Beautiful Liar

How much should one person have to deal with throughout a relationship? When does love stop being enough? Can two people truly be together if they can’t be honest with each other?

In 2007, Blueturtle met someone else, so we separated for a second time. Unlike the first separation, it was not an assumption there was another woman. it was reality. We were living in the apartment I had rented in 2005, and he was dating another woman right in front of me. A woman he said was his kindred spirit. I quickly went to work drafting our disillusionment papers. I wanted him out! Within a month he was so deep down the rabbit hole, he walked away from his steady job, and his only means of getting out. According to him, this woman had accepted his marriage proposal.

What he doesn’t know, I eventually became quite close to her, and she shared her side of the story with me. He was doing what pathological liars do best. She said his stories just never seemed to add up, and sometimes it seemed he rehearsed his rants. Looking back, I was just too naïve to see through the bullshit.

His lies were so elaborate there was no way he could have ever proved them. He tried everything to get her back after she saw through him. He even went as far as to tell her he had received an inheritance from his Uncle; a brown stone in Boston. He sold it, and had over a quarter million dollars in the bank.  This was after she told him he was crazy and scared her.

I look back and think how foolish I was to keep him around after having all this information. He told her in an email he had settled on me because I had a small child. She tried contacting me once while they were dating, but I ignored the text. I was too caught up in my own truth to try to relate to hers. Maybe having more information while we were separated (but living together) would have made a difference, but if I’m being honest with myself, it probably wouldn’t have. I just carried this information around with me, and let it eat at me from the inside.

We both decided, although we liked each other very much, if I was going to be with him, I couldn’t be friends with her. I would have had to keep it secret, so I said good bye.

I reconnected with her after my divorce papers were filed. She was scared to talk to me until she saw proof of Blueturtle’s absence. We spend some time together, and she helped me a lot, but our time together has ended. I think maybe it was too much for her, or she was trying to make up for wronging me, but I never blamed her. He lied to me, but I think his lies went far deeper with her. As far as she knew, he had been trying to divorce me for over a year. He had her fooled, everyone he worked with fooled, but in the end, I was the biggest fool. I knew so many truths about him, but I still chose to stay by his side for five more years.