attached is the post that started it all. it was the first time I had written out what had happened to me. I reached out to a group anonymously seeking insight on the grenade that had landed in my life just 3 days before. this group consisted of peers in my industry. I see them as having similar wage levels, similar career pressures, and similar education. I felt safe asking for honest, ‘anonymous’ feedback and their responses were overwhelming.
at the same time, I was just blurting out what had happened to me to anyone who asked me “how my day was going”, or “how I was doing” — the standard “fine”, “good”, wasn’t available to me, and involuntarily I was saying “I recently found out I was cheated on and I’m numb” - it was just coming out of me. to my surprise it was met with honest responses of similar stories. women who had been helping their mothers transition from this life when their husbands cheated, women who found out through the contraction of STDs, it was mind blowing that this was happening to all of us, all around me, and we just kept moving, kept smiling, kept keeping it all together. I’m not slighting men here, as I know this happens to you more often than we think. someone told me they had cheated on all of their spouses made my stomach turn. Maybe I’m different. Maybe my values come from a different place. How tragic is it that people make commitments, and then do the one thing that is the absolute opposite of what love means, what commitment means, what we look to let go of as single people moving through the world. Betrayal shatters our sense of self, corrupts our past memories, and breaks the security and safety we all long for in another human as we walk through this life.
I thought sharing the origin of btrayed might be interesting to anyone who is interested.
this post on the site that will remain nameless received over 2,500 views, and close to 80 comments advising me, empathizing with me, telling me to flat out DTMFA, and consoling my broken spirit. I hope we can continue do the same for each other here.
needless to say - an open relationship was a fleeting consideration, but deep down never something I was going to do. he had been told that countless times for a number of reasons. i considered and posted this because of the way my brain works. I needed to understand what I was being asked and through this one post and the varying responses I also came to understand that he didn’t really know what he was asking for either…