Deja vu.

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I've been here before. I've been you, and perhaps you've been me. And I want to believe him, so I do. I believe when he says there is nothing between you and him. Your relationship was over long ago, or never existed in the first place. I believe him when he says he's faithful, you are just obsessed with him. He would never cheat on me. Or I believe him on the rare occasion that I submit enough irrefutable evidence that he has no way to deny my claims. He admits it, but says it meant nothing … until the day he leaves me for you. You were not the first I discovered. There is a part of me that I force to believe, even when I try to prove that he's lying. And at the end I will prove it. But not now, not yet, because I want to believe the sweet lies. I want to believe that I mean something to him. I want to love and be loved. He gives me meaning and I want to believe that I do the same for him. I want to believe.

 

It's always your fault. It's you. He is the prize that I have to hold onto. He is the stuffed unicorn in the claw machine that keeps slipping from those 4 small prongs. But the machine is made of his own design. He gives me just enough of a grasp to make me believe that he's mine. He never will be, no matter how long I hold my loose grip. Weeks, months, years. Eventually, he will slip away from me. Perhaps you are gravity, inevitability. But in your own life, you are the player of the claw machine, playing for your own prize. Playing for a cheap prize that you are sure is worth a fortune. You'll spend five times its worth, waste eons of time, and never truly hold it. And on the flip side, I am the inevitable tug that helps him slip from your weak claws. 

 

What is it about a man like this that makes me so weak, so stupid? I'm so willing to throw everything away for him. I don rose-colored glasses that obscure the bright red flags that he is constantly trying to hide from my view. He tucks the flags behind his back, or in jacket pockets stuffed full to overflowing. As they spill from his pockets I think "maybe they're not really red, I can't be sure with these glasses on." Perhaps they're white, the color of surrender. He loves me and has surrendered his life and love to me as I have to him. This is what he has said and I should believe and trust in him. He loves me. Or perhaps they are red, but the color of love, not of danger — the color that his heart bleeds for me. The glasses keep me blissfully ignorant, why would I take them off? For just one more moment, one more day, month or year, I can live in this fantasy that he constructed in my head. With each reinforcing word, "I love you," "You calm my spirit more than anyone ever has," "you are the one," lies built in sands of deception. No foundation of truth. A house of cards grandly constructed, but ready to topple as winds of time erode the sandy base. The sand blisters my cheeks and grinds the tint from my glasses. Oh how cold and bitter the world looks without the warming lenses of ignorance and denial. 

 

Do you wear rose-colored glasses too? Did you believe the lies he told you about me? You must have to treat me the way you did. You called me names. But he argued so convincingly that the things you said about me were only true of you. Things were over, but you wouldn't let him go. And you, the other woman, ignored my warning that he was spoken for. Believing whatever depraved story he told you of me. Delusional. Maybe this is the first time you have been caught in the web of a man like this. Maybe you don't know any better yet. The thing is, I do. I have been spun into a painfully tight web of lies and deceit more times than I care to count. I have been sucked dry and pushed from the web once a new victim flitted into his tiny tendrils of deceit. The tendrils that were still choking my heart as I lay broken and alone on the cold earth below. But somehow I was still alive. Weak, broken, but alive enough to untangle myself and wander into the next finely spun web of lies. When will I learn?

 

I should thank you. I should feel sorry for you. The devastation he brought to my life is over now, right? The truth is, the deep gouges he inflicted on my pride and sense-of-self will take months and years to heal. I should pity you. He is feasting on your ignorance and soon enough you will be rejected. Your broken spirit will be expelled from his orbit. Weeks, months or years, eventually you will feel it too. Dejection. It has already begun, but you won't realize it until it is too late. But I hate you. I hate you, just as you — the one before me — hated me. And just like you — the one after me — will hate the next. I hate you because you took him from me. It's your fault. But in reality, I hate you because of what it says about me. Unworthy, unwanted, unlovable. These are the things I knew about myself long before him. These are the things that for the briefest of times he made me feel were untrue. And then, when he turned his back on me, reinforced tenfold. The passion and obsession of a man like this made me feel alive. Desired. But the passion extinguished as quickly as it came into being. In an instant it burned scorching hot, searing flesh from bone. Just as quickly the once-blazing-hot embers extinguished in an arctic cold. 

 

The truth is, being angry at you is like being angry at myself. I have been you, and you will soon become me. And in truth I am angry at myself. I hate you because I hate myself. Hating you is easier than admitting that it's me. But I admit it to him with every question. "What did I do?" "Why wasn't I enough?" "Is she better than me?" He knows. He knows that I don't blame him. It is me who is unworthy. Or you who is to blame. This is the cross I bear. I am not enough. I will never be enough. Perhaps you know your worth. Perhaps you can survive without being broken by him. You will dust yourself off and hold your head high without blaming yourself. But chances are, he will be sure you know it is you. It's your fault.

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And when he comes back to my bed, for the briefest of moments I think I am vindicated because he was mine first. And I think I have proven that I am worthy. I am lovable. Wanted. Desirable. But these feelings are fleeting. When he leaves I only feel used. He will return to you ... or another. While I might be able to pull him away from you, it would only be a matter of time before he does it all over again. What's the point? I can no longer give him the ignorance he craves. I have seen through him. I know what he is. I am bitter. I'm angry. The point is to be loved, but this man cannot love. He only knows lust and thinks it is love. But lust evaporates. Just as the drops of due vanish in the morning sun. As time passes, in the harsh light of day his lust will dissipate. If the seeds of love have not been planted, there is nothing left rooting him to me … or you, or you. It will not last.

 

As time drifts on and as my pride grows stronger, I feel a mixture of hate and pity for you, the other woman. I feel shame and remorse for not listening to you, the woman before me. And at times the pity grows stronger than the hate, and the remorse grows into some sense of camaraderie that you will likely never know I feel. And once he leaves you, the other one, I will likely feel camaraderie for you as well … with time. But after a while, as my sense of worth no longer relies on his acceptance of me, camaraderie will turn to a sense of love for you. You will never know. But as I begin to love myself, I cannot help but feel love for you as well. I am you. We are the same. We are connected. 

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