guess I am just a bit cynical of love at this moment, because one day I was in a loving relationship and the next day, my whole life changed. Am I still interested in finding and falling in love, I guess I have to or I am setting my self up to be alone the rest of my life. Maybe I will be settling too?

I certainly miss the love of my life now referred to as that (cheating ***hole).