Dear All
I am a serial cheater.
There, I said it: its real.
They feel like crimes. They feel worth being branded. I don't know what to do next, but once your calm, express your anger, constructively.
But, alright 'confession box': let us dance, if for a little while. See what Step 8 can do.
Amanda: I am unsure if you belong here. I worked hard for your compassion: it never came.
Shaffer: I thought long and hard about this, but I think I need to say that I was angry at you. It felt like you left me for another woman, at a time and age that really mattered to me. It left an impression, and twenty years on (*unbelievable), I am ready to discard it. What you did then elt cruel for a boy who was ready to wait and its a cruelty that I certainly delighted in in all the 'victims' I 'perpetrated' such things to in this list, if only in your name.
Its coming up on 20 years, yet I still feel that as raw. I can still taste the flavor of that juice, that bovine hatred, and a hand full of splinters. Vindictive. Entitled, even. Because I'm starting to feel damned for it. The things that follow are unforgivable, yes...but I feel like I finally crossed a line.
Though I have let you go, it is time to let that go. The hate: all the kind souls that follow are just an addition to a feeling I could not understand, and did not till now wish to put behind me.
Until now.
Jenny: 18 and so much life. You'll see the patterns that I started soon enough, and look forward to (with some help) soon letting go. Seeking out a backup, for getting burned. Modus oporondi, indeed. I ended up on Carolyn's couch one night, and wanted to, swore I should kiss her. In a way, regretted it dearly, that I did not take up that chance: until now. I met a love this time last year, and had no idea how good it would be to give you up. Till her, till then. For a chance to be something better.
The day I met you, I grabbed a woman's boob in the mosh pit. I'm almost certain of this. I wanted to feel in control, I wanted to hurt something then. Three years with you, and so little output. These are no ways to start a pattern. While dating you, I felt out of control WITH you, because you wouldn't hear me when I talked. You wouldn't hear me as I moved, as I shifted, and churned into something with real power for a change. I wanted more, and was loosing patience. To many games that I couldn't control. What was the true love a woman: her heart and soul? Then you wanted more, but I wanted it to be real. I didn't want to be your sleeze-machine: how ironic.
Just wait though: its about to get harder.
Danielle: When you were sitting on the bed, I never thought I'd be there again.
Deja vue - its been almost 10 years, and I'm right back into the same habit I swore I wouldn't ever be in again.
But what steps did I take (like cutting), to protect it? Another bed, another broken soul I shouldn't have done this to. Another look, that wanted me to end my life. So lets end this, lets end THIS pattern.
Because I would not, could not do that to a partner. Then did it again. And again, again, again. So now to stop? But I see now that that all was part of a pattern, and like cutting, I need to disrupt. Disrupt by which to break. Where does one start with disruption? In my case, listing the problem, keep the source from spreading outward. With you, it was with my utter worry. You would have liked Monica, in many ways, as being it was you who showed me woman, and with her, what its like to be a man. What Isabella tried with me (what they all tried to tell me to), was what I tried with you first. To give unconditional care, at any hour, in any way. Again, and again and again, till I cracked, broke something inside. Broke, to match you. Another October, another soul trying desperately to get me to hear.
How do I ignore them? How do I ignore such kind plea's for betterment. You married this week, almost ten years to the day since first I claimed you. What a wonderful short time; how I have passed your love, and such skills along.
I first tried to cheat on you with a Christian woman. She is (maybe forever will be) stuck in her shell, and it is wrong to blaspheme the saved. Another car, another moment: oh, how I just wanted the hurt to go away. A wedding, I said it, I tried: a better woman stayed my hand.
It wouldn't happen again.
Sorry dear phone, stupid apps: your staying off. Sorry too, dear insomnia: I need to be in bed by a reasonable hour.
I gave too quick, I broke too soon. Its another age which best forgotten. I only hope the pain you felt with Nathan could get you to understand. (I sometimes wish he was here, if only just to kick me in the ass, and get me moving)
Liz: Staying with Danielle, was cheating on you. You were bad news, and I enjoyed being dark with you, for a spell. I missed you for being Jenny's friend, I missed the feeling of the hope of 21.
Marina: I banged another woman near her alley abode. Of all the people here, at least you understood. Thank you for sticking with me.
Vibha: dating you felt a bit like cheating, because we were always cheating the clock, in oh-so-many ways. I enjoyed the fact. If given the chance, I would have delighted in cheating on you.
Teresa: I got drunk with Nicole one night in July of 2014, and after she also vomited all over herself and climbed naked into her bed. Temptation calling, I suppose. I kept telling myself I was only there for support. Though I did not sleep with her, then or ever, I wanted to. I dreamed about doing so.
I also emotionally cheated on you with Yelena, at the end, and for that I'm sorry too.
Yelena: When wasn't there a time. You helped me cheat on Isabella, and in a way I though us squared.
Amanda: it would have been hard to love you, and I was full of rage and hate and being paused.
Isabella: from the moment we met, you were both other woman, and once more gave me hope. Dante might have better words, but you understood the forming of a tale worth telling.
Katalina: Even with a name change, we were something hard, were we not? From day one I wanted to re-earn you. Your bed was warm, your heart was strange.
Thank you for sticking by me as long as you could. I know it was hard by the end (maybe impossible). But you made me hope for a greater, a 'next life'. Regardless, I still see the better part of you inside myself.
Monica:
Love, I understood you, when you say how we can have many loves. In advance, I must write this as a thank you...but in writing this tome, I realized the others did me no good.
That they are part of a pattern, that I must find a way to burn.
How do I listen: how do I convince you you are not just a number added to frekled skin? What do you see inside me (and how can I start to see it myself?)
Why did I not listen, when you said 2017 was a year you had to learn to just re-love yourself.
I would have been scared, certainly, to have tried to put an us on pause, but..you about actual 'me' taking time off from us, to get help on my own. The drinking, the hurt: this - at which point does a mountain seem unclimbable? This, some of the writings and back-n-forth over the last two days, is still a form of me cutting. Diving oh-so-deep.
I would have been scared to leave you for a while, certainly, but now this feels inevitable. This list is too long, and is only one of a list of lists I need to write this week. I never addressed the serial cheating with you, or gave you proper forwarning, and in many ways, that was a terrible failing. You were angry enough with a number: you deserved to know the black. I should have said when it was circling, called you close.
I thought I passed the test. I said no to the first person who hit me back. I said no and no and no, until that last person I needed to say no to was myself.
But I never broke the pattern.
Till now.
A reformed cutter always needs to disrupt the pattern. (I don't know about alcoholics)
I told you about the serial dating, but we never went deep into the serial cheating. This writing is the first attempt at that. It was bad, love, and even before you felt unforgivable.
My only worry now is, is that as I need these others to go away, that you will too. You were right about them, and needing to 'let go': were you even then speaking of yourself? (I don't know yet if its part of the pattern.)
I don't know, yet have trust with and for you.
The pattern. It starts with the past: a place that feels oh to real. Feel the hate, feel the surreal, live and walk amongst it. Then to hate it, to fight the future forming round. Yes, I am burning it this week, burning out the worst parts of myself, but going to get better: it is part of the awful rowing towards God. May I meet them again, all, if or when he decides. But then comes panic, that I am running out of time. That I've passed the best version of myself. So I seek out, I create a different version of myself.
That a pro on a list I do not know has changed to con...
How to break it. It starts with letting go. You have no past now, and are only an agent for change, for the good. Hold that banner high.
There is an architect who once gave his life to the church: created one of the most beautiful things the world has ever seen, then had God call him home with a trolly.
I wonder if we dug deep, if we'd find a journal just like this.
This isn't me. You are only raw. You hurt for so long. (Sure it is: be open motherfucker, and be honest for a change, or you'll continue to be swallowed alive.)
Heal motherfucker: it happens fast. Let this be real: embrace it. So many names: I don't want more to follow.
We'll see in time what comes; what God presents next.