This Girl's Worth

As the story goes, the first man I fell in love with is the first man that broke my heart. The relationship was no walk in Central Park in the spring, but I believed it was going to be the kind of love where we grow together.

I had this nagging feeling he was hiding something early on. We’d be riding in the car to a Los Angeles sunset, and the thought would hit me, “He’s lying to you. He hasn’t been faithful to you.” I had no evidence to substantiate the thought. I convinced myself it was insecurity. I knew deep in my heart and mind, I’m not jealous or insecure. In fact, the thought to check his phone or question him never occurred to me. Yet, I knew he cheated on me, and I just hadn’t found out.

The first piece of evidence revealed itself in May after junior year of college. He’d come to visit my family and left his phone when we went to shower. The thought came to me to look. I went straight to his email and looked at the sent messages. There was a message to another girl, apologizing and asking to meet up. This was in February. We started dating in January. I didn’t think anything of it. I also didn’t mind if he wanted to reach out and apologize to someone he hurt. It was the same girl he said he dated three months prior, so that’s where I grew more suspicious.

However, I wasn’t supposed to be in his phone, so I told myself, “He hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend back in February, and what if he loses trust if you tell him you looked at his phone and it ended up being nothing.” Again, I told myself not to read anything into it.

The feeling persisted, and our relationship grew worse. By this time, I had seen he was impatient, aggressive, emotionally unavailable, manipulative, and dismissive. The only connections we had were physical and spiritual. I believed in him, but the relationship became insufferable.

One night, as we were talking on the phone, I told him what I felt in prayer, “If our relationship has any chance, it won’t be starting on a lie or deception. I can’t go on with this relationship feeling like this.” He asked me to wait as I heard him head to his car and close the door. He then told me the truth my mind and heart had been waiting for. Immediately, I felt the punch in my chest, I felt anger for the first real time in my life. I hung up the phone, sent text messages calling him disgusting, and then blocked him for the rest of the night.

He apologized, I had him talk to my mom where he expressed deep regret. Three days later, he asked to see me, and while I sat in his car, I told him I forgive him. At that moment, I felt I did. I wanted nothing more than to move forward and find happiness and peace. I gave him a few rules, and he complied, but it didn’t take away the feeling of disgust inside of me.

I told him I should have access to his phone and that I should be allowed to ask questions, to which he agreed, but didn’t always answer the questions I asked to “protect me.” To add insult to injury, he increasingly became emotionally abusive and more distant. Where he used to be dismissive, he started being cold, distant, stonewalling me, yelling at me in public and in private. Somehow, him cheating on me only exacerbated and highlighted everything wrong with him. I couldn’t even heal from being cheated on. Being cheated on seemed small compared to the day in and day out emotional labor of our relationship.

I started feeling down on myself, telling myself that I wasn’t perfect either, so who was I to judge him for being imperfect. Then, I started to fight back, sometimes being outright cold and calculative in how I would slice him with my words. I just wanted him to feel a sliver of what I felt.

While that pain feels so disconnected now, I think about how I would handle things so differently today. 21 year old me wasn’t equipped to handle such big emotions. I just fell in love for the first time, and now I’m being confronted with betrayal and deep pain. I fell out of love that day, and the relationship never quite recovered.

Of course, my story wasn’t just the cheating, I was also being abused and manipulated, but it highlighted something incredibly important and something I know to be true. As the Bible says, love does cover a multitude of wrongs and when we love someone, we have an unique amount of grace for their flaws, but once the bond has been broken, you see the truth. Why would anyone put up with someone who is emotionally unavailable, manipulative, controlling, impatient, opportunistic, and self-serving other than they love them deeply. Before cheating happened, I didn’t see him as that. I knew he acted that way, but I was young, and so was he, I expected him to grow, mature, and get better. I thought to myself, “He’s imperfect, as am I, but at least we are dedicated to each other. We love each other. We are committed and honest with one another.” I found out we didn’t even have that, the one thing I valued the most in our relationship.

If I knew what I know now, I would have taken a step back. I would have said I need time to think. I would have been slow and deliberate in myself. I would not have ignored the nagging feeling. I would have confronted him about the email. I would have chosen me first.

The thing about pain is that it demands to be heard. I thought my love for him was greater than my pain, but the way I felt the pain in my body proved otherwise. Even when I told myself to let it go, forgive, and move on, it came back to me and came out in the form of fear, anger, doubt, and self-consciousness. I kept thinking to myself, “He’s not even faithful to me. What is this all for?” I didn’t give myself time to get over the initial shock. I wasn’t in tune with my level of pain and what it represented. I wasn’t thinking of nurturing myself in my moment of pain. I thought about the relationship, I thought about him, and I didn’t think about what I needed. I didn’t give myself permission to be selfish. I desperately needed to be selfish in that moment of betrayal.

I was the only person looking out for my heart, and I handed it to him, giving him the responsibility to heal it back to innocence, which would have been okay if he was mature and well meaning, but he wasn’t ready. So, I spent time waiting and begging for him to be the man he promised he was but never proved to be.

I spent three years trying to recover from his cheating and abuse. Once we officially separated, half of the pain I felt while we were together was gone in the first six months. Where there was so much pain and hurt is now indifference. I can still feel how genuine my love was, and I still want the best for him, but I don’t think about the past as often. I don’t feel like he owes me anything, and I owe him nothing.

I laugh because if I had known the strength I would gain by letting the relationship go a long time ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have at least given myself a chance, by choosing me for some time. Once you get a taste of peace, it’s even more addicting than the feeling of love.

Cheating taught me that there are moments you will need to be selfish, and the truth is, you’re not selfish. You’re self preserving. Cheating taught me that I always have to reserve a piece of myself for my sanity, to never let someone be in control of guarding my heart. Now that I’m older, I realize how foolish my thinking was to think any of his actions will make me heal faster.

My strength was in walking away, in leaving, not being petty, fighting back, or knowing every detail.

My healing was up to me, and when I was hurt, I needed to think about me, not us. Being cheated on pushed me full force into my self-love journey. It was a canon event for me. I’m glad God found some use out of it because at the time, I was just mad.