For a while there, I felt like I was in some kind of purgatory…  waiting, trying to make it work, scared, unsure of the right thing to do.

But then I went from purgatory straight to hell.

The shock of it all is wearing off and I can feel it now.  It’s excruciating.

Infidelity is an awful thing.  It seems so…  common, and dirty.  And yet there is something worse than infidelity, and that is betrayal.

I figured you could hurt me – you already had in smaller ways.  And of course there was always the possibility you might eventually leave me.  People do leave each other, often.  But I never, in a million years, thought you would betray me.

Why, why, my brain can’t keep asking, couldn’t you just have broken up with me?  Why did you have to string me along, talk about our future, tell me you loved me, all the while lying to me over and over?

You say you were afraid I would never talk to you again if you told me, that I wouldn’t be your friend if you broke up with me.  How is making me suffer the humiliation of discovering your affair myself better than you telling me?  Or hey, how about telling me you wanted out BEFORE you cheated on me?  You ensured the very thing you say you were trying to avoid.

The two of you picked literally the single most destructive course possible.  How did you think it would come out?  You threw a grenade into my life, our life together, her marriage, our mutual friendships. 

What the fuck were you thinking!?!?

I lie awake at night replaying conversations and struggles we had in the last months – months that I now realize you were cheating on me.  The time you accused me of hiding things from you, and told me even a hint of deception would send us 3 steps backward.   The time you told me you were embarrassed by my child’s behavior at my own family function (none of my family was bothered).  The time you got angry at me trying to “pass us off as a family” at school.  The time on our vacation when you posted only photos of you and your children, as if Elsa and I didn’t exist.

I took in all of that hurtful shit, and I worked so hard to understand it, to give it reason, to be compassionate.  Because I loved you.

I gave you my wide-open heart, and left it in your hands even as we struggled, because I trusted you.

You threw it on the floor, then stomped on it for good measure.