So what does cheating do to you? I can't really say from the cheaters point of view, but from the view of being cheated on....well I can say in all honesty....it can really mess you up. Which makes me a full on mess. I stopped counting after eleven different women. Three of which I considered to be my friends. When I look back at that time I don't consider myself stupid or ignorant, I knew what I was thinking, and right or wrong I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that he was still on the same page that I was. That he wanted forever. I wanted to believe that he had just slipped. He was a man and they make mistakes and I wanted to continue to believe in him and believe in Forever. But by the time number eleven was discovered and his tears of remorse were shed, I was numb. I couldn't believe in something that he himself wasn't believing in. When my marriage ended I didn't mourn the loss of the marriage, I was mourning the loss of my dream. The dream of forever after. The dream that this man was going to be there till death do us part. In a way it was death do us part....the man I had met, loved, married, created babies with, raised babies with, had died, and what I was left with was this man that I didn't know. This hippocrite that said one thing and did another. The jerk that would get so angry that he would leave welts, and bruises all over my body. I had lost my real husband and now I needed to divorce this other creature. And so I did.
Now its time for the healing. Funny how we all heal in different ways. Funny how sometimes we rely on our faith and beliefs when healing and other times we go the total opposite. I did the latter. I needed to prove that: 1) I was still attractive to other men. and 2) I could allow another man to touch me sexually. The attractive part wasn't to hard. Men my age seem to be attracted to anything that has to breasts that hang above the beltline. But I discovered that I wanted to be attractive to myself. Sounds kind of strange right? But what do you see when you look into the mirror. Do you see a women that has wrinkles or rolls of fat? Or do you see those wrinkles as laugh lines and those rolls of fat as an enhansement of maturity and shape? If I didn't like what I saw in the mirror I could take all the mirrors out of the house or I could change what I saw and how I saw it. You see when someone cheats on you....someone that you put your whole world into. Someone that you have trusted you start to doubt yourself. Your first thoughts after the blinding emotional pain subsides is what is wrong with me. Why did he go to her/him. What did I do to push him away. Maybe I didn't loose the weight of the baby fast enough. Or we don't communicate anymore. The emotional wounds that come don't heal quickly. They bleed and seep which leads to infection. We hold in that pain because we are embarrassed to go to our friends or family and tell them that he cheated on me. So you feel alone. You are hurt and lost and alone and we go to a bad place.
In my case I was lucky enough, at the end, to have a friend that said, "you need help" and pushed and pushed until I got help. Only then did I realize what I had been telling myself. I was worth it. It wasn't my fault that he cheated. There was nothing wrong with me. Once I convinced myself, I started looking in the mirror and found things to really love. I love my hair and my eyes. I love my smile and strange enough I love my body. The stretch marks don't bother me. The scars from my abuse tell me that I survived, not that I was abused. I am not a victim I am a survivor. So I wasn't wanting to be attractive to men...I wanted to be attractive to me and that comes from the inside out....very cliche, but very true.
Number two came soon after number one. I met a man. A very good man. he didn't beat or verbal abuse. He was funny and he made me laugh and when he kisses me for the first time in my life I felt the butterflies that everyone talks about and well I will leave the rest....maybe for another time.
I am not totally healed. I have a long way to go. I have huge trust issues and sometimes wonder if I will ever be right...other days I feel almost normal. But then again normal is just a setting on a dryer.
