Earlier this week, I found a picture of my boyfriend that had been photoshopped to include a picture of another girl kissing him, on his thumb drive. She had created this image on a blue background, with text in red reading among other things, “I love you,” over the image. The date of its creation in the file info was just before his birthday, which was a week before our one-year anniversary. I confronted him, and he admitted to having cheated for about 6 months during our two and a half year relationship, with a mutual friend, but promised that he hadn’t had sex with her during the time he was with me – only before. And that he never loved her, that she only loved him, and he didn’t know how to break things off with her until well into the start of his relationship with me.
This man was my first, my first love, and he saved me from going down a very dark path, but I can’t get past this. But I couldn’t handle this, and asked him to leave. He has since written me emails, asking that we start over, go on a first date, and try to put this behind us.
I do agree that our relationship was much more than your average one. But I can’t forget that it was already dying before I discovered his lie. It had always been rough: we always fought, and he was never willing to put me above all else – which, as a couple of 20-year-olds, I can understand. But he did more. Instead of hurting friends who would disown him for it, he kept his relationship with me a secret for the first 8 months of it. He never wanted to hurt these other people, so he hurt me. He also had high standards for my behavior and dress, so paranoid of losing me that he insisted that I change both to avoid attracting other men’s attention. And he was just so damn needy – we spend nearly every night together, living in separate places, it was always my job to go to his. I rarely saw friends, got less work done than I should have, and very little sleep. It’s been a while since I was physically attracted to him too.
But I do still have a space for him in my heart. Something is making me crazy not being with him. I am sad all the time, lethargic, lonely. Is it just that I have to remember what it’s like to be alone, and how to interact with people as a single woman, or should I be with him? I am so conflicted.
