The Last Day

Today has been the last day of my juice fast. In the beginning, I was very open about why I had embarked on this, and how cancer had been affecting my life, my family and my friends. It is with tremendous sadness that I announce that one of my dear friends has lost her mum to cancer this week. Diagnosed only about a month ago with uterine cancer, her illness was too far along and too aggressive to fight. My love and prayers go to the Woodyard Family as they celebrate Teddy's wonderful life.

For those of you who have read regularly, you know I have had some dark times during this fast. I have been too embarrassed to elaborate. I have been hoping to fix things; to tie everything up neatly with a bow; to go back and make everything pretty again. And then no one would ever need to know. When someone you've been in a relationship with for a long time cheats on you, you are not only hurt but you feel humiliated. I felt like I had failed at the one thing that really mattered in my life. Every relationship has two points of view, and I fully admit that I am not perfect. No one is. We're human. So when I found out, I got angry at first, and then I got paranoid, but I made it to forgiveness. For the 6+ years we'd been together, I can say that we've had our fair share of drama, but we have always loved each other dearly. Or so I thought.

I have been determined to fight for my relationship. Not out of pride, but love. I have always believed deeply that our love was something special, something of storybooks. And that is not something you turnaway from lightly. My BF said he needed space, so at first I stayed with friends. Then he rented an apartment, and I moved 'home'. He was having a self-proclaimed midlife crisis and needed to find himself and his true path. After an amourous morning we were supposed to be discussing our bathroom remodeling, we took the subway to work together making small talk about a concert that night and work projects. He suddenly got a pained expression on his face, and broke up with me on the 6th train. I stood outside his office on Park Avenue South in a complete daze. I had no idea how that happened. I was in such shock I couldn't cry. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. It was like standing very close to an enormous explosion when you realize that you cannot hear anything at all. Manhttan was silent.

We went to the concert that night. We went home together. And maybe we thought it was the last night on earth, but no one who saw us that night would have thought we were anything but deeply in love. You would have never guessed that one of us was about to move out. And as the days leading up to the official move ticked by, we missed each other. We spent time talking to one another -- and not about bills or chores, but about what was truly important in our lives. In a little less than a month, we found the reasons we'd loved one another. Then just three days before his move, he professed that he did indeed love me and that we would find a way to make it all work.

We started calling his apartment, the Summer Home. Our building super was told that things were being moved to storage and our summer home. (No, people, we cannot afford a summer home, but it sounded good.) I had moved out of and back into our storage unit in the course of a week. When friends asked, I said we were working on it. It was seriously the best moving out on a relationship a couple ever spent together. We were together everyday. We were out with friends. We went to a hockey game. Before the movers came, we were cuddled up on the couch together.

This was Monday.

I went to work. The movers came and went. He went to work. We went home from work to his apartment and unpacked. And I stayed. We were both a bit nervous, and being there felt a little like a hotel only you care a little more what the room next to you hears. Tuesday morning came, and I was filled with dread. Just the morning before, he had said "I never expected us to get back here this quickly," so why was I suddenly scared to death? He needed to get ready for work and I needed to do the walk of shame from my Summer Home, so when I burst into tears, he told me I was being silly. And I was, right? I mean, we had a GREAT weekend. We spent the first night he'd officially moved into his apartment together. Why should I feel any concern?

Something was eating at me that whole day. I went home, and went to futon (as he retained custody of the bed) and had horrid nightmares that had me up all night. I emailed him in the morning about my nightmares thinking it was odd that he hadn't texted me the night before. I had a nightmare about the contractors for the bathroom. I had one about not being invited to Easter dinner. I had one where there was two of him -- they were identical -- but not the same, and they didn't know me. And in the midst of those dreams, I had one that brought me back to the morning. I was leaving the summer home again, but this time I could see what happened when I left. He showered, packed a bag and got on a plane and left me.

But that would only happen in a dream, right?

I texted. No response.

I waited patiently until 9 AM, and then I called. Do you know the difference between the sound of a ringtone for a domestic call and an international call? I do. I sat in my bedroom which no longer has a bed, and I stared that the floor. I couldn't get up. The affair he'd had months ago happened at an infant's funeral in Europe. I knew he was gone. But I couldn't understand why he'd had the change of heart and sucked me back into a sense of false security only hours before.

And then he texted. He was just getting to work -- it was now 10 AM -- and had had a rough start to the day. Hadn't seen my email yet, but would be online. I went to work, and he got caught up on his reading. "Honey, you're not sleeping well, it's making you think crazy things." "So, you're only a few blocks away?" "Of course." Maybe I really was crazy! Maybe the lack of food and all of the stress has really gotten to me to the point where I'm dreaming up crazy scenarios and believing them. I felt like an idiot.

"Honey, I have back to back meetings today, so I'll be on and offline, but will be in touch." "Oh, and my phone says SIM card error, so I'm going to have to sort that out." Note to readers -- if you're the guy in this scenario, quit while you're ahead. Once you've got me convinced that I'm crazy, you don't need to give me the Perfect Storm. The lottery numbers that came to me in a dream didn't win 640 million dollars. Sometimes a dream is just a dream.

I went to the theatre with a friend that night, and told her my crazy notion. "You could just go to his office" "What, and prove that I'm insane? No. I want to be wrong. I want it to be a stupid, paranoid dream." When I turned my phone on after the show, he'd sent a few messages before leaving the office. His phone still wasn't working apparently. C'est la vie.

First thing the next morning, I got emails from him. The phone still needed to be fixed, but would see me online shortly. Loved me, missed me, xxx. I replied in-kind. And then I noticed something. The time stamp on the email said he's received my email from 9:30 PM the night before at 3:30 AM. 6 hours ahead. I'd almost missed it. But all of his replies to my emails were the same. 6 hours off. Spain is 6 hours ahead. I couldn't turn away from it no matter how badly I wanted to. And you have no idea how badly I wanted to. "Honey, you're a bad liar. I've always told you that."

Yes. My dream was more or less dead on. He kissed me good-bye, told me he loved, got on a plane and thought he could pretend to be in midtown Manhattan when he was actually in Barcelona with another woman and her children, for a week over a holiday. If I was sitting next to you in a bar, and you told me this story, I would never believe you. I find aligators in the New York City subway system more plausible then the tale I have just told you. But that has been my reality this week. I love this man with my heart and soul and have been so completely gobsmacked by this that I don't know which way is up. Who does that!?! And when he did call because the jig was more than up, and apologized, and said he loved me, and said he never has been able to leave me, and said he hadn't been able to sleep with her, and admited that he never told her the whole truth about us, but he just couldn't come back right now; he made sure to throw in, "but DO NOT contact 'her' or 'ex-baby-mama who I am still negotiating custody with'.

But he never said I couldn't tell all of you.

I have hung my head in shame, cried until I was sick, been completely and utterly useless at work, not returned calls to my parents and shut out my friends. I made it incredibly easy for him to hurt me because I was making apologies for him. I have taken all of the blame and shame on myself. I blamed myself for him cheating. And I put him, and his needs first. I let him accuse me of hacking his accounts, or maybe it was his 'ex-baby-mama who I am still negotiating custody with', because he swore people seemed to know things they shouldn't know. I blocked friends on Facebook because he said they were reading my page and funneling information back to ex-BM. And I was forbidden to ever tell certain people we were really together -- though it's been years.

When you have more than one truth, life is very complicated and stressful. I sadly believe he has a different truth for everyone in his life. We all get to see him the way he wants us to see him. But when, like me, you see through the veneer, you just become a liability. Do you want to see your lies reflected in your lover's eyes? After I'd found out he'd cheated, I said I would accept him for who he is. We're all human, and we all make mistakes. Own your mistakes, make amends, and move on. And that's how we were able to get back together in the first place. But you'll notice that I said "Move On" and not "Repeat".

Matthew 18:21-22
The Peter came to Jesus, and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

I can forgive him. I will forgive him. I have forgiven him. His burden is much heavier than mine. He has to accept forgiveness, and find one truth to live by. He will not find the fresh start he so desperately wants when it is built on lies and deception. The cycle will just continue. When you fear someone speaking the truth, you need to change your ways.

Thank you all for letting me get this out. I am by no means a matyr in this situation. While I should not take on all of the blame, a relationship takes two people, and some of the blame is unquestionablly mine. It could be Karma -- but in any case the cycle needs to stop.

The last 50 days have been incredibly hard. Juicing was easy in comparison. As of today, I'd lost over 30 lbs. Normally, that last sentence would make me incredibly happy. I'm just not there. I have a lot of healing to do. And hopefully, happiness will follow.