The Cruelty is the Part I Will Never Understand

I cannot even guess how many times I asked her to just tell me the truth. No matter how she thought I might react or how bad the things she did were, I just wanted the truth. I'm an open-minded person and as such I don't necessarily believe that monogamy is the only healthy relationship philosophy. If I find someone I love enough to commit to, I know I can be monogamous, but if there is something else they feel they need I'm not completely opposed to it.

However, there is one big caveat to all of this. The only way this can work is with complete honesty. And this is where our story gets twisted. It's the part I still struggle with. After finding numerous sexual messages between her and other guys in texts and on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, I flat out asked two questions, 1) do you want to be with me?, and 2) do you want an open relationship? Her emphatic answers were "Yes!" and "No!" in that order. After eventually finding out she was, in fact, cheating on me, the cruelty in these two answers is what still lingers. 

If she knew she was going to keep cheating, why didn't she just say she didn't want to be with me? If she knew she still wanted to explore other things outside of our relationship, why couldn't she just say she wanted an open situation? After all this time, the only thing I can think is that the thrill was in the lies.

​The things that turned her on the most were the thrill of lying or watching my devastation every time I caught her. Either she liked getting away with something and didn't care how it affected me or she liked getting caught and enjoyed witnessing my emotional destruction. I still don't know if it was narcissistic pleasure or psychopathic torture.

I left the door open. I was willing to give her anything she wanted in exchange for honesty. I was willing to adjust my own personal vision of a loving relationship to suit her needs and it still wasn't enough to stop her from lying as she stared straight into my eyes. At any point, she could have given me reprieve by just saying she wanted out or she wanted to be non-monogamous. But at every turn, she chose to lie and it only prolonged my suffering.

I have tried so many times to put myself in her shoes, to try to examine all of my faults (and there are many) to try to understand how it was possible to tell those lies. I just can't get a grasp on it. No part of me can imagine staring into another person's eyes time after time while they begged for me to be honest, only to say something I knew wasn't true. Maybe once I could convince myself it wouldn't happen again but by the second, third, and fourth times I would know all I'm doing is damaging the other person. I think she knew she was damaging me, so I'm left to wonder why she didn't stop. 

Believing the person you loved was sick enough to hurt you for her own enjoyment is a fucking mind trip. It is not something you just "get over", as so many people advised me to do. I hate that it has been over 5 years and I still have no desire to start dating again. If I could have gotten over it by having a bunch of one night stands, I would have gladly done it (I have in the past). This was different. This was walking away from someone who I did still love because I realized her intent wasn't love. It was destruction and I'll never understand why she wanted to do that to me.