Basement

Draft from 02/07/25

There’s always been a secret in the basement. Dirty, ugly, unseen, slithering beneath our bed, hiding. Always hiding.

To wake up every day next to someone you love, someone you want to share your life with, your failures and your wins, make your own family with, support forever… when that person tells you that they have had a secret life behind your back, whether that be sexual or an addiction or whatever - it’s like your entire world is blown up and everything you thought you knew is no longer.

And then you forgive that person and choose to move on. And then you get worried sometimes and you ask them if it’s happening again and they say “of course it’s not! How could you think that!?!” and then you start to think something is wrong with YOU because YOU must be crazy, of course they’re not doing it, they learned their lesson they wouldn’t do it again!

And then eventually you find out that they were lying and you can’t trust your intuition anymore. You can’t trust yourself OR them. What do you even have left?

They promise that they can change and they ask for one last chance. Alright. You give them that chance, and an entire year passes and so much love and memories and happiness and you almost completely trust them again and you’re so happy you went against your better judgement and you gave them this chance! 

But alas - this time they even went a few steps further, and the world that you rebuilt brick by brick has now collapsed, and it’s crushing you, it’s crushing your ribs and your spine and your legs and you can’t run and you can’t breathe you’re just broken and crying and they just shrug and say “leave me then.”

And you want to want to. But you don’t want to. You don’t. You love them and you’ve build so much over the years but they are promising different things this time and they are committing to things they never have before. They are taking it more seriously, but what if - what if this is just another thing to look back on in a years time and regret falling for? What if this is just another nail in the coffin of the inevitable disappointment?

It hurt like hell to rebuild that world together, those bricks were heavy, and now they’re on top of you and you don’t have the energy to get up. It’s just not that easy this time. Too much has happened.

And he’s standing there, begging you to help him rebuild. “I can’t do it myself!” He barks. But you’re bleeding. And you’re hurt. And sometimes you get angry when you’re hurt because you just don’t know where this energy to rebuild is supposed to come from this time. You found it last time, and the time before, and the time before that, but this time is harder. Where is it?!?!? You can’t find it so easy this time. But he is sensitive, and he’s hurting that you’re not helping him, and you’re hurting that he’s not helping you. Stale mate.

You need more help this time. And the only person that can help you is him. Because why should you believe it’s different this time? There have been so many times. There have been SO many times.

You need him to come over to you, even if you are angry, and hold your face in his hands and let you know that everything really is going to be okay this time. You need him to help stitch and dress your wounds, even if you squirm and kick and resist. You need him to stay calm and strong and stoic - a man who knows what he has done, takes responsibility for it and knows how to fix it. But he doesn’t.

You need to know that the secret life he has had, the secret version of himself he has kept hidden, is not hidden anymore. You need to know that he has integrity. You need to know that he respects you enough to be honest even about the hard things. Even about the things that will hurt. But he doesn’t.

At the very least, you need to be able to be worried sometimes, and ask questions, and ask for reassurance, and be afraid it’s all happening again and be supported in your fears. Maybe you’re even mean sometimes but it comes from a place of fear, and have him know it. Have him hold you and tell you that your fears are valid, but they’re not true. It’s not happening. It won’t happen again. But he doesn’t.

You want it to work because you see this man - he’s almost 28 now but he was only 23 when you met - and he’s grown so much as person. He knows how to do silly fun better than the rest. He’s made you feel sexy in your mid-30s even though you have gained weight and don’t feel it at all. He’s embraced your family. He would do anything for your niece. He has an awesome family himself. He’s from a beautiful part of the world but chooses YOUR beautiful part of the world. You want it to work because you truly love him, and know you could love him at 50, at 60, at 80. You know you could still love him then. 

Could he still love you? Maybe. 

But could he love you the way you need him to? Could he make you feel seen, and appreciated, and cared for, and loved, and understood? Could you decide together rebuild your world, brick by brick all over again, and have it stand the test of time?

Could you feel like it’s the two of you against the world, or will there always be something beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered? Will there always be a secret in the basement? Hiding. Always hiding. 

August, and Everything After

 I can tell you one thing for free. Never in a million years, did I imagine that I would be two weeks out from my 35th birthday, single, childless, never married, don't own any property.
Never in a million years, did I imagine that I would spend four years with somebody who apparently I never really knew at all. Never in a million years, did I think that I would invite somebody into my life, my family, my world - defend them viciously to anybody who could see the red flags that I was avoiding, make excuses for them to those that just didn't understand him, encourage him to grow, forgive him for his mistakes and short-comings, give chance after chance, again and again, knowing full well that he would do it again. And he did. But the biggest lie of all - the real cherry-on-top of the whole ugly saga, is that he lied to me about who he was.
Because this person, this man, that I was with for four years - he is gone. I don't recognise this person any more. The way he has treated me in the end truly is a force to be reckoned with, in the sense that I have never seen anybody single-handedly bring down their entire life and then turn around and try and blame it on me.
Despite all his downfalls, I still stood by this man - and that's the real lesson here. Why did I feel like I needed to stay? After the first lie? The second? The twelfth? Why did I continue to cling onto this man, hoping for the best, believing him when he said he would do better, encourage him to get the help he needed, praise him for every new win. That's my lesson to learn. What is it within me that doesn't feel good enough, that I had to settle for the absolute bare minimum?

Why did we fight over meaningless things like who was taking out the rubbish and who was cooking dinner? I know the answer to that now. He was constantly in a state of anxiety, wondering when the next argument would come, and for some reason I just couldn't put my finger on why I felt the need to argue with him. Why did it matter who cooked? Why did it matter when we took out the rubbish? I know why, now. Because I never trusted him. Because every time he would forget, or refuse, or spin something - I knew. I knew that he wasn't actually going to change, that no change that ever came from this man would be anything other than temporary. The fights were just my inner-dialogue coming out, screaming to be heard. "You deserve better than this! He can't make you happy! He may love you, but he can't love you in the way that you need him to! Leave him!"
But I ignored the voice, not only because I truly loved him - because I did - but also because for some reason, I didn't want to start over again. I wanted to twist, and bend, and break - hang on tooth-and-nail to the very end, to prove to myself... what exactly? That I was worthy of a future that I wanted and I was going to make it happen with this man. Even if it killed me, I was going to force the future that I wanted with this man. I know logically that this is unhealthy - I know that this isn't sustainable. And it wasn't, obviously.

I told him once, that throughout all the lies and betrayal we had experienced in our time together, it started to feel impossible to fix. And I think he knew it too. I told him that the first time he lied, it was like he came to me with a broken plate and asked me if I thought we could fix it. I said "Sure! We can fix it! Just a little glue and it'll be good as new!" But then a few months later, he came back to me with that same plate again, and it was broken again. We glued it back together again and kept using the plate. Until one day, finally, he came to me with shards and dust and I just didn't even know where to begin. How do you turn shards and dust back into a usable plate again? He believes he had figured it out by then - how to be honest, how to stop being afraid of his truth - but I was still cutting my fingers on the pieces that I was trying to put back together. And he never really helped me. He belittled me, he judged me, he got frustrated with me that I didn't know how to repair it. He would say, "Well, I'm doing the work now! You should just be able to forgive me and move on! Let's just fix this for real this time and it'll all be better!" But how was I to know that it was real this time? After years of hard times, lies and betrayals, how was I to know that truly letting go of the pain and the anguish and the resentment was going to get me anything other than what it had been getting me year after year. 

I don't know how to be alone. I've never been alone. I've gone from relationship to relationship for my entire adult life. The longest single period that I've ever had was only about two years. And even then, I was looking for validation in every attractive-enough man that I came across. Why can't I just validate myself? I'm more than happy to spend days alone - sleep in as long as I want, go for a walk, get breakfast, take myself to the nursery, have a nap in the afternoon - I love those days. But I only seem to love them when I know that there is somebody out there that loves me, that is my person.
And now I'm 35, that clock is ridiculously loud, and it's ticking in my ear and I can't even take all that much time to be alone. I don't really want to, either. I want to find my person, I like sharing my life with somebody. It feels like it's just how I'm built. But I don't know if that is okay - I am not sure if I seek out partnership for the right reasons.

I know that I haven't been perfect. I self-sabotaged the relationship a lot in the end, relying on unhealthy coping mechanisms to self-medicate and see myself through, to not have to FEEL the things that I didn't want to feel. To give myself the liquid courage that I felt I needed to speak my truth. And ultimately, that was the downfall of the entire thing. I just could not let it go, and I think I knew in my heart of hearts that he simply wasn't ever going to be the man I needed him to be, so what do you do when you feel like that? You self-medicate, you avoid, you keep on keeping on. 

And now I'm 34, and overnight, I have been left in the wreckage of the life we built together, barely hanging on by a thread emotionally and financially, and this man has just moved on with his life. 
The real tragedy here is the years that I will never get back by choosing to trust somebody who showed me time and time again exactly who he was and allowing myself to stay in that situation. Even in the end, he showed me exactly who he was - just a selfish, self-absorbed person who didn't have the decency to show any support at the demise of our relationship. Someone who still refuses to take accountability for the madness, for the financial, for the sake of our four years together. For the sake of his ability to look at himself in the mirror. For the sake of anything at all. 

I say that the biggest lie of all is that he lied to me about who he was. But he didn't, really. He was a figment of my imagination, and he had been telling me so all this time. I just wasn't listening.