My Story

Dear Reader:

In December of last year, My Ex-boyfriend moved out of our apartment while I was in NYC on an overnight trip.  When he picked me up from the bus station, he kissed me and listened to me chatter.  When we got home, I noticed that all of his books were gone from the bookshelves in the living room.  He said that we were living too much of each others' lives.

I found out later that when I had met him two years earlier, he had been living with his fiancee, M.  M., coincidentally, was the wife of one of his "best" friends.  She is to this day, still not divorced.  He left M. mysteriously, just not showing up for Christmas celebrations with her family (including her daughter).  He had spent the weekend with me.  I had no idea she existed.  He made me feel like the only woman in the world.  M. called the cops and called his family.  He was found, days later, at his shop, with no explanation for where he had gone.  He told M. that he had taken a friend who had had a psychiatric break to the hospital, and that she was selfish for placing demands on him when someone's life was in danger.

The Ex and I had a whirlwind romance, and I am wary of whirlwinds.  A friend made me promise her that I would not marry him for at least a year.  I had promised myself as a teenager that I would never marry.  This seems, in hindsight, to have been a good move.

I found out after we broke up that he had been sleeping, sans condom, with his ex-fiancee throughout our entire relationship.  When she found pictures of us together online, he told her that I was a summer fling, and that he didn't love me.

He also slept with a number of other women, romancing them with flowers, cards, poetry.  Some of them didn't know about me, and were very apologetic, helpful, and angry with him.  Some hate my guts, and are mad that he never left me for them.

I've lost 25 pounds since I found out, and I was by no means a large woman.  I didn't eat for about two weeks after I found out.  My blood pressure shot up to that of a very obese man who ate cheeseburgers all day.  My pulse, which has a normal resting rate of 58, shot up to a resting rate of 155, which is well in the cardiovascular range for me.  It was like I was working out all the time.  I could run or it would go through the roof.  My walks pushed me up to 165 bpm.  My hair has thinned considerably.  I've always had very thick, lovely hair.  My friends called it my "lionness" hair.  Now it is incredibly thin, and I have put myself on a regimen of Hair Vitamins, Biotin, Amino Acids, and herbs, and will probably soon start Women's Rogaine and Nioxin.

Now I work an Al-Anon program (he's a supposedly recovering alcoholic) and a COSA program (because he sure as hell looks like a sex addict to me -- he's absolutely mortified and an emotional mess over it...but still manipulative).  I'm trying to put my life back together, and make ME stronger and happier, one day at a time.