Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire…

Mistake #2: Believing that the man you married was who you thought he was. Not understanding that the underlying cause for all your frustration was that who he said he was and how he actually was could not be logically reconciled and there was a constant conflict always under the surface, coasting somewhere under the radar.

How am I supposed to get over the fact that my ex is a habitual liar? That I was literally sleeping with the enemy? Worse, how am I supposed to process the knowledge that he freely admitted to his lover (–if he had said this to me I would say he was full of crap, just trying to piss me off but he didn’t, he doesn’t know that I know) that he NEVER told me the truth about anything the entire time we were together. That not once while we were dating, engaged and married did he not feel compelled to lie to me, or withhold information from me, and for no good reason. He said he had no desire to ever tell me anything truly personal or meaningful. I used to tell him everything! I thought he was my friend?! How did I not know that he wasn’t safe?

I am simultaneously confused and hurt. Bitter and angry. When I do think of it, it feels like a hand is squeezing my heart and I want to cry. It’s painful to realize that I was never on equal footing with the one I opened my world to, and I realized it 14 years too late. It makes me want to hurt him (physically would be the most satisfying but I would settle for emotionally if I could manage it) but I wouldn’t even know how. I don’t even KNOW him. I mean, who is he really?

My ex-husband is a stranger to me. What I know of him is thrown into question. Nothing is certain! It’s worse than just finding out he betrayed me with another woman, and pursued a second life. It’s beyond that. I don’t know who he is, and if who he really is is what he showed the other woman, then that person I don’t like at all and I feel foolish to have been bamboozled so readily by someone who was stupid enough to forget that he married an intelligent, saavy woman. I am afraid about what this event says about me and my ability to sense danger… it is a worrisome thought.

My ability to truly trust someone, especially another man, has been severely compromised.