How Can This Be Love?

 My boyfriend and I had been dating for almost two years now, and been living together for almost a year — and all the bizarre things in our relationship fell into place after this “secret” had been brought to my attention.

I messaged his friend, to know more about his outbursts when we fight, but it turned out to be more interesting than that.

He told me that my boyfriend was married for three years. They broke up after learning that there was an us. He sent a screenshot of the girl’s picture, so I eagerly looked it up on Instagram. I asked my boyfriend about it, well not exactly the term, so I let him off the hook, but not correcting for the used “term” and playing it feignly, was really foul.

To my horror — the account existed, and it was private.

I followed the girl, and luckily she accepted me. I was a little confused, as if this girl did really know me, or that was just a rumor. The girl told me everything. Just to emphasize, my boyfriend wasn’t married, or anything at all — they were a couple, just like us for 5 or 6 years, and they broke up because she knew about us.

After almost two years of relationship, I’ve been trying to actually know the whole truth about this. He told me that this girl — the one I talked to — cheated on him, that’s why they broke up.

At some point in our two-year-old relationship, we took a break. While going to that point, he told me that his ex’s family wanted them to get back together. So he broke up with me. He promised that he would return after everything about that relationship was settled. And after three months of breakup, we’ve back again, together, living under the same roof, as a couple.

There were cases that random people were stalking me on Instagram, like a bunch of them and my boyfriend wanted me to put my IG in private. I didn’t do that, and that made sense, too.

The reality was, my boyfriend tried to win the girl back when we broke up. He was not over her, and asking for the help of her cousin. The truth was, people stalked me to send proofs to the family of the girl about us. And he came back to me because the girl didn’t come back to him after three months.

Screenshots were sent to me by this girl’s cousin and the date was actually Sept 1, 2024. This man was trying to get a hold of this girl even though we are about to live together last year! 

Now it all made sense.

That had pained me a lot, the dates had caused more damage than the messages. The way he pleaded, the way he ignored me those times, the times I was denied. Those things that I didn’t know, that just happened — it all made sense now.

He said that I was all what he got. I was his everything — a family. But you don’t do this to your own family. No family hurts and lies to each other. With all his actions, I was asking, “How is this a family?

I felt so betrayed after knowing about this. I’ve been in some of his circles and no one got to tell me. I felt so stupid, believing second chances were actually real for his comeback — only to find out that I was just a backup plan. The funniest part, this wasn’t what I wanted to know in the first place, and being vague, actually what brought me here. Things that I wondered why before, it all got answered. I wasn’t loved, he just didn’t have any options.

Especially talking about the emotional damage that the other party had gone through. She’s been hurting all this time, and I was so happy about this freakin’ relationship that I even introduced him to my whole family.

I’ve been flaunting our relationship all across my accounts, only to realize that I was just the other woman, and this happening wasn’t truly what I stood for. 

I want to end this, because it all started wrong, but it caused chaos to the family. My father’s side and mother’s side had clashed once, and it was really something that I’ve been avoiding.

I don’t want to be tied into a relationship that I can’t speak of, I can’t be proud of. I’m no longer happy with this setup anymore, but he’s insisting to fix everything, that things will be changed from now on — like, the only secrets that I knew that happens for the longest time are those in romantic films or mafia bosses in books. Not like this, this is cheating.

Everything about this was just manipulation and wrong. I don’t want to be the other woman who destroyed other relationships. I might be a bitch but not the one who’s been cheated with. 

No words can express my hurt, my humiliation, my delusions and everything. I’m hurting but I can’t get the comfort that I want. I don’t even want to be seen with him in public or in any places. I want assurance that it won’t happen again, but I didn’t get it. Apology doesn’t even make a sound. While I am loathing myself for destroying other people’s relationships, crying for the pain, thinking if I will be cheated on, he is there drinking with new friends.

Is this what they called karma? For sure this will be haunting.

Love,

Zoey