Photo by Ashley Byrd
You feel like a sharp object has hit you, it is running from your chest in a downward motion, it hurts like hell.
You are ripped open and the pain is unbearable but there’s no blood… on the outside.
In the inside, it’s your heart that has been punctured and ripped and the pressure you feel is like the blood from the hit wanting to rush out.
Everything inside feels immensely tight. The pressure is building and has nowhere to go.
You want to scream, you want to let it all out and scream that pain out.
Less than a minute later, you find a pole and you hit your head so hard in it, you want to move the pain you feel inside on the outside, you want all that blood rushing out of your heart, that pressure to find a way out and that is from an open wound in your head.
It stops you thinking. For two minutes. You calm down. Then it sets onto you even more.
You run everything, absolutely everything, all the details of that day it happened, you curse that day. You curse yourself for giving that person that power.
You think to yourself, it must be me, it truly must be me.
First my husband while pregnant, second the only person I dated after him, after taking 2 years off the dating scene to heal from the heart ripping crime scene that happened inside yourself the first time.
You can’t bear to look at the cheater, you can’t bare to feel their hand on you. You can’t bare them breathing.
Your body aches, between your legs you feel dirty you want to cross your legs so tight as if you regretted ever letting him in and share this intimacy.
You want the pain to go away, somehow, anyhow. You want the pain to go. You can’t eat. You may very well start drinking to “ease” the pain. But it’s not going.
Days go by, you still have to put a brave face on for work, for your kids. They matter. They are your everything.
You start thinking if it wasn’t for these true loves of your life, what would you do. You love them even more if that’s even possible. They give you the strength to keep going.
Days keep going, you look in your phone at text messages at the time(s) it happened, you get so angry, so unbearably sad.
You want to scream again. And you do. In your pillow.
Flash backs come, you want to rip his head out. How much you loved that person. How much you put in them. You let them in. You let them in your kids’ life.
You think of so many instances. You run thousands of scenarios in your head. You “dream” at night. You can’t stop picturing them together, flirting, being intimate, in bed…. You want to scream again and again each time the rush of blood coming out of what feels like your heart.
You still can’t look at him when you see him. The day you finally do, you stare intensely into their eyes, so angrily hurt.
You will never see that person the same way again. You also realise you lost ALL respect for them. You are no longer proud to have them as your partner. They are a ball of shame.
You dig further and realize they have no morals, no conscience.
How could you have been so BLIND. You don’t forgive yourself for a while. You’re angry at them but at you too. For letting them in. For believing everything they said. For trying to help them and support them through their personal issues.
You had been trying really hard to build something solid. That you thought was anyway.
When you are finally able to let go of them, you still hurt. You no longer have the “love of your life” at your side.
You may try to get back together, try to forgive…. But let me tell you before you ever think about it. You will NEVER EVER forget what they did.
You will never get rid of the pictures running through your head, hunting your nights. You will be doing something fun together and a moment of silence and everything out of nowhere appears.
You don’t want to break the mood but you remain silent and you hurt silently.
When you FINALLY realize you can’t deal with it, because you can’t let it go and because you start arguing, because now that you don’t have respect for them you argue more, because who cares to try to be nice to not hurt their feelings.
You sometimes laugh at yourself because you do! You try not to hurt them or say things… How is that fair. You have to hurt and keep it all inside otherwise you would be arguing all day long about what they did. So you hurt, silently.
If you ever bring it back up more than a few times in arguments they get pissed with you. Sorry that you have to bring it back up, but darling try to deal with it 24/7 in your head, and those few times I bring it back up aloud are NOTHING.
You KNOW it’s not healthy. But why on earth is it fair that you have to suffer silently, treat them like they did nothing.
But because you’re a good soul, you have compassion. You feel for them being on the other shoe. You start being so sad and angry with yourself, with them.
How can you even feel bad for them, what am I, where do I come from, on what planet do I live.
THEY stuck their privates elsewhere, mingling, touching each other, exchanging bodily fluids and you feel sorry for hurting their feelings???
You hate them for doing it SO BAD, but somehow you put yourself in their shoe and you think it must suck to have it thrown at you again. Well guess what… TOO BAD.
The truth is I will never ever even try to stay with them, rekindle a few months later or whatever else because I just no longer respect them.
I need trust, respect, I need to feel lucky to be with an awesome person who share good values and who can be a good role model for my 2 father less kids.
It just doesn’t work. People, men and women 10, 15, 20 years later still go on forums online about infidelity and the hurt they still go through even though they love them and took the cheater back.
I just can’t do it. I don’t believe in cheating. I’ve tried. Both times. Massive failure. I won’t do it again.
The truth is I’m perfectly happy single. I have two awesome kids I love with all my hearts and soul and that is all I need.
Anyone can do it. To each their own about wanting to take the cheating bag back but I just can’t think I have it in me personally.
Sorry I realise I got carried away a little, but I hope you get a sense of what it feels like to be cheated on and I wish you never have to go through it.
– Amélia Louise Leprevost
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.