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A Ennis Follow
Mar 10, 2017 · 31 min read

What does it take to really survive betrayal?

. . .

Betrayal is one of the most devastating events in our adult lives.

Most people after they have been betrayed are deeply affected,
and some never fully recover.

In fact I was inspired to write this after I read a dramatic post

from a friend of mine, who is going through a nasty divorce.

I don’t think that betrayal has to end our innocence so much as

welcome us to a new enlightenment. About ourselves.

I don’t think that people realize that betrayal is devastating

because it shows us the lies we told ourselves.

It’s not about other people lying to us so much , as not keeping

the lies alive. Not protecting them.

It reveals our hidden character defects. Motivations.

Brings into the light, dark secrets of our subconscious.

Humans really don’t want to look at the real truth about them,
especially when that truth destroys the paradigms that have
taken lifetimes to build to protect us, and keep us going every
day. To keep us from being afraid.

I propose that not only do you not need those belief systems any
longer, but that they are actually keeping you from forming deep
and intense connections with other people. They are keeping
your spirit asleep. They are keeping you in the “matrix”. The first
step out of the constructs that we have created for ourselves is
the painful process of digging , into ourselves for our truth.

People don’t want to look at things that hurt unless they have to.

Pain is that catalyst in our lives. That is the gift that pain gives
us. The more uncomfortable we become, the more willing we
are to change positions.

Betrayal often creates a pain that is too uncomfortable to live in.

All at once , our egos are dying, and deep truths exposed , and
we dont know how to keep them hidden anymore. With our ego
on life support, we have nothing standing between us and parts
of ourselves our ego and vanity hid so well.

The pain we experience with betrayal is actually just the ego

dying. Our sexual vanity, dying.

There is no pain with love.

Love doesn’t hurt.

Only our selfishness hurts. Only our fear hurts. Only the death of
our arrogance , and vanity hurts.

Some people will not be capable of ever understanding that.

They refuse to live in a world without victims , heroes and
villains. They have to have someone to blame, someone who is
responsible for their pain and someone that can save them from
their pain.

That also means that they are never truly responsible for their
actions. They are so lost , that they will never understand that
other people are not in any way responsible for our emotional
well being or our actions in life. Or even our feelings.

They live in a constant reactive state . Never accountable for

their lives. Which comes with a double edged sword of
obligation, guilt and shame.

Even the people who appear to be the most emotional (

dramatic) they are the ones that feel the least. What appears to
be emotions is just the obligation they feel towards having or
feeling those emotions and their guilt, and their shame for not
acting them out enough.

Real emotions don’t come with expressions. Don’t come with

huge demonstrations.

Just like animals in the wild that often fluff out their wings and
bare their teeth to over emphasize the message they are sending,
humans over dramatize emotions that they don’t really have.

Most humans do, at least for a while.

Some of us will reach a point in our lives when that stops making
sense. We sense a deeper meaning to life. Pain will catapult us
there, to the place that we are ready to consider that we are
ultimately responsible for every experience we live through.
Every feeling we have, and every thought that preceded it.

Adults who have suffered through childhood traumas will have

the most difficulty with that reality. After all , children are
blameless. I agree. Children experience stress hormones that
alter their developing brains. Making them brain damaged
adults.

Most of them won’t want to admit that. But for any of them to
ever get better, they have to.

I propose that living your life from the perspective of an abused

child , isn’t rational. You are an insane adult , if you feel that is
justified or rational.

Till wounded adults, admit that they have to leave the past
behind by taking responsibility where they can, and becoming
familiar with their true selves , the things that they don’t want to
see, they will not be capable of operating outside of the
constructs of reward and punishment. Victim and villain. They
have to let go of the need to make someone wrong , and blaming
something or someone for their lives and their feelings, which
usually fall under fear, or shame based secondary emotions. Till
they are willing to let go of that paradigm, they wont ever be
free. They wont ever be able to distinguish the truth from the lie.
They will live in the dark.

Just the thinking that you are not capable of healing , is insane
and keeps you sick. The reality is that most people who have
been hurt are unwilling to let go of the role. Let go of the power
of being the hurt person. The control of being the hurt person.
The attention a hurt person receives.

Sometimes , even I have gotten that confused .. we dont remain

hurt forever, intense pain changes us. It reshapes us. Into
something new. At times it’s hard to recognize the difference.
With the loss of our “innocence” we get angry, and we hurt
about that. Our innocence was the comfortable fantasy we
carried with us since childhood. It sucks to lose it. We don't want
to.
Same with any event we go through that threatens a paradigm
shift. Some people will root down, further into the mire of
Bullshit. They refuse , like a child stomping their feet, to see
anything else. They’re that scared to give up that control, power
and attention.

Scared shitless to let go of it.

. . .

A friend of mine, who is going through a divorce posted an

article entitled “ What really happens when you cheat on
someone” .

I clicked on it.

Of course , it was the same thing I always read.

Cheating spouse as villain, faithful spouse as victim, and how

this atrocity scars you forever and it’s the most terrible act of
relationship poison you could ever do to anyone .

Pretty much the same message society has sent out for centuries.

( excerpts from the article )

“When you cheat on someone, you’re telling them they’re not

good enough for you. That you never loved them.”

- And still more -

“You may beg to differ, but how can you put someone you truly
love in such a position? To make them doubt their self-worth? To
make them question everything they thought they knew about
you? To make them believe that their trust was completely
misplaced?
“Did I do something wrong?”

“What could I have done to prevent it?”

“Why did this happen?”

“Am I not good enough?”

“Why did you do it?”

— are questions you’ll ask yourself over and over again when
you’ve been cheated on.

You don’t cheat on someone you love. Period.

When you cheat on someone, they’ll always be emotionally scarred.

They’ll have their walls up because they don’t want to ever be
hurt that way again. To feel like your world is crumbling, to
believe that things like that happened, but just not to you. You
see it in movies all the time, but we all know what happens in
the movies and what happens in real life are two completely
different ball games altogether.

They won’t let just anyone in; and even when they do let someone in
eventually, they’ll always be guarded.

They’ll be paranoid, and you can’t blame them for it. Even if
they’re in a new happy relationship, they’ll carry the hurt and
the emotional baggage from the previous relationship into their
new relationship—whether it be conscious or not—and it can’t
be helped. They’ll always be suspicious, but don’t blame them for
it; they’re just afraid that the same thing will happen to them
again, and they can’t go through something as painful as that ever
again.”

. . .
When I read that , I laughed. Honestly.

What a load of horse shit!

All of that article is bullshit, basically.

Sure that article is right on the money if you just got cheated on
for the first time by someone you never would have thought
would do that to you. We feel all those things. Instantly.

The problem is, that is where we stop being rational. Where we

stop looking. Where we stop growing.

We experience pain, and we do everything in our power to stop

feeling it. Including going totally insane , by believing that our
resentment is justified and that we have to live with those
traumatized belief systems caused by irrational thinking
indefinitely.

Our thinking after we have been hurt is sick and twisted. If we

were healthy adults, we would have those thoughts and feelings
and after a moment say to ourselves ,

“ Whoa, hold on a minute. None of that shit is true.”

Never trusting again? Believing that you are not worth love ?
Forever guarding your heart like it contains the secrets of the
universe?

That’s insane.

You’re just not that important, folks.

Let me share my story.

I should probably qualify myself , because let’s face it. You need
to earn the right to talk that much smack to people.
I was married. I was married to a guy and we were both in a 12
step program together . These people in programs become like
your family and I was really really close to my people. I went to
meetings all the time and loved my friends.

I had gone through a lot of shit with this guy and even though I
had, I always assumed he was faithful. I firmly believed that.
Like the sky is blue I believed that.

What I am going to share with you about myself from here on

out, is what I consider to be “my lie”.

We each have a story about ourself. What we stand for and who
we are. We decorate ourselves with these personality constructs.
We try to make ourselves something,

We want to be identified by these characteristics. They are sort

of “the show” of us. The tap dance. The image we constantly
project to other people and ourselves.

I didn’t think he was a cheater.

Here is what i told myself to reinforce that lie. Because the

reality is, no one is anything substantial and we are all capable
of pretty much anything in the perfect circumstances. There is
no personality part that is reliable. Because the personality is
just something we made up. To express ourselves , and to
reinforce our egos. Our personalities , most of the time , are
more like clothes we wear. We change them for different
environments, or people we are around. We have a closet full of
personalities , multiple aspects of ourselves, that are totally
separate and different from each other.

I believed I was faithful. Partly true. My nature is faithful.

I am honest—by nature.
I just am not a natural liar. When you’re a more honest person,
you’re just naturally more trusting.

Partly because he was obsessed with me.

Or seemed to be.

He would stalk me at my work.

He would go through my phone . He was what I considered to

be, insane about me talking to other men. He hated men I would
smile and say hello to. He went on about it every day of our lives.
One time he had a temper tantrum about me crossing my legs
while wearing a dress in a meeting. He was totally insane as far
as I was concerned with the threat of other men.

I hated it.

Partly because we had a very healthy sex life. We had sex pretty
much every day we were together and ontop of that we were
both very sexual people—so not only quantity but quality. Know
what I mean? We had a fearless sex life and I knew that I
satisfied him sexually. Completely.

I like to think of myself as a good wife / spouse / girlfriend. I

pride myself on it. Used to. I don’t do the things that I consider
awful. Nag, complain, criticize, pout. I am not possessive or
jealous. I don’t try to run his life and there is no leash.

I was sooo forgiving.

I was constantly forgiving this guy, for being the biggest asshole.
He was constantly begging me to stay. It was just our pattern. He
was a Dick, I would leave , he would cry and beg and promise
me to stay and change and undying love and I would stay. I
languished in that appearance of control and indebted gratitude
I assumed he must have had. It made me feel more secure ,
ironically.

Partly because he was always with me.. or at least I thought so. I

used to think that I wanted more time alone. He never went out
at night without me, he never was somewhere I didn’t know
where he was-

at least I thought so.

I really believed that the guy couldn’t fit in cheating if he did ..

how could he? He was always with me. I always knew where he
was.

I was a good catch.

People would tease and call us Brad and Angie.

Partly because he was totally in love with me. Bonkers. In love

with me.

At least I thought so.

So fast forward, this man, this guy who could never ever cheat
on me, who also I will have you know- talked so much shit about
cheaters! That was another reason. He seemed to really detest
cheating. other things you should know about him. ..

He was strikingly good looking. I’m not a person who is

impressed with looks but when I first saw him, I did a double
take. He also had this raw, sexual energy around him, a Scorpio.
Not only was he really good looking and tall, but he was an
alpha male. Full of testosterone. He would frequently get angry.
One time the cops told me that he broke someone’s nose in a
road rage incident. He was tough. Strong. The bad boy.

I even had women walk up to him while I was with him, and hit
on him. In front of me!

But I was never threatened.

Why? Mostly because I detested homewreckers my entire life. I

had real strong opinions about them. Women that used their
beauty, their sexuality to hurt others were to me, slime. There
was just no competition. In my head. They were beneath me.

Or so I thought

Any woman that could make me jealous would not be a home

wrecker.

So.. ok.

I need you to understand something right now.

That was my story.

Like I mentioned earlier.

I wasn’t aware that I thought or knew any of those reasons I

listed. Those were subconscious beliefs that I discovered long
after we were done about me.

I list them for you now, because although most women won’t
admit it, they believe they’re own stories right along with me.

That are just as trite.

And in order to be hurt by betrayal, we have had to have lied to

ourselves. The deeper the hurt, the thicker the lies we told. To
ourselves.

The most important part of those belief systems is that they

came with another belief. And this one was the one that killed
me in the end.
I believed that I wasn’t a woman that got cheated on.

In my mind, women were responsible for infidelity.

I looked at men who cheated on their girlfriends and wives as

being forced to.. because their wives or girlfriends must have
lacked in some way. They sucked in bed. They were nags. Their
house wasn’t clean. Dinner wasn’t made. They were assholes
that made their men miserable. I believed that men didn’t cheat
on good women, that men only cheated on women they didn’t
love and were not in love with, or women that could not keep
them home.

Right?!?

Isn’t that kind of the prevailing belief out there? Women keep
their men home. Keep their dicks in their pants. You only have to
re-read that first article I posted to see it all between the lines.

A woman that didn’t feel responsible for a man cheating on her

would never go through half of that bullshit. Right? If women
knew that they were not responsible for men cheating on them,
they wouldn’t be half as hurt by it.

Most of the hurt that comes when someone cheats on you is the
realization that you’re everything that you thought you weren’t.
Right?

So fast forward ….

One night I am driving to a midnight meeting I was the secretary

of. I’m on the phone with my best friend and she tells me there is
a bunch of people waiting for me to get there to unlock the door.
But right after she says that, I get this feeling. In the pit of my
stomach. This wasn’t the first premonition of him cheating
either. I had had dreams of him cheating on me. But I just didn’t
want to see it. This time, for some reason I still don’t know, I
listened.

“ GO HOME”

The voice said.

And I knew I had to get there.

My friend told me I was crazy when I told her I was going home,
turning my car around.

As I pull up to my driveway, I see one of those new Volkswagen

Bugs parked on the street in front of my house. I also see my
husband leaning up against the back of our other car in the
driveway, and I see a petite blonde , with fake boobs in a bikini
top and short shorts talking with him.

Upset.

I get out of my car and my husband smiles and almost starts to

laugh.

The woman is crying, I have seen her before at meetings I’ve

gone to. The last one I went to, she ran out of the room crying
when I was called on to share.

I didn’t think it was about me.

No, I refused to think it was about me.

She reeks of sweet , warm perfume. It smells good. She is crying.

Smoking.

I park my car, and get out and walk towards them.

“ I’m his wife, and we just made love this afternoon. Who are
you?”
It was true.

I don’t know why I said it like that. Still to this day, I have no idea
why I said it like that.

And then it happened.

The break, the crack. The line in my life that made the chasm
between who I used to be and who I am now.

“ Oh, I know who you are. I’m Tina, and I have been fucking your
husband and we went to the beach together today. I knew
something was wrong, that’s why I’m here. I felt it today..”

I was dumbfounded. In shock.

“What?!? You have been cheating on me with her? Do you love

her?”

She had one leg in her car. And she actually called out over the
hood of her car,

“No, he is just fucking me. He is madly in love with you. Oh. And
not just me. You happen to be married to the biggest slut in San
Diego! Me and every other newcomer !”

( newcomer is a term used for people just getting sober )

I smelled the huge cloud of perfume that wafted from her car
and for a moment couldn’t believe that anyone could seriously
wear that much perfume ,

and then she sat down in her shiny red car and sped off.

Zooom

Now this is the really amazing part. I looked at him and I fell
down on my ass. Right there. Just fell.
I took a huge breath. And then I said ,

“ I forgive you. Let’s go inside.”

. . .

So there is my qualifying story.

I found out eventually that he had had sex with 15 other women
while we were married. All of them in the 12 step program we
went to.

Which made it a very small world.

Imagine your cheater fucked every women on your street. Or in

your school. Or at your job.

Now you’re getting it.

I ran into his other periodically. One time I went to a dance and
pot luck with some friends and one of the women I was with,
told me their story, innocently. She didn’t think I was the wife of
the “bad decision” she made for six months. It came up because I
was from the same town that her ex lover was from. She wanted
to talk about it. She had a weird sort of pride in being his other
woman. She must have thought she was the only one and they
shared something special.

The worst part about that interaction was the realization that
my daughter was named after her.

He insisted on naming her her name, which I hated. I hated

calling her that name. From the beginning . I always thought it
was a horrible name but after I found out that one of his other
women was named her name, I started calling her by her middle
name.
I’m not sure regular people can understand the double whammy
that I had just went through. Not only did my husband turn out
to be nothing I thought he was, my friends, my family, no one
ever told me. They just watched it happen. I was not just
betrayed by him, but by all of them.

After it came out, of course, everyone started talking about it.

I found out that my husband went to meetings with women he

was sleeping with, and another woman he was sleeping with
was there and the two women actually got in a fight over him. At
the meeting. Meanwhile I am at home with our two daughters.
Working . Going to school.

I was in Walmart one time and a woman approached me , and

she was new in town. She walked right up to me while I was
there with my kids and husband and told me straight out that he
had been at a party and wasn’t wearing his ring, and tried to hit
on her. I had the feeling she went ahead and had sex with him at
that party, and found out he was married afterwards in the
kitchen. She was outraged. I will never forget her. She looked my
husband in the eye and pointed at his chest and said

“You’re a fucking Dirtbag dude!”

I loved her.

But it didn’t change the fact , that not one of my so called friends
told me anything when I needed to know.

I was lied to.

By my husband.

By the entire 12 step program .

What made it even more painful is that I always told. I was the
woman In Walmart. I have lost friends because I told. I would
never in a million years do that to anyone that I loved. I would
tell them in a heartbeat, and I always did.

( I have to qualify that statement because years in the future my

very best friend in the whole wide worlds boy toy that she was
totally in love with confessed his undying love for me and I
couldn’t tell her. But that was the only time I didn’t tell. But I
didn’t and wouldn’t have acted on that invitation. In my mind, it
didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth hurting her over. She meant
too much to me.

So.

What happened to me?

The usual.

I had a nervous breakdown.

I stopped eating , I stopped sleeping. I would shake. I was a

walking , talking panic attack.

I spent one day in bed.

I had kids.

Two small children who couldn’t cook themselves dinner. So I

packed us up and went to my mother’s house.

I remember trying to explain what happened to my mom, and I

distinctly remember her not having any sympathy for me, and
telling me to get my shit together , quick. I was also in school full
time. She had zero pity. To her, I was an emotional mess and
didn’t have a legit reason to be. I never had a reason to be upset
to my mom.
That was weakness and she couldn’t stand it when I was weak.

There was just no injury even to lick, for her.

She is a product of a bygone era, where men constantly hurt

women. When men were expected to hurt women, and women
kept on going. In high heels.

So I tried to stay in my marriage. For three months.

I was all it.

I was a mass of excruciating pain. I felt like pieces of me were

falling off inch, by inch. Bleeding. Peeling. Bruising. I didn’t
know it then, but my entire paradigm was shifting. Changing,
growing.

During that time I found out all the gory details of every
woman..

I left no stone unturned as they say.

I stayed during that time for one simple reason- my ego.

My ego was demolished. Like totally and utterly demolished.

What is the first priority when your ego dies? To revive it , of
course!

Ego CPR.

How could I do that? Instinctually I knew that getting this

mothetfucker under my thumb as quickly as possible was the
best way to heal my ego.

Every time he begged, every time he promised , my ego took a

breath. Every time he went home with me and marched right
behind me like a good little boy, my ego took a breath. Every
time I knew I won, my ego survived.

Humans don’t get that. We just don’t see how many insane
hoops we jump through to sustain our egos.

When we should actually want those fuckers to die.

My ego, would have killed me, If I had let it.

I was so scared to face the truth, the unknown, that lurked right
behind my eyes , in the shadows of me, I sensed it. It was like a
part of me sensed that I needed to hide, to run from something ,
the reality about my situation. I was so frightened to consider
that I might not know the first thing about life and love and
men, and I think really the thought that I ran from the most was
that whisper, in the back of my head, that just wouldn’t shut up,
it just kept on, and on,

You’re not good enough.

Over and over again.

I was doing everything I could to drown it out.

This was totally completely new territory for me on some levels.

Sure I was insecure about my nose or jeans , but I was never
insecure with a man.

I pretty quickly went insane, and more and more insane, the
more I ran from that voice. Which is exactly what will happen if
you refuse to adjust your sails when the direction of the wind
changes.

You know what I mean… when life takes you to new places and
you hold on to everything you used to know for dear life ,
because you don’t wanna know anything else. You’re terrified to
grow.
I knew I was on the edge on something painful, even more
painful. Something scary, something fucking terrifying ..

I didn’t know then, that it was only the loss of my ego and my
sexual vanity that was scaring me to death. I didnt want to lose
them. I didnt want to be nothing .. I was running away from
being everyone else.

Just another woman.

That gets cheated on.

When an ex addict gets to that place , shit hits the fan. Because I
can’t let myself get into too much pain. I will stick a needle in my
arm. Or put a gun in my mouth.

Those are the choices for me.

Die, kill yourself, or grow.

I was forced to change.

I couldn’t die , I had kids.

I also couldn’t use. I had kids.

I had to do it. I had to have a complete mental revolution to

survive.

Basically I got in so much mind numbing fucking pain that I

blacked out life and went on auto pilot. For three months.

That became so excruciating to lie, and live in fear that I broke

down.

I stopped talking to women.

They were just telling me everything that article said and it

wasn’t helping . They were just telling me the lies. Over and over
again.

Yeah, he is an asshole and I’m the perfect grieving victim—but

the thing was- none of that shit was making me feel better.

Meanwhile staying with him started to burn..

It wasn’t working . Not for me.

I sat down with as many men that would let me and I told them
all I was gonna die if they didn’t tell me the truth.

I told them everything , every gory private detail in my head and

I asked them questions and I listened most of all. I gave myself
up. I cracked my chest open to them. I showed them everything
.. I told them about the whisper .. I dug so far into my truth that I
didn’t know it would have an end. I looked at all my selfishness ,
at everything I wanted out of that man that betrayed me. I
looked at all my self seeking behavior which was all that shit I
thought I was , all that shit that I did so I could tell myself I was
good enough. All that shit I did that I wore like a medal on my
arm. That made me proud. I looked at all the lies I told myself
about me. About him. About life. All the rules I created for us. All
the demands I made for us. Pretty much everything I thought
was true about everything turned out to be a lie. Because there
was no truth to feelings, to relationships. Everyone’s truth is
different. There is no moral authority that I could wave over
everyones head… and I used that moral authority to control
everyone around me. To make me feel safe.

I quickly realized that the thing I had been running from—my

loss of sexual vanity , my ego breaking into a thousand pieces
and crushed to dust—was exactly what I needed to embrace.

Why?
Because all of it was a fucking lie!!

Every part.

Every part of the love story I was told from birth. All the fairy
tales were bullshit. I wasn’t a princess and he wasn’t Prince
Charming. Everything I believed about women and men was
bullshit. Most importantly , about me. It was all bullshit. All of it
meant nothing.

I wasn’t a woman who wouldn’t get cheated on.

I was a woman who could and would get cheated on.

Humans were not capable of being perfect . They were not worth
my trust .

I put my whole entire self worth into the lap of a man. My self
esteem. I sat it there and told him to take care of it. Most people
think that is normal , and they live with the belief that because
you do that, people hold the responsibility to take care of it.
They never realize that the entire request is completely insane to
begin with.

Humans I can’t trust like that. I cant trust them to be anything

except human, which is deeply flawed and emotional creatures.
They will lie. They will cheat. They will hurt me. They can die.
They can leave. They can beat me . They can fire me. They can
betray me.

The biggest truth that I was avoiding was so simple . It came on

the heels of asking a human to take care of my heart.

I wasn’t good enough.

I wasn’t good looking enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t

good enough in bed. I wasn’t cool enough. I wasn’t a good
enough mother or friend. I wasn’t anything special.

I was just another woman.

Just another women who couldn’t make anyone do anything.

I learned from men that women have nothing to do with men

cheating on them. I learned hard realities about the minds of
healthy, virile men between the ages of 15–50. That they want to
fuck every attractive women they see. That they probably will if
they can get away with it. I learned that sex and love and
everything about us has vastly different meanings and purpose
in our lives . I learned that some men don’t feel guilt about
cheating because the sex is not emotional. Emotions, and sex are
two totally different animals to men. I learned that men are
totally different creatures than women. We don’t think the same.
We don’t lust the same . We don’t have anything in common.
Pretty much.

Most men I talked to estimated that between 85–95% of men

cheat. Some of them said that number would be 100% if the
10% could get laid.

Other men I talked to said that some men don’t cheat , but those
are guys that if they aren’t deeply religious , they have learned
somehow that cheating hurts. Because they have been through it
already and grew up from that experience .

And almost all of the men told me that the men I would date ?
Would be cheaters. Because I pick alpha males. Because I want
the top dog. Because I want the man that everyone wants.

I went through life up to that point , identifying myself with my

spouse. I wore them proudly on my arm.

See how cool I am, that I got this guy to be totally in love with me?
It was all about me, every relationship I ever had. It was my
statement to myself and the world.

Look Ma! I got a man to love me!

Essentially because I thought it meant something about me.

Who was I , if I wasn’t his wife ? If he didn’t want me? Who was I
if I was rejected ? Who was I if I couldn’t tame a man? Change a
man? Have a man fall in love with me?

My sexual vanity told me that I was too good ( in a nutshell) to

have a man cheat on me. That vanity had to go. I had to become
less. I had to become nothing special.

I am just another woman. There are millions of women who are

better than me. Better looking, better jobs, better cars, better
cooks, better in bed. Just better than me.

I had to drink that in. Soak it in.

I am not a special little snowflake. I am a raindrop . One

raindrop in a storm of raindrops.

I had to stop making relationships about my worth , and start

making them about really loving another person for who they
actually are, not how well they fit into my story.

I had to learn how to love people , without any ego attachment.

That meant that I came humbly to the table and became grateful
instead of demanding. I found my place, in relation to love. Love
is this powerful combination of many factors but when it is pure,
it is without any demands. It is without any expectations. It is
without any obligation, or guilt. It is without fear.

You allow people to be exactly who they are, and you in turn ,
are exactly who you are. When you do or say something, it is
completely autonomous . It is for free. When you give anything it
is because you want to. Not to get something back, or position
people. Not to set them up for a fall or trap. I began to see men
as people , and as gifts from the universe and my only purpose
really in relation to them was to make sure I sent them back
better than I found them.

The scary thing , of course, is that men are constantly lusting

after women. That meant to me in the past , that I could never
add up. That a man , if he was lusting after other women, I
would lose and I was so scared of losing.. of not being good
enough.

Again, essentially a completely selfish way to look at

relationships. And people.

It was also that there was no way to control men.

Once I learned the truth, it was a little devastating .. that men

were going to appreciate other women and think they would like
to fuck them and the killer was- there was no way to stop that.

I mean, I realized that I was subciously rooting out ways and

means to control, I wanted security essentially from my
relationships , I didn’t want to know that truth, and the cold
hard reality was—there is none. I wanted that security to keep
my fragile vanity and ego intact- because it was based on tinder
wood- shit that easily goes up in flames. Men were responsible
to make me feel secure as a woman. That’s insane. I sought that
control—through lies. Lies I told myself about relationships and
men and me and women , through the demands of those lies
being told- to myself , by myself. Men needed to reaffirm those
lies by acting the way I needed them to act. Saying the things i
wanted them to say. Doing the things that made great Instagram
posts.
A man who walked up to me and told me the truth, about his
mind? I would have laughed and told him he was a jerk off.

I wanted Prince Charming.

I wanted the lies .

Those lies were my flimsy life boat. On my ocean of control.

I replaced love with my own security and control of him.

And here is the real kicker- with real love ?

It’s basically the most venerable you will ever feel and be in your
life. You’re hanging out naked with your balls flapping in the
wind, and anyone can walk up and kick you. Right in the nuts.

Love is not tame.

Life is not tame.

What I realized is that I didn’t need it to be.

Once I realized there was absolutely nothing special about me,

that I was prime for rejection and betrayal? That I was just
another woman in the world with nothing special to offer
anyone—that’s when I realized that the only thing I really had to
give anyone was love.

My self worth became right sized—meaning it became based on

the reality about who I am, not the approval or rejection of other
people .

Everything changed at that point.

Accepting that people were not going to do what I wanted them

to do, that people would reject me, betray me, hurt me, it set me
free ironically.
I got free of so many strings , by that one incident , that looking
back, it’s probably one of the best things that ever happened to
me.

Cashing in on that hurt, that awful betrayal I suffered was

another way to control , was another way I ensured security,
emotional security.

As long as I was hurt and devastated he had to be what I needed.

He had to be the lie that I was stubbornly holding on to. About
Prince Charming.

But the lie about Prince Charming was just to support the lie
about me- which was the most important one . The lie that I was
the beautiful princess who was so “great” that she earned her
Prince.

So what had to happen?

-I had to leave him. My trust was destroyed. No matter personal

revelations or not, he lied. He lied a lot. I wasn’t responsible for
that. He was responsible for who he was. Lying like that, wasn’t
something i could cuddle up next to..

Basically instead of him being a terrible monster, I stopped being

able to love him the way he deserved to be loved.

I took ownership of my pain.

I needed to understand that there was a reason there was so

much betrayal in the world of relationships . It was, I thought ,
that people made bad choices , but I knew people well enough to
know that they did what they had to do. There wasn’t a whole
lot of room to be honest. So why was that?

Why was the thought of a man I loved sleeping with another

woman so threatening ?

My answer was laughable.

It was because I was afraid that she would be “better” than me.
Better body, better in bed. Better house, better kids. Better
clothes. Better job. Better hair. Better.

When you finally realize that you’re not special , and there is
really no competition because you’ve already lost , that stops
being something to be afraid of and becomes a sort of
expectation.

Ok so every other women is better than me. Or could be. Now

what?

Might as well really enjoy me, for me. Might as well enjoy
everyone for exactly who they are. The diversity I began to really
appreciate.. the unique beings that stood out from the crowd.
The ones that celebrated who they were , with a devout
commitment to be themselves and never compromise on that. I
stopped looking at what people appeared to be. Stopped caring
about vapid things like looks, and cars and houses and jobs and
history.. I started looking for people’s hearts and souls. I started
listening to their words. Hearing their purpose for themselves
and in the world. I looked for their footprint. What did they
leave behind? A trail of bodies ? Or beauty ? Did they stimulate
my mind? Did I feel alive around them? Did they teach me
something ?

I started seeing honesty as the highest virtue man could achieve.

Being authentic became of paramount importance to me. Not

just in me, but in the people I was around. That is all we had.
Truly all we had, was who we were.
Authentic human beings are not pretty. They are not nicely put
together packages. They are not living their lives appealing to
their egos or yours. They stand out. They resonate.

There is a freedom around authentic people that can’t be

described. Their emotions are not based on your approval or
rejection of them. Their emotional well being isn’t based on
what you do to them or around them. You can be completely
yourself and not worry. You can share your deepest secrets
within five minutes of meeting them and it’s not a big deal.
There is no fear and judgement.

My relationships changed. They became the most profound

events of my life. Conversations i have had with people became
highlights of my life. Not climbing a mountain. Or traveling to
Japan.

Just sitting at a coffee shop down the street , I experienced

moments with my heart exploding in joy and connection I never
thought possible. I learned things about me I never could have
seen, because I stopped being afraid of who I was , because I
wasn’t afraid of how you felt about me.

Loving me wasn’t about making me feel good anymore . It

became about recognition. Seeing me, for me. Seeing what was
different in me. Having the ability to understand me as I
understood myself and that takes a humility and selflessness on
your part.

Most of us are only looking in each other’s eyes to see our

reflection in them.

I wanted the man that looked in my eyes to see me.

What happened then was shocking .

I started to have the most passionate love affairs of my life. Love
affairs so intense and full of cathartic moments , so mentally and
emotionally stimulating that they were perversely wonderful ..
Beyond my wildest imagination. Relationships that were quiet.
No drama. Relationships that never changed our status on
Facebook. Never one picture posted on line. Relationships that
were magical. Life changing. Life altering. Connections so deep
you think you must have lived lifetimes together before.

In fact , my relationships started being more like what I had

imagined they were.

The real meat and potatoes is the unknown. It’s in what you
know after you think you know it all.

I didn’t realize it , but so many of my interactions with the

human race were basically just patting each other on the back.
Reintegrating our stories. Reassuring each other of our lies, our
fragile ecosystems based on approval and staying in that nice
warm comfort zone of emotional security.

To really connect with someone, you have to risk it all.

You must become willing to be hurt.

When humans are being authentic , it isn’t exactly pretty , but it

is beautiful.

Life is about learning who you are, why you are who you are and
forgiving yourself , and loving yourself anyways. Welcoming
your humanity. Adoring your faults and weaknesses. Accepting
your true place in the world.

It doesn’t matter if you are a super model and a billionaire. You

must realize you’re not that special. You’re nothing . You’re just
another human being and you’re only purpose here is to love
other human beings.

As long as our judgements of ourselves rest in other people’s

approval or rejection , we will continue to chase after empty
virtues, and vapid ideals .

We will ignore the real character building task of facing yourself

as you are , what selfish demands and ideals and beliefs fuel
your self seeking behavior to get people to behave in a way that
makes you feel emotionally secure..

We will keep trying to tell ourselves that we are in this race ,

never understanding that we are all just peddling faster and
faster on a stationary bike, never really going anywhere.. never
understanding that there is no race.

There is no better or worse.

We will continue to kill our insides , our authentic selves , to

matter outside of the real parameters of the authentic life.

Humans are pack animals. It’s in our biology. We need each

other . We need to connect with each other, to live fulfilled lives.
We need to be seen, and heard for who we truly are, not in our
service to each other’s egos.

When you let go of your ego, your fear leaves. There is nothing
you need to protect anymore. No one can hurt you anymore.

The more afraid a person is, the more emotionally reactive they
are , the more egotistical.

Accepting yourself as you truly are, good and bad, and having an
honest idea about how you affect the world around you and not
basing your self worth on approval or rejection is true humility.

Giving yourself permission to be free of other peoples ego

demands, giving yourself permission to be in love with who you
are, all of it. The bad and good. To not need other people for that
approval, to live fearlessly about who you are,

That is living. Really living.

*side note*

I post on medium for my kids. I am not trying to do medium the

way most people do. I am not a great writer.

It’s strange when other people, strangers , come to a space that

can’t hold them. Although I love reading all of you, I always feel
weird when I post on medium because I don’t want to give the
wrong idea that I’m doing this for any other reason. I am
grateful if you read me and that’s great if you enjoyed it. But this
is my way of leaving something permanent of myself for my
children for them to find , to hear my voice when I am gone, to
know my thoughts , and what I believed about life and love.

So… yeah. I know I suck at writing .. I guess maybe I don’t want

anyone to think I am being presumptuous in assuming you need
to hear this.

Haha..

Oh well. Whatever , right?