Dear lostcloud,

You’ve been burnt badly by someone who you thought would never hurt you, regardless of the red flags, so your reality took a nosedive. From tentatively, possibly good romantic relationship to the worst case scenario of lies and your (ex)boyfriend cheating on you. That would shake anyone’s world and it is extremely difficult to wrap your head around it because he was your boyfriend, someone you believe wouldn’t have the desire to hurt you. And it probably wasn’t the image he painted for you at the beginning of your dating phase. But gradually, those who has the itch to cheat will eventually show their true colors by actually cheating.

Bad news though? Cheaters tend to be incredibly charming. So charming, in fact, that they’ll be able to convince you to stay with them because they need you, they love you, you’re their world, they can’t live without you, etc. And they do a good job of acting out the ‘woe is me, the world is sucking the soul of me’ and you might be the only person to understand them, etc. Those kind of acts and words tend to compel you to stay because he knows what button to push that will get into your head. What words to say to convince you that you’re the only one for him. Actions that will keep you hook onto the relationship. So he’ll keep acting and acting until he finally convinces you that everything is okay, he still loves you and want to continue your relationship. The act goes on and on until he gaslighted you so much that you stay stuck in a relationship that makes you do really unhealthy things, like checking the messages in his phone when he’s not looking. But you do it because you want to ascertain that he love you as he proclaim. So yeah, he was really good at gaslighting you; spinning stories that convinces that bad isn’t so bad. Until it really is.

Now that you’ve broken up, you want justice for the pain he inflicted you on. That’s why you keep thinking about him, you want him to face the consequences of his actions. And that’s totally normal, because he had hurt you by choosing to cheat on you and now label you a psycho path with his charming ability to tell good stories. Yes, he is very good at charming people to be his allies. He had told lies about you, which you really want to correct because it’s untrue. You’re feeling vindictive about the affair because you were hurt by someone you were intimate with and it’s difficult to move on from that. So now you want closure. But closure is a myth in that your ex will one day wake up and see how his past actions has hurt people and will now try to make amends to those people. The world does not work that way, regardless of what you want. People who are selfish will continue to be selfish until they met with epiphany that they are a jerk, but whether that compels them to change their attitude is another different matter. Even when a person know they are selfish, doesn’t mean they won’t relish in their selfish behavior. You can’t change that and when you do try to change someone, it’s an exercise in futility. People change when they choose to change, no sooner.

Now, it was not your fault that your ex cheated. He chose to hurt you by cheating because that is how he chose to operate, not because you were a bad person or anything. He was simply that kind of person, his choice had nothing to do with you. So let yourself feel all the rage and disappointment and pain from that betrayal. Let yourself grieve for a loss relationship. No matter how bad, a loss is a loss, it’ll hurt no matter who is was. Then you surround yourself with people who does care about your well being, let yourself be reminded that there are people who will hold your hands to remind you of human warmth. That not all relationship must be broken, that you have caring relationships with other people.

Then you keep going, one step at a time. It’s not easy, but if you keep holding yourself up while taking care of yourself, you might be able to laugh about this one day in the future.

Take care of yourself.