Someone always ends up broken.
Breakups are hard.
Someone always ends up hurt, someone always breaks.
For us, our relationship was ‘perfect’ but so is everyone’s in those very early days.
Our relationship, well, it pissed some people off. Mostly, our families. Some were vocal with what they viewed as the problem with us being together. My mum, sadly, was not the biggest fan of you and me being together and she was not shy in telling me this. Repeatedly. Others, thankfully kept their opinions to themselves.
It didn’t break us.
It made us closer still.
Our relationship moved quickly, We had our first date on the Monday of the week. My nanny’s birthday party was set for the Saturday. We had spent every second we could together from Monday on. We could literally not get enough of each other. We had fun at the party. But both our minds were thinking along the same lines, it was time to go home. So back to mine we went. Before anyone else was even ready to leave the party we were already back home.
We were having a toke and chilling out on the gaming chair, and the conversation started to take a turn towards us. I knew how I felt about you, but I was scared of the potential hidden disasters that comes with giving and trusting your heart to someone.
Meeting your eyes with mine and holding the gaze. Looking through the windows to the soul. I knew! That as much as my heart was in your hands, your heart was in mine too.
We were in love with each other. Plain and simple. No hidden agendas. No games. Within a week of being together, we had fallen hard for each other.
As the weeks went by and we became more inseparable, deeper in love and spent every possible waking second we could, together. Most people lost interest in making their opinions known. Fighting someone else’s age old fight, that had nothing to do with either of us in the here and the now.
We were careless though. Finding ourselves discussing the possibility of me being pregnant after less than two months together. Taking the test in your mum’s house because I wouldn’t risk taking it in mine. We had discussed how we would feel if the test was positive or negative on the walk to your mum’s. When I came out of the bathroom and it was a positive result, the sheer joy and happiness radiating off you at the thought of being a dad, of us being a family.
Your mum took it really well, in fairness we weren’t kids, we were into our mid twenties, and I already had a daughter who was 6. Your mum was looking forward to being a nanny again. Took some time to voice her concerns about how fast things were going, but added, that it was easy to see that we truly loved each other.
Then came my mum’s reaction. It was not anything like your mum’s. I had a lot of harsh words thrown at me at during this confession. Biting down on the impulse to defend my decisions, as an adult, in my life. Saying nothing that could make it worse. I let her vent whatever she needed to get out. Trying my best to hold onto the tears and not allow them fall. Being the type of person I was, after she was finished giving me a large piece of her mind, I apologised for getting for pregnant, for my boyfriend, at 24 years old. It was attempted, by my mum, to limit the time we spent together from then on. No over night stays, not calling down everyday. Anything that could be used as a punishment. As a method of separation. A way to keep us apart. It didn’t work.
It didn’t break us.
It made us even stronger.
It wasn’t long before my own mum calmed down and accepted the new reality. She was scared for me, didn’t want to see me being hurt again. What mother does? She was worried for my daughter too, who quickly developed an instant bond, that this person would let her down, would disappoint her and eventually disappear from her life. Causing pain, sorrow and confusion.
We moved into our first home after 5 months together. Everything was going great for a while and then the cracks started to appear.
I was still working, waiting for maternity leave to start, but now I was commuting two hours each way by public transport. Expensive and exhausting, but it had to be done, so I did it.
It should have been clear to me then that I would be doing most of the work in our relationship. Even after 16 hour days I would still have to clean the mess when I got home. It had to be done, so I did it.
The first time real suspicion crossed my mind, I was still pregnant on our first child, having been in work all day I was relaxing on the sofa. I must have nodded off for a while. When I woke up you were finishing on the laptop, my laptop actually, and something told me something wasn’t right. I made excuses to follow you to bed and began searching the second I could. It didn’t take long, sadly.
I found what I was looking for and it devastated me to the core. You, sexting this other person, telling her you would cheat on me to be with her. I’d never felt such pain before, and these were written words, not a physical act. But it still felt like cheating to me.
I did confront you, as calmly as I could. When you explained it away, that it wasn’t you, that someone must have hacked your account. I didn’t believe you, but I wanted to. So I chose to. I chose to believe your excuse.
I didn’t let it break us.
I chose not to.
These kind of events became, I won’t say regular, but it was not a once off. Each time me desperately trying to find a way to get you to see what damage you were doing to me, to us, to our family.
You chose not to see it.
I chose not to let it break us.
I could rationalise these events in my own mind. I could even not think about them. You very rarely left the house and even less without me there, that there was no possible way that you could physically cheat on me, I clung to this fact like a life raft.
What I couldn’t rationalise or even try to hide from others, especially my mother, was your sheer level of laziness. Much as I tried to defend you, it became hard to. You ‘lived like a king’ as your freinds told you many times. Never having to do any housework. Or do a school run to let me get some much needed rest. Sleeping till late afternoon everyday and spending the majority of your waking hours on the xbox. Having all of your meals handed to you. Forgetting you even had children to look after and a fiance that was spiralling into depression trying to hold everything together.
We split up once, three years in for about 6 months. We probably should have stayed that way, but we didn’t. In our minds at the time even splitting up didn’t break us for long.
Then last year, we moved, again. Only this time further away but with some of my family, we weren’t alone. Figuring this to be a clean slate, a fresh start for us, we set about making a life here.
But nothing had changed except the scenery, you were still beyond lazy and I was still a servant in my own home. Invisible until required.
When I noticed that you didn’t even see me anymore, I was so deflated. Everything we had been through in our relationship, nearly 7 years, all seemed in vain. Nothing was going to change for the better so I decided to end it again. But I didn’t want to hurt you. I still loved you but I couldn’t be with you anymore, it was killing me.
Then the bombshell was dropped on me. My niece was the one who told me. Ironically enough! Mind you, she had changed the events to suit her liking.
Hearing you say it out loud, that you cheated on me. That you had sex with someone else, in my home, while I slept upstairs, in my kitchen. With my niece. Regardless of who initiated it, you didn’t say no when it counted the most. It was put on a plate in front of you and you chose to dig in.
Yeah, that was indescribable. A double betrayal. You and her, in my home, twice. Well you say twice, but you’re not exactly a credible source for truthful information.
It did break us.
How could it not?
It did more than that though. You chose to have sex with my niece, someone I considered a friend and treated like a sister.
You broke my ability to trust.
I cannot see a day when I will want to have another relationship with anyone ever again. I know what pain can be caused from simply loving someone.
You broke my belief in real, true love.
You broke a lot of things in my life.
But you haven’t broken me!
