I moved home in May after a devastating and painful break with Joseph. I cheated on him for two weeks with a guy at work and then abruptly ended our nearly 5-year relationship by telling Joe that there was someone else. I lied to Joe about the nature of my relations with my coworker.
I told Joe that we had not had sex — we had. Before Joe found this out, he proposed to me. He showed me the ring that we designed together in the autumn of 2010 and told me he could live with the answer, but couldn’t live with the question. The ring was more than beautiful–there was so much life and love and pain worked into its story. I wanted to say yes, I so badly wanted to say YES, but I couldn’t.
And he didn’t know yet that I cheated.
The next day, Joe exposed me and my lies and I had to confront the awful and final reality: I obliterated the best and most dear relationship of my life, to date.
And this coworker, as sweet as he is, was nothing more than a reallocation of emotion. He was my excuse for ending a relationship in which I was unhappy–he was a mistake. He isn’t anything in the face of the real and true love Joseph and I shared, and it is unconscionable of me to have allowed him to share even a sentence with Joe, let alone a comparison.
That ended quickly in September as I came up from a summer of manic grieving and started to realize these deeper implications. When my coworker came to my family’s home, (not until very late in the summer; the love and grief my family felt for Joe meant they had no interest in this rebound boy) my family’s reaction was swift and decisive. This person had no place in my world. I love my family and respect them to no end–they know me.
And then I started to grieved in a way I didn’t know was possible. With the introduction of this ill-suited affair to my family, I no longer had any illusions behind which to hide. It was all exposed: my cheating, my terrible rebound, my absolute refusal to acknowledge the truth, and the reality of my actions and their effect on my dear, dear person.
I’m still grappling, but I want to talk to Joe. I sent him an email tonight and asked him to consider hearing from or seeing me. I need to say to him what I’ve done, out loud, and hope he’ll hear that I’m being honest.
