Breakup Lessons: Part One

I am a 41-year-old, never before married woman. I have come close a few times, but never as close as my most recent engagement to a man I will refer to as Aaron.

When I say we were CLOSE to getting married, I mean the venue was chosen, I had a dress picked out, bridesmaids, the whole kit and caboodle.

...and then I found out that not only was he cheating on me with other women, he was also cheating with men.

(Yeah. I will let that settle with you for a moment.)

How did I find out, you might be wondering? Let me just say that when you ask the Universe for something, be prepared to receive an answer.

About two weeks before Easter Sunday (which is the actual day I found out), I was having a talk with myself, per my usual practice. I found myself asking the Universe if this was the man I was supposed to marry. I'd come so close before, I wanted to be sure that this was actually IT for me. I had no idea how undeniable the answer would be or that it would be a resounding NO.

I'd assisted him in recovering a password for an old email address that he'd lost access to. I didn't realize that in recovering that email for him, it had become linked to my email account.

On Easter Sunday, during a routine check of my email, I clicked on the icon on my tablet, not realizing which email account it was, and lo and behold, my screen was suddenly filled with Craigslist ad responses, dating site responses and various other emails of a very intimate nature.

Now, I am a woman that's pretty experienced in life and very rarely do things shock or bother me. Once I started reading through the emails, the truth began to settle on me like fallen snow on a cold Colorado day. I was completely devastated and my response after being shocked was a full on, ugly face, barely breathing, cry. I was shaking, eyes wide open and basically in the tight embrace of a panic attack.

It became glaringly obvious that the man I thought I knew didn't exist at all.

It took me a while to gather myself and call him, but I did. This wasn't a conversation to be had over the phone, however; I needed to see his face.

I wish I could tell you that he came clean about everything and begged my forgiveness. I would like to tell you that he insisted on going into therapy for his sex addiction. I would also like to tell you that he apologized for hurting me. He did NONE of those things and was, in fact, angry with ME because I was so angry with him! We ended that day with angry words and cursing and I got NONE of the regret or apologies that I sought after.

I was devastated all over again.

A few days later, we met up so that he could collect some of his stuff from me. This was to be the finale to our relationship and even though our previous meeting went sour, I still expected to receive SOME type of apology from him. Again, I received zilch from him but silence and averted eyes. He couldn't even look at me and that plunged the knife even deeper into my heart. He grabbed his things from my vehicle, got back into his car and that was, as they say, THAT. It was done and over with. Well, for him it was. I had a complete breakdown in the Walmart parking lot where I'd gone to meet him to return his things. I blocked traffic exiting from the parking lot for about five minutes because I was completely overcome with a sense of loss. It was if he'd died suddenly. Honestly, at that point, I wished he'd had. It certainly would have made more sense to me than what those emails did.

I cocooned myself in my bedroom for the days after the breakup and after the meeting to return his things. I felt completely and utterly broken and beyond repair. I didn't want to hear any comforting words or spend time with people; I wanted to disappear. Not only was I embarrassed after having to tell everyone there would be no wedding and why, but I was confused and continuously questioning my womanhood: WAS I NOT ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH? DID I BORE HIM? DID HE FEEL TRAPPED BY ME BECAUSE I WAS TOO INSISTENT ON US BEING MARRIED? My questions were endless and I asked myself over and over and over again what had I done wrong.

The feelings that surrounded me during this time were too familiar to me: sadness, hurt, anger, devastation. I'd experienced all of these before but THIS time, they brought an unfamiliar companion along with them: EMPTINESS.

I was unfamiliar with this "feeling." The NOTHINGNESS of it all filled me to capacity, if that makes any sense at all to you. It became so huge within me that I didn't have room for sadness, anger, hurt, devastation; emptiness was front and center and letting me know it was there and would be for quite some time.

I couldn't describe it exactly to those who asked how I was feeling so, I used an analogy to try to explain it: Imagine the waiting room of a doctor's office. There are seats and those seats are filled with patients. As the day wears on, the patients are leaving but, at the end of the day, one seat is still filled and that patient isn't going anywhere any time soon. Every day the Doctor comes in, that same patient is sitting there, staring and wondering when it's going to be their turn. That's how the emptiness felt and it refused to go away.

So, every day I opened my eyes, it was waiting for me. We only ever stared at each other; no words were ever exchanged. It let me know it wasn't going anywhere and guess what? No matter how devastated I felt, neither was I.

We made room for each other as the days went on until the day came when I decided it had to go. So, I took my seat next to it in the "waiting room" of my heart and soul and with tears in my eyes and a shaky voice I said "Hello, Emptiness. Let's talk."