Finding Myself

After going through all the motions of what you're supposed to do in a relationship... dating, moving-in together, getting engaged—that relationship ended. I thought if I wanted it bad enough it would work.

We met working at an amusement park together while I was dating someone else. That guy ended up breaking my heart and in a very public way. One of the people who saw it happen was my future ex-fiancé. He was a friend to me for a while before we started dating seriously. After a year of dating we decided to move in together. The first few months were great. I found out that he was talking to a girl about wanting to be with her and if anything ever broke me and my boyfriend up, he would want to "spoil her, and treat her the way she was supposed to be treated."

I decided that since I had moved up to him and I didn't know anyone, and I didn't want to go back home, I would stay and make it work. It was one time right? Just once...

We lived together in his family's home for about six months before we got our own apartment. Everything was great! We were working through our problems and everything was amazing! We got engaged the next year around Christmas and my best friend was visiting from Japan for a month—it was perfect timing! He tied the ring around a teddy bear's bow tie and put it in a box. He made this huge speech about how in love he was with me and how he wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Not even a month later, a new neighbor moved in across the breeze way at our apartment complex. I had a weird feeling about her, I couldn't figure it out yet, but I didn't like her at first. He talked to her a few times and I felt like she was flirting with him and I asked that he not talk to her because it made me uncomfortable. He was fine with it. Life went on for a week or two and I was having a girls party at my apartment, my fiancé went to his family's house for the night to let me be with my friends. He kept asking me to give our neighbor a chance, that I had no real reason to not like her. So I said fine. I invited her. I was actually really glad I did.

We became friends and she told me one night while my fiancé was at work that she couldn't be my friend and keep secrets from me anymore and wanted to talk. I found out he was the one flirting and that he had sex with some girl they both mutually knew apparently. He hung out with the two of them one night and the neighbor went home for a while and when she came back my fiancé told her that he and the other girl had sex in my bed. When he got home I fought with him obviously and he denied everything. But what he didn't know was that I saw the messages of them talking the next day after he had sex with this girl. He told my neighbor he felt bad for it and he didn't want to tell me. He tried telling me that he was just trying to impress the neighbor girl... so I kicked him out.

That was the beginning of the end. Yeah, yeah, I know... I let him come home. Needless to say it ended, badly. One year later: Now I am on my own, for the first time in years. Finding who I am. It's lonely sometimes, but it's nice.

I thought I could make it work because I thought I loved him and I thought he loved me. But I think we both just didn't want to be alone. I learned the hard way that relationships need more than just love. It needs trust and commitment too, and those are some things that we didn't have. We thought we could make it work by just pretending nothing happened and trying to move on and never talk about it again. Well, I can tell you that it's not worth it if you don't have trust and commitment as well as love. It's not love that doesn't concur all... it's love, trust, commitment, mutual respect, and a whole lot more.