Dear Paradoxy,

The more I talk to you, the more aware I become, the more broken I get

I am very sorry, Paradoxy. I was rather harsh, specially in my last post, because I was trying to break through the thick veil, where you still wanted to find excuses for her and ascribe her behavior to stupidity and naivete, rather than manipulation. I was trying to tell you: don’t you see?? she is fooling you! Get away!

But I am very sorry for what happened to you. Yes, she was manipulating you, and I actually found a “proof” that she was lying about the half-naked photo too. I’ll present it to you now, just in case she ever comes back claiming she was never lying and that it was all a “misunderstanding.”

So on March 20, in your first post, you wrote that she admitted (back when it happened, in Nov 2022) that the man in the photo is her ex, whom she briefly got back together with, since she still had feelings for him:

I confronted her when I realized she deleted it and she told me it was the ex that she still had feelings for, and it happened on the day after that we broke up from the decision that its better to not date at all. Obviously I was hurt and I broke up with her in that moment of pain but then I decided to take her back on the technicality that we were still broken up when this happened, so I cannot accuse her of cheating. She got forgiveness on a technicality.

So basically she admitted to having slept with him, but you forgave her since on that particular day you were broken up, right?

But then a few days ago, on April 9, you said that she later gave you a different explanation of the photo:

She said that on the day she took the picture and video with her ex, she was actually in her towel with her ex’s sister who was removing her braids but when she got busy, the ex’s sister told the ex to remove the braids for her and so she just allowed him to remove her braids for her. Keep in mind that she was naked, but she had the towel wrapped around her body so her naked body is not visible to her ex.

So now, according to this version, she claimed that she didn’t sleep with her ex, but that he was only helping her with her braids.

So when the half-naked photo was originally taken, sometime in November 2022, she admitted she slept with the guy in the photo. Only you didn’t know at the time that this guy was also living with her, as her housemate. But then a year later, when you found out that the guy in the photo is actually her housemate ex, she told you a different story: that she didn’t sleep with him, but that he was only helping with her braids.

In other words, she was lying…

You probably forgot what she said a year ago, and so when she came up with this new explanation, in which she presented herself as innocent, you believed her. And she got away with a lie.

I can imagine there were more examples like that. You actually said it yourself that you don’t remember exactly what happened more than a year ago, which is only normal:

the issue is I don’t know the exact dates of her “cheating” and she said she doesn’t remember and since it has been more than a year, even my memory is not that accurate.

I found another example, related to the prostitution case, where you in recent days remembered the events more favorably for her than what you stated in your first posts, some 3 weeks ago. Perhaps as you were arguing about these events in recent days and weeks, she was coming up with new versions of the story, different than what she told you even 3 months ago.

So it seems to me that she was twisting the story all the time – to make it more favorable for herself – and you couldn’t follow it any more. And you wanted to believe her, and so you did.

Anyway, I hope that you see now that she wasn’t innocent and oblivious, but unfortunately wanted to deceive you.

Now everything feels fake. What if every moment we had was manipulated? What if all the happy moments I had were fake? What if I was being used the entire time? The realization is breaking me. I want to cry.

I hear you, Paradoxy.  She was fake, I mean she wasn’t honest with you. She might have liked you, but she had her own demons and her own crooked ethics, which she learned from her aunt and probably the rest of her family too. That’s not an excuse at all – so please don’t see it as an excuse and a reason to reconcile. Because she did hurt you immensely.

But it is a lesson, a learning experience, as you say. And you had this important lesson early in your life, at only 19. If you learn from it and heal what needs to be healed, you can have a much healthier relationship sometime down the line.

You can still find a loving and caring woman to be your wife. But in order to do that, you’ll need to do two things: 1) heal the emotional wounds from your childhood, and 2) update your view about women – get rid of the false beliefs.

But what now? I have no one. Not my parents. Not my friends. I am just all alone. Like I was, once before. My suffering is all for me to bear.

Dear Paradoxy, I hear you, people on this forum hear you. You are not alone. And also, it would be important to have someone with whom to release and process your emotions. Please talk to a counselor, if you’ve got one at college.

I want to cry. I want to release my pain but I have exams and other things to worry about. In a week, I will be traveling to my parents’ place again and I cannot show them my grief cause they will ask questions.

Your urge to cry is understandable. You do need to cry it all out. But you’re right, it wouldn’t be good to show it in front of your parents, because you’d probably only get judgment and scolding from them. They would hurt you even more. So no, don’t show your pain to them. But show it to someone you can trust. Perhaps to the close friend of yours, whom you confided in about your fights with B?

But the best would be to express it to a counselor. Because they are professionals, they know how to “hold you” and contain you as you express your pain.

You don’t have to be alone in this, not this time. You were alone and helpless as a child, but now you can help yourself, by seeking people who can understand and who can help you. A counselor, primarily. And it’s good that you reached out here too, baring your soul, even though it wasn’t easy.

I feel like God gave me this experience to teach me to be careful what I should wish for.

Well, I believe you had this experience to learn and heal, as I said above. Please don’t use it to make false conclusions, neither about yourself nor about women in general. You can come out of this a new man, a healed man, who is ready for a healthy and a truly nurturing relationship. So use this opportunity for good: for growth and for healing.

I am here, if you need to talk. I have more things to say, but I’ll stop for now. I hope to hear more from you, as you start a new phase.

I know it’s hard, it’s excruciating to have your dreams crushed like that. But you know, what you had with her was a house built on sand. Now you need to build it on a solid rock… and as I said, that requires healing…