There aren’t many things that take me by surprise. Let’s call it a defence mechanism. My brain works too well at predicting patterns and identifying threats… so much so that surprises aren’t really surprises anymore. But because of the ways I’ve been hurt, that uncertainty feels like a very dangerous thing. In fact, I declined an event because I was almost certain I’d break a girl’s nose had I attended. Although if I am honest with myself, think I may have used my absence as a test of sorts.
I didn’t have anything planned for my weekend at all really. Yet, by God’s grace, I was able to enjoy the spontaneity of throwing a frisbee, dinner outside, and randomly showing up at a certain birthday girl’s door. You can absolutely call this weekend something of a grand anomaly. All of the good I was shown was enough to distract from some devastating news. And I was extremely thankful to have spent what could have been the loneliest hours of my life with other people.
Those moments were enough to shield me from responding poorly to the news. I am not easily surprised, but what I was told on that Saturday afternoon left me unfathomably rattled and confused. It was something I had never even considered because it made no sense. It still doesn’t make any sense. There was a third woman. At the time of hearing this, only the intensity of my disgust took hold. I wasn’t even angry. And I laughed in denial of what I had just heard.
A third woman.
In what world would anyone guess there was a third woman? Perhaps it is ironic, but I felt some sort of relief upon hearing that information. As I’ve been trying to work towards genuinely forgiving him (for my sake, not his), one question remained unanswered for a long time. Is he a good person in my eyes? Biblically, no one is good, and I am also convicted of that. But when I talk about “good” in this sense—when I think about my standard for a good man, it’s based on whether I would let my daughter date someone like that… and I wouldn’t.
Funnily enough, in the aftermath of the end, one of my friends tried to figure out who the other woman was. She suggested a girl from nursing and another mutual friend, but I promptly shut down the idea. She kept getting it wrong, but I wasn’t going to say the other girl’s name because I think they might have been friends. But in hindsight, I think her intuition about that girl in nursing was right. I just didn’t know he could even have feelings for a third woman. I was thoroughly played a fool.
It really is outrageous to think I could be surprised when I found out there was more I wasn’t told. Most of my struggles between love and unforgiveness stemmed from cognitive dissonance, as I questioned whether the boy to whom I had given my heart was a good person. Someone rough around the edges with their battle between self-doubt and ego, but ultimately possessing a good heart who loves others despite all the bad decisions they made to hurt me.
I wondered if they were ever genuinely remorseful. But hearing about the third woman, AND from someone else, leads me to believe he wasn’t. We already know he didn’t care as he made the cuts to my skin, but I had hoped that he might have grown a conscience and felt bad in the aftermath. The illusion of that good man has well and truly been shattered, and I no longer have to pretend that I believed in that hopeful lie. It’s not worth the doing mental gymnastics to figure out whether he was once a good man or merely a performative male.
On the Saturday when I found out, I wasn’t angry. But as the reality of the matter took hold, I realised there was something else under the dismay. I’ve become too good at suppressing my feelings that I, myself, don’t recognise how I feel anymore. Once again, I was heartbroken. What was it about me that was so unlovable that he felt the need to find not one, but TWO other women?
Up until this point, I still think I was in denial. Sure, most of my friends were on my side, but there were some who believed he didn’t know his actions were wrong, and that he didn’t mean to hurt me. Even when I had begged for him to stop. The existence of the third woman confirms it for me. It took another secret—another woman for me to fully admit to myself that I was cheated on. And why? Because I didn’t want to acknowledge a reality where he hurt me on purpose, or one in which he wasn’t a good man?
I don’t know anymore. The patterns I saw, and the discomfort I felt… I should have run long before this could have even happened. Perhaps then, I could have saved myself. Perhaps then, he wouldn’t have become a monster. A monster made in the image of his adulterous older brother. He never could quite figure a way out of the shadow of his former hero. He stayed too long, and also became a villain in denial of himself. Someone so afraid to face himself that he couldn’t look in the mirror.
And I pity him. I hated to watch him make the same mistakes and become more like… that man. Even when I pointed out everything that was happening, I couldn’t prevent the person I loved from becoming a monster. He just kept running away. Kept pretending that nothing happened. And all of a sudden, it dawned on me that everything about him seemed so far-removed from the god that I follow. He’s lost.
After that Saturday, I’ve been spontaneously bursting into tears when people weren’t looking, and quickly suppressing it before they could look back at me. Sunday was difficult, but it was still packed with so many good things. And it was a great show of God’s providence through the first fundraising efforts for my church’s annual mission. We nearly cancelled the bake sale because no one had signed up, yet God worked wonders, and raised more than my initial projection. He has always been good, but even more so over this strange weekend.
I am heartbroken. But I am also filled with so much thankfulness and have been overwhelmed by the love of my supportive friends. Through the phone calls, small favours, gentle affirmations, and everything else. I’m sure these are happy tears. While I was still hesitant to tell my friends the reason for my low mood, they encouraged me to share my upsets. Was it because I still felt the need to protect him? I’m honestly not sure.
So the few I did tell gave me confidence. You were sympathetic and kind, and you have all stated some variation of, “none of it was your fault”. Logically, I know that to be true. Still, that gnawing voice in my head wonders what I did wrong, why I was never good enough—what it was about me that was so unlovable for him to seek out other women, invest time into them… and then fall for them so easily.
Again, the logical side of me knows that two things can be true at once. He could have still loved me and had feelings for other women. I understand that. But to actively decide to play with fire—to choose to spend time with them and become more emotionally intimate—the thought disgusts me. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, to hear he later bragged about how many girls have asked him out since his relationship departure, makes me want to throw up.
Two things can be true at once. But the thought of actively pursuing more than one woman at a time is too foreign for me to accept. I was despised, and I was too stupid to acknowledge the reality of it all. Yet, I still loved him. Anyone around me could have told you that. I sacrificed too much to prove it, and I showed up for him, even when it was terribly inconvenient. My love was commitment, but it seems as if his was based on feelings alone.
I really did love him. And in some ways, I’m ashamed to admit that. Not because I made a mistake, after all my love was freely given. But it was because I failed to see myself as a precious child of God who also required love. So, I am still fighting that voice in my head who seeks to tear me down. And I am choosing to keep listening to the narrative that God has written about me. Even when it’s hard.
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