Trigger warning: infidelity
Well, it's been a hot minute since I wrote anything of substance on this blog!
Way back in 2019 I wrote a post called "Happy Endings- I'm Engaged!" I don't know why I called it happy endings, in hindsight, as it should have been happy new beginnings. I was very happy, for a while. I found my person, we bought a house together, our future puppy had just been born...
So to set the scene: (This is just before the first lockdown was announced.) It's a month before our wedding is due to happen, everything is going swimmingly, we're literally in the car on the way to pick up our gorgeous little 8-week-old puppy.
And then I get this message from my friend:
"Hi Limpet, I have to tell you something. X and I have been sleeping together for the past 4 months. I’m telling you this because he wasn’t going to and I think you should know the type of person that you’re marrying. We’ve seen each other in your house, my house and in (place that's an hour's drive away) during his work hours. After speaking to X it seems like he would have continued this throughout your marriage"
And suddenly... everything changes. My mouth goes dry, there's a sinking, awful, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The first emotion's anger, then shame, then inadequacy. What had I done wrong? What signs had I missed? I started remembering things that now made sense, like how they used to hang out but he hadn't mentioned her in a while, how he worked a lot of late evenings, how she'd bailed from the hen party. Things that, if you trust your partner, you don't think twice about.
Anyway, there's no way I can write down everything that happened after that, because it was a mess. I was a mess. I thought I could forgive him, and stay friends with her even. We picked up the puppy and didn't cancel the wedding. I let him go see her to 'get closure', we tried counselling which he barely participated in and constantly interrupted me, but he was such a smooth talker, always talking his way out of it and telling me he couldn't live without me. I let it go on for months, and let COVID postpone the wedding for a year. In my defence, we were stuck in a small house together and not allowed to go outside more than once a day, that has to do strange things to your critical thinking.
I think my last straw was when he constantly complained about the dog fur in the house. I said:
"How are you going to cope with having children if you can't handle a bit of dog fur on the sofa?"
To which he replied:
"Children are going to be way less messy than a dog." ... I know, right?
I could tell he was gearing up to ask me to choose between him or the dog, so I decided I'd make his life easier and choose the dog. I moved to a completely new town because I could barely find anywhere that would let me rent with a dog. Splitting the house and finances and belongings was a nightmare. The rumour-mill of family members calling to ask what had happened was a nightmare. I just wouldn't wish a bad breakup and all that uncertainty on my worst enemy.
I am also much more wary of big-age-gap relationships. I was eleven years younger than my ex, and my ex-friend was fifteen years younger than him. Still, there's some Schadenfreude in that fact that he's rapidly approaching 40 and is unlikely to find anyone better. Hey, it was a traumatic experience! I'm allowed to be a little bitter about it, right?
Aaaaanyway, now we teleport to the present day!
I have bought my own house. Just me! It's small but nice. My gorgeous puppy is now a gorgeous grown-up dog. We go for runs and cycles together. I have new friends, and a boyfriend who's kind and hot. I don't defer to anyone else's decisions any more; I do what I want, basically.
So I think this is going to be my last personal post on this blog. I was naïve to think that getting married at 25 was going to be the most exciting event of my life, and have learned that it's bad to depend too much on others for your happiness. The main thing I learnt was self-respect, though. That is so, so important.
Take care of yourselves, and make good choices!
Limpet x
