You probably want to know more about this mystery man, what it is about him that had me locked in. Why I had chosen to keep him around, why he put a smile on my face. It was a number of things.

He paid attention. Even when it was not necessary he paid attention, he could pick up when I was not myself but wouldn’t force me into talking about it. Instead, he would choose to be the reason a little sunshine came through to upset the dark cloud over me. I imagine if he is reading this now, he is shocked by the things I went through. I ever said it all, I didn’t want to and never really had to. He knew what he needed to know.

Ladies, I know you know what I mean by being attracted to someone’s mind, their intelligence. Yeah, I loved the conversations. They were always so great and mature. Sound. He knew how to listen and how to communicate. I can’t quite explain it any further, but that’s what it was. The ability to have a conversation about anything and everything, laugh through it, argue and come back to leveled ground.

He gave me what I was not getting in my relationship and I imagine he picked up on it and decided to fill the gap. His heart was in the right place, I was in the wrong place though. And even though I knew it, I stayed. I told myself I deserved some shade of happy because I had not known it for a very long time. The one thing I realized is ones conscience never sleeps, it nudges at you time and again. Mine did, I knew this would hurt him if he ever found out and I did absolutely nothing to stop it.

We often at back and call out cheats, especially when it’s women. We talk about how evil it is of them to cheat on ‘good, ‘ men. I vowed never to sit and judge anyone for it because until it happens to you, you have no understanding. But also because from the outside, everything seems perfect. The people that saw X and I every other day wouldn’t have imagined half of what was on the ground. Never.

They say what happens in the dark always comes to light, so that day came and a part of me was relieved. Sounds cold, doesn’t it? It’s true though. As that conversation unfolded, I realized his pain was more in the fact that I was happier without him. I knew that pain, I have been through it before, it’s pain you can’t walkover. I was angry with myself for a minute, that I had become the person I hated. I had broken another human being when I could have just left and started over, why do we do that?

The days that followed were not so great. The atmosphere was weird, we tried to be ‘normal, ‘ but that always ended in arguments. Then I got tired of arguing I went back to just silence. He wanted us to work but he continuously pulled me down instead.

Why didn’t my feet move? Why did I think it would get better, that love would come back around. That he would change. Why did I think I would be happy in a place where I had not been happy for a very long time.

I knew the truth, my heart just wouldn’t let me be the person who makes the final decision seeing as I had broken the trust. I didn’t want to be the bad guy twice, so I was going to wait it out. Guilt, it trips you, when you fall you definitely hit your head first. I put him first again and abandoned my happiness.