The past two months, maybe longer, have been a continuous disaster of my own making. I am left lost and confused with my identity in shambles. While there has not been a death in my family, like the loss of identity I felt when mom died, there has been an internal death. The death of myself as I knew me; of what I thought I was, who I thought I was.
It’s a complicated topic. One I have been avoiding. Writing is my mirror and I haven’t been willing or able to face myself. I don’t know if I’m any more ready to do it now, in this moment, but I feel strong enough to make it to the outcome regardless of what it may be.
I can face my painful truths and acknowledge my actions. I can face the death of my identity and begin the work of finding who I am in the aftermath.
This writing is that start.
To begin… what did I do that was so bad it killed who I thought I was?
I cheated on Ox.
There is so much context removed from that statement. So much I want to say, not to justify, but to try to explain. To try to beg understanding from not just the outside world, but from myself that I’m not the type of awful person that word is typically associated with.
Discontinuation symptoms were still going on. Ox and I bearly had a relationship at the point all of this happened. I had spent 3.5 years asking, begging, crying to be heard; to be understood. “I feel like the video game is more important to you.” “What makes our relationship significant?” “How are we any different from roommates?”
All of these things… all of these interactions and questions and attempts to express that I wasn’t ok… seemingly brushed aside or invalidated.
None of my failed attempts at communication nor the true or perceived dismissals of my emotions justifies hurting someone I did and still do, care deeply about. I tried to not say anything about my actions, knowing that if I were honest about what happened that the life I had been trying to piece together, hold together, would fall apart.
I couldn’t keep it a secret though. I couldn’t keep talking to Ox on the phone, or the few times we would see each other, and not admit to what I had done. My silence was making me sick. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. I was hating myself more and more. And so yeah… I told the truth. Late, but at least in the end, I owned my actions. I hold onto that. It wasn’t found out through snooping on my phone or hacking my email. I faced the consequences of my actions, and I hold on to that because it feels like one of the only things I have to hold on to.
That moment, my honesty, was the start of true hell. Ox said, texted, and wrote through email several hurtful things. None of it I blame him for. All of his feelings were justified. All of his responses understandable. The question of how could I? Did the four years we were together mean anything? “Fuck you”. “I hope I never see you again”.
Eventually, he released me. If you’re into BDSM you may or may not understand the level of hurt that can feel like. While we did not have a very strong D/s dynamic or a true BDSM relationship, it was the knowledge he released me from everything. The loss of our friendship, being released from the whole of his life… more than any other comment or phrase thrown at me… that one word, the knowledge of what it meant, hurt the most.
For nearly a month, Ox and I didn’t talk. We separated finances. There were only a few things that needed to be resolved at later dates. As the time frame for those things drew closer, I reached out through email to see if I needed to continue covering some of the financial aspects.
That led to more open, receptive, and less emotionally reactive communication. Ox and I ended up seeing each other to talk about both sides; yes, even my side.
These conversations were hard. I felt, and still feel like my emotions don’t matter. I’m the one who caused all of this hurt and devastation. I do not deserve compassion, empathy, understanding, or love.
I deserve to be alone, lost, and crushed under the weight of not only failing my most supportive partner but of failing myself as well.
Ox opened up to me during those conversations. He explained what the past 3.5 years had felt like and been for him. How he felt like he always had to be strong for me and hold me up. I never wanted to be held up. I wanted to be held close, and I told him that.
I told him I didn’t know he sometimes cried when I wasn’t at the house. I didn’t know he felt like he couldn’t share his feelings with me because of all the crap I endlessly have going on in my life. I wanted to know how he felt. I needed that emotional intimacy with him and the lack of it was part of why I felt we had no connection.
We have talked through so many things in the weeks following that initial email asking about car insurance.
We are together again. The other night we agreed we are still engaged.
We are working to figure out how we both fell short of each other and to work to make version 2.0 better for both of us.
I don’t feel like I deserve this chance. I don’t feel like I deserve Ox’s love. I feel unworthy and that is what is currently holding both of us back. So… here I am… writing as a way to figure myself out.
I don’t know who I am. I broke all of my values and morals. I’m a liar. I’m a cheater. I am honorless. I am unworthy.
That’s how I feel. I am less than dirt even though I know I’m not.
So… since I didn’t know how to find my way back to myself, I went to the internet to see if there was anything for “finding yourself” or “identity crisis worksheets”. I didn’t really find anything I connected with until I found some writing prompts for “Who am I?”
I read through them briefly. I may not like all of them, I didn’t read all of them, but I do feel they will help me start to find my way back to myself. So… this is my first writing in this attempt. There are 31 prompts on the page I found. We’ll see how many of them I completed.
Prompt 1-31: Who’s your biggest critic? Who do they say you are? Why?
I am my biggest critic. No one, ever, will be able to hurt me worse, emotionally, or mentally, than myself; the only possible exception being Ox when he said he never wanted to see me again, or when he admitted to telling his mom, “Fuck that bitch.”
I say I am worthless. I say I am a failure for this transgression. I say that there is no recovery for my character. My morals are broken and will remain so forever and there is no hope of me ever being to undo the damage I have caused.
I say all of these horrible, awful things inside my head. I say them when I’m alone. I say them in between my calls at work so I cry in between helping people fix their financial lives. I say them as I cry myself to sleep. I say them while thinking of all of the things I could do to my physical body to make the pain I feel inside slightly easier to live with.
I don’t want to hate myself, but it’s really hard not to. And there’s no support or anything online that I can find for the cheater because our emotions don’t matter. The emotions and feelings leading to the event don’t matter. The anguish after doesn’t matter. No one cares about my struggle. No one wants to hear it. So I’m left alone to figure it out, but alone I am left with my own demons; my own “Crazy Lady in the Attic” who is more than glad to point out how awful I am.
So how do I not hate myself?
I told my therapist everything.
Her first comments were, “There is no judgment. This is a safe space.”
I broke down. I cried, legit cried, for the first time. I felt wounded and broken and insignificant.
“The first thing you need to do is forgive yourself.”
How? How can I forgive myself?
Ox has said he forgives me, but how can he? How? How can anyone do that, even though I myself have forgiven previous partners for maliciously going out of their way to sleep with other people simply because they knew it would hurt me when they later would corner me in whatever room were we in and tell me how [insret name] was better than me?
I have forgiven other people so much, but how am I supposed to do the same for myself?
My therapist is primarily a Christian counselor. She respects my faith and she understands that I am not offended with she brings scripture into our sessions. I am able to view and hear the word “God” and apply it to my own life as “universe” or whatever term I feel suitable to use.
In our most recent session, she mentioned how we are supposed to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself is conversely love yourself as you love your neighbor. It reminds me of all the times I have had to step back from a situation, almost look at myself as another person, and ask myself, if someone told me my own story, how would I react?
Would I tell any of my friends that they were horrible people unworthy of love or compassion if they came to me in tears, questioning who they were as a person?
No.
Did they mess up? Fuck yes. But that doesn’t mean at their core they are a bad person.
We all mess up. Sometimes it’s a royal A+, top-notch type of fuck up. That doesn’t mean everything good in their past is erased or irrelevant. It doesn’t mean they are incapable of future good things. It doesn’t mean they are unable to learn and grow and move forward.
So why? Why do I say these horrible things to myself? Why do I deny myself forgiveness when it has been freely given by the person who was hurt the most in this situation?
Because I failed myself. I think that is my answer.
In hindsight, how did I let myself get to that point? It’s not that I didn’t think anything bad would happen. It’s that I didn’t care. I felt so worthless and hopeless in my relationship, that I didn’t care if my actions messed up the relationship or hurt Ox. I was so incredibly tired of hurting and feeling alone and feeling unheard when I did try to talk about not being ok and I finally didn’t care. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I just… didn’t want to hurt.
I look back at the events leading up to my cheating and I see how I could have handled things differently. I could have tried to talk to Ox more. I could have said, “I want to break up”. I could have said I was talking to someone.
The guy I was talking to knew about Ox. He knew I was in a closed relationship and “all I could offer was friendship”. He knew all of these things about me, and yet, when we met… it didn’t stay just friends and in the moment I didn’t care.
It sucks knowing that I am capable of such apathy, which for me, is the opposite of empathy. I normally care so deeply about others and connectedness and harmony. And at this moment in time, I didn’t. I didn’t care about anything other than not hurting.
How do I forgive myself for that?
That is what I am struggling with.
I know that I am human. I know I am not perfect even though some people view me that way. I know that I am not enlightened.
I am not a good nor a bad person. I am human.
I am. I exist. I live and struggle and succeed and fuck up.
As I started in my About Me page. This isn’t a highlight blog. This is my life and sometimes I completely and totally fuck shit up.
This is one of those moments. I don’t know how to move forward from here. I don’t know who I am in the shattered pieces of who I was.
I do know that I am my mother’s daughter and I’ll figure it out.
I know that I am human and I will figure it out.
I know that Ox and I do truly and deeply love and care for each other and WE will figure it out.
We’re working on version 2.0 of our relationship. We’re identifying the issues we had and actively working on fixing them, on both sides, together.
There’s so much more I’m sure I need to type about, but I’m trying to take this one step at a time rather than focusing on trying to fix all of it all at once because that’s not how it’s going to be able to work. This is one problem that is going to need time more than anything to heal and grow past. A lot of it is going to be inner work on my part. Self-awareness of myself. Ox has things of his own to work on, too. We both are committed to communicating better so both of us feel loved, cared for, and valued.
One step, hopefully, one prompt at a time, I’ll be able to find solid ground and be able to work towards self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.
I am capable of awful things, but I’m capable of amazingly awesome things too.
Universe, please guide me to the lessons I’m supposed to learn through the hardship I have put myself in. Please help me find meaning in the pain. Help show me the truth in who I am. Please help me learn to love myself as I am and not the broken ideal I had in my head.
Mom, please don’t hate me. Please still let me be your daughter even though I fucked up. Please be disappointed in my actions instead of being disappointed in me as a person. Please still love me. Please believe in me like you used to so I can believe in myself and my ability to figure it out. I love you. Forever and for always, no matter what.