Who Would I Be If I Had Broken Up With Him The First Time He Cheated On Me? Fifteen Years Later I Can

Who would I be if I had broken up with him the first time he cheated on me?  Fifteen years later I can barely tell you who I was before I met him.

My Own Worst Enemy

Every day some part of me wishes I could go back in a time machine or something.  Not just to the day that I met him, but long before that - maybe to the age of 8 or 9.

If I changed some decisions, maybe my self worth would have been healthy when I met him. Maybe his smooth-talking wouldn’t have hooked and dragged me in.  Maybe I would have felt like I deserved more that a boy who told me I was pretty but made me feel unbalanced all the time. 

Perhaps then I’d be sitting here working confidently and not steeping in self doubt.

He did not understand sentimental value. I keep little things that people give me or that remind me of special times.

Some people keep pictures in this way. These things are fabrics in the tapestry of your history But not to him. Junk. Hoarding. Wasting space.

His mom gave him old pictures of him and his family. He didn't care and was really angry when I insisted we keep them. So he made me hold on to them, and here I am still holding on to them out of guilt.

These things are all sacred. I am having such a terrible time trying to throw them out.

Silly things I was not allowed to keep on my person ( off the top of my head):

A hair elastic on my wrist.

A purse (but he'd be so angry if I wasn't wearing one and he needed me to hold his stuff.)

A jacket when he thought it was too warm.

A sweater when I said he kept the ac too high in the summer.

Sandals.

Things he required me to have:

Tame, managed hair in all potential scenarios.

A purse, but only when he needed me to hold something and I needed to anticipate that before we left. Somehow.

A jacket in case it got cool. He didn't want to have to hear me complain.

Money for the extra hydro bill in the summer when i made him turn the ac so low.

High heel sandals.

I wish I could say this wasn't true anymore. While I can say it hurts less, I can't even confirm that it happens less frequently.

It's incredibly upsetting that despite moving on and finding the most gentle and kind person to be with, he still pervades my thoughts.

I still think about him basically every time I get a quiet moment: in a fitting room, at a red light, in my office, in the shower.

Recovery is a bitch.

This is what day one feels like, btw.