How Do You Trust Again After A Traumatic Breakup?
My ex did not cheat on me but he did withhold the truth and lied about a number of things. It was a shattering and traumatic breakup. It knocked me for a bit and hurt like hell. While I was in a relationship with him I trusted him, completely. I never doubted or questioned anything he said or told me. Now I question everything in our relationship because I discovered his lies post-breakup.
I questioned myself too.
What did I miss?
How did I not see his lies?
Why did I accept everything and not question his sometimes confusing behaviour that did not make sense?
Nothing felt real or good anymore. It felt like our entire relationship was one big lie.
What was true and what was a lie?
Was he telling the truth about anything? He could lie to me about wanting a future with me. This is a big thing, it's no small thing in my mind. He deluded me into thinking that our relationship had a long-term future. The first time he told me that he had doubts or “issues” with me was the night he broke up with me. Prior to this conversation he never raised a complaint or grievance in our relationship, and yet he was silently compiling a list of all my faults and wrongs which he then unleashed on me in one torrent of anger and abuse.
Shocked, I asked him where this was all coming from and why he was only telling me these things now when it was too late: when he had already decided to end the relationship. He couldn’t answer me. He clearly wanted the relationship to end because the alternative of discussing our issues and working through our problems was unbearable for him.
So he gave me the impression that everything was fine while he planned his escape.
I lived in a delusion for some time, a delusion created by him.
After he broke up with me, unexpectedly, I remember crying to my dad and saying, “ I feel like I have been living in a delusion for the past five years.”
My dad replied:
“you have, you were living in a delusion created by him.”
