Slices of Life: I had a destructive affair

A fragile little thing after a destructive affair lasting almost 5 years, with a work colleague no less, the height of stupidity with a capital C, 

I dove into it wholeheartedly (and completely), even if it meant sinking even lower than what I thought I was worth at the start.

2 years of psychotherapy that had started off well, several issues that we had identified and which were slowly starting to bear fruit, fell through...PLOUF, NOTHING, NADAAA! 

To put things in context and gauge the state I was in when I first tried to get serious about apps, I was like a soggy mop that had been sitting in a corner for too long.

Lost several kilos (a blessing in disguise for me, who had a pair of saddlebags and slightly prominent thighs that I had been hiding under long T-shirts for years)

It's crazy not to have seen yourself lose that weight, see your body change, float in certain clothes. It took a few comments from my colleagues telling me that I had melted for me to finally see it for real

I didn't even realize that I was no longer eating properly and in very small quantities.

Have you ever experienced this inexplicable attraction, stronger than a simple physical, like magnets, psychic, uncontrollable, invisible and so destructive? (which comes like a tidal wave on you, you do not see the wave coming).

This famous wave took me through a range of emotions, from the most joyful to the darkest.

Like a drug that I had to learn to wean myself off of every day that passed.

This person managed to easily find my flaw, which was my low self-esteem, and played on it happily throughout this time, at his disposal, all the while continuing to live his life peacefully with the one who is now his wife, without questioning his actions or the harm he could do to me.

Or to act like a Calimero to make me lower my guard every time he did something really dirty to me, something stupid, a notable lack of respect, reducing me to a status of less than nothing.

Obviously, a few years later, after finally getting out of it, finally having the necessary perspective on the situation, and above all no more romantic feelings (did I really ever have any or was it just an unhealthy addiction that I was clinging to) for this person, I finally see clearly in all the events that occurred.

It's as if a gray veil has finally lifted from before my eyes and I'm learning to see properly again, like a visually impaired person discovering colors and shapes for the first time.

Before this story, even if this low self-esteem has always been an intrinsic part of me, I lived small, non-serious stories, since my breakup with my great childhood love, which remains to this day my most beautiful story.

So, when I met him, I didn't have much of an opinion about him, we quickly became friends over the phone, it was fluid right away, without it being seduction or anything else, very good-natured, in any case, for me it was.

Moreover, we had never met before, not being physically in the same premises as me. Sometimes I wonder if he had not joined the same workplace as me, if that could have made it easier for me to leave.

As if locked in a golden prison. He wove his web more easily.

During the first months, barely seeing each other even if our discussions became more personal, going from professional emails to personal ones then exchanging numbers to continue by text messages, it remained fluid and good-natured. I did not ask myself the question if I liked him because I did not know anything but the discussion was so easy, we were both teasing so it worked well.

He had suggested that we go for a drink when our work allowed us more time (working on a TV show, our work demanded a lot of time from both of us)

I admit that maybe a month and a half to two months must have passed before I met him again at the office, and this glass story suddenly came back to me, I had totally forgotten about it personally, very busy in my life at that time.

This is where I understand that he thought that I wasn't interested and where he tells me that he met someone recently so it's more complicated for the drink before coming back on what he had just said by implying that a drink doesn't cost anything after all.

I think I was still in the dark at the time about how I saw him, I liked him, we laughed a lot but it was virtual since we had never really seen each other except in a corridor for 2 minutes at work.

I think that very naively and I totally understand it today, when our exchanges and all this really started, I told myself that since it was fresh with his girlfriend, and that he knew me more and that I interested him too, he was going to leave her for me and that we could get to know each other outside of work.

Me and my need to prove to myself that I am worthy and more interesting in all its glory!

This is how I let myself fall into my own trap, feelings having developed quickly for him, and no longer being able to get out of this unhealthy relationship, continuing to live my relationship as a couple on the side

Every time one put an end to it all, the other came back to the charge in a certain way, like magnets really, the image is exactly that.

So I spent 4 years in this situation, being relegated again and again to the background, being the other woman who shares nothing more than occasionally, a bed with this person but no daily activities.

Despite working with my therapist who helped me see why I was so attached to this situation and to him, where this low self-esteem came from, which made me attach myself to him like a lifeline, like a shell to its rock, it was not enough to get me out of all this.

It took my expatriation project to Canada to finally get rid of him, not having seen him since, it's now been more than 4 years.

And no, I didn't leave because of/for him, he was no longer in my company the last few months before I left, it would have ended up having the same effect if I had stayed. At least I convinced myself of that even if I think that the need for a change of scenery was becoming more and more pressing, the need to prove to myself that no, I'm not stagnating in the same place, same situation 4 years later while he during all this time built his life and even got married along the way.

But even if at the beginning, it was not totally unrelated to my decision to go and live in Montreal, I do not regret my choice today to have taken the plunge.

4 years later, having lifted the veil on this unhealthy relationship, I know that I will no longer lower myself to such disrespect:

• I will no longer let a man take advantage of my feelings just for his own personal pleasure.
• I would never let a man stop in the middle of a sexual relationship, and even have the nerve to tell me "We don't have to reveal everything, it's just a little preview" , get dressed and go home before going into radio silence for the next two weeks.
• I will never let a man come on to me again, very concretely, with his girlfriend waiting for him at home.
• I would not let a man stand me up again without explanations or messages of apology (which did not hold water, playing on the supposed serious illness of his father who would not have much longer to live, moral he was still alive 5 years after these remarks...)
• I will never let a man hold a grudge against me or " to reproach " of not being available at the right time when he has a free evening
• I would no longer let a man make fun of me and disrespect me so much when I realize that after his separation from his girlfriend at the time, in fact he had gotten back together a few months ago, discovering it on social networks

            And that when I put him on the spot, he will find nothing better to do than tell me "So what? I wasn't going to stay single all my life."

• I will no longer be the girl who is the last to find out that Monsieur is getting married in 3 weeks in the corridor at work, and not from the person concerned.

IN SHORT, I would stay away from settled/married/polyamorous men and so on, basically problem guys.

I can see you rolling your eyes from here, thinking, but poor girl, it took you all those experiences with him to realize that he was making fun of you and just wanted his cake and eat it too!

Well yes, we don't believe it until we've experienced it, but love makes us blind (well in my case more emotional dependence), makes you put blinders on what you don't want to see and which seems obvious from the outside. I can't explain it, but what also pushed me into it was that my intuition told me that he didn't completely care about me, that he really liked me even if it wasn't love.

Because you don't stay in this kind of relationship for years if it's just for sex, although he's the only one who has the answer. And I finally managed to put this difficult page of my life behind me.

So everything ends up passing, even when you can't see any way out of it, even if it can take years, and then one day another man chases another and you realize that you can live something else and your blinders fly apart.