Completely Numb Right Now

[VincenzoG91]

A little while ago, I got a knock on the door. I answered the door, and a grim-faced guy introduced himself as Amy's fiancé.

I've been dating Amy since August of 2003, so my jaw dropped.

He went on to hand me a receipt and thanked me for being such a nice landlord to her, for helping her with a minor car repair recently, and watching her cat while she was on vacation. He continued to say stuff for several minutes, while my mouth was hanging open in shock.

Then I asked him if he was joking.

I told him that Amy and I had been dating since 2003, and I asked her to marry me last January. She turned me down in February and moved out, but we got back together in March. He told me that he had been dating Amy since 2005 and that they got engaged last year. Their new house is nearly finished and they are preparing to move soon. They have been living together since last February, which is when she moved out of my place.

He also knew some other details, like where she is going to college, the name of her cat that died in '09, stuff like that. Still in shock, feeling insanely rational, I commented that if what he was telling me was true, than she has been lying to both of us for the last five years. Especially 2007-2009, when she was living with me. We exchanged numbers, and he asked me to hold off calling her for a while, so he could go home and try to get her to volunteer the truth. My neighbor from the apartment next door got home from work early in our conversation, so he overheard the part about this guy being her fiancé, so as soon as the guy left, he came over with a beer for me and offered to talk. We talked for a couple of hours, and then I suddenly felt hot and sick... no, it wasn't the beer, I only drank half of it, and I'm far from a lightweight.

I tried to call Amy just now, but she didn't answer. I texted her to say that I met Craig and we had an interesting talk.

I still feel stunned, but I also feel sick to my stomach. This is a massive betrayal, if true.

As I told my neighbor, Craig's story didn't make sense in one important respect. Why would he drive at all the way over here from Minneapolis just to give an ex-landlord a receipt? I think that he got suspicious and snooped either her text messages or emails, then came over here to find out who I was. But it's possible that he is a stalker who rifled her purse or something.

No, he's probably more or less honest about this situation. There were odd things about Amy, like the way that I never got to know her friends or family very well, and had only seen one of her friends in the last few years. Or the way that she was always busy with family around the holidays, or the way she always seemed to end up picking up a work shift on Valentine's Day night.

I guess that I'm just a fool.

When the reality sinks in, I'm going to crash hard. I tend to lose a pound a day when I'm depressed, due to extreme loss of appetite. I won't sleep well either, and then there will be the anger. For several years now, I've been giving her five hundred a month in cash to help her out with credit card bills.

[red_sparrow]

holy

shit

[red_sparrow]

how does the numbness feel? can you feel your body? i have friends who get so numb they can't even feel their bodies..

[misombra]

Wow. I'm sorry vinny. That is some suck ass shit right there.

[Cao Pi]

Damn it.. I'm sorry.

That's about as low as anyone can get.

[vashti]

oh my god, you must be so devastated.

[VincenzoG91]

how does the numbness feel? can you feel your body? i have friends who get so numb they can't even feel their bodies..

For the first couple of hours, it was like something bad happened to a fictional character in a book that I was reading, except that I vaguely grasped that it was me. Then I started to feel hot and nauseous. I've been trading texts with Craig, but now I feel dizzy and very tired, so I'm going to sleep.

[xxazurexx]

Cheating in any form is wrong, but that has got to be the lowest of the low.

How she has been able to sleep at night, I don't know.

I'm figuring Craig may be feeling the exact same way as you are. He no doubt was oblivious to the fact you existed either.

[ashley89]

what the ****...............................

[xxazurexx]

how does the numbness feel? can you feel your body? i have friends who get so numb they can't even feel their bodies..

Yes, you can still feel your body.

It's more a feeling that it's happening to someone else, rather than yourself.

It's like the initial feeling you get, when someone really close to you dies.

[RockNRoll]

Hope you'll get through this hell as strong as possible!

[VincenzoG91]

My best friend back called at 11:30, and we talked for two hours, which was great. Then I tried to go to sleep.

Can't sleep. Mind racing, reconstructing a new timeline of events for the last seven and a half years, factoring in Craig's info. The information that he has been volunteering has nicely filled in several missing puzzle pieces that have been bugging me for years.

Before anyone judges me too harshly, there are at least three reasons why I was blind for so long, so ready to accept even odd answers to reasonable questions:

1. My previous girlfriend was a meth addict who lied and stole from me repeatedly. I felt sorry for her and her kids, so I kept forgiving and she kept stealing, every six months roughly. She finally did a year in prison, got cleaned up and started her life over, but I lost touch with her years ago. Anyway, I had serious trust issues after that relationship. I met Amy less than a year after breaking up with ex once and for all.

2. There was a specific incident that made me extremely paranoid about eight months after Amy and I started dating, that me think that she was cheating on me with a lesbian. I confronted her when she got back to my place at 5:30 AM, but she had an ironclad alibi. A friend of hers landed in the hospital the previous night, and she and said friends had spent a sleepless night in the waiting room at the hospital. Without making any phone calls, we headed straight to the hospital where I met a half-dozen bleary-eyed friends who were surprised that she came back so soon after going home to sleep. So I felt like a huge jerk, especially since I had called her the c-word, and from then on, I always erred on the side of trusting her word.

I can't remember the third reason right now, because I'm tired, really tired. But I can't sleep either. I will probably remember it later.

No need to yell at me about refusing to take her back. Normally, I'm big on confrontations and getting everything out in the open, but I don't see any point to talking to such a monstrous liar. There is a chance that she might finally come clean, but it's more likely that she will lie to make herself look innocent. Especially if Craig calls off the engagement and dumps her. Maybe he won't dump her, he caught her cheating once years ago (and not with me!) and managed to forgive her. But he thought it would be a good idea for both of us to get tested for STDs, because he said that he was suspicious of two other guys that she hangs out with these days. He found my address and name by snooping through her purse, where he found a receipt for a car repair of hers that I scheduled and paid for last month. And when he confronted her about why some other guy was paying for her car repairs, she told him that I was her ex-landlord, a really nice old man who felt sorry for her. He was still suspicious, so he drove over to meet me. The other two guys he found out about recently, too, because her class schedule seemed too variable last semester, so he showed up a few times to check on her there, and found her hanging out with one or the other of these guys each time.

So yeah, I'm not actually stupid or crazy or desperate enough to take her back. Knowing that the last five years (or even seven) have been a big lie... I'm done with her. I loved her, but I was loving a lie.

[Aniphilia]

Kinda makes you want to pull your hair out huh? I am right there with you. But the forces I am up againts are not so obvious at all. I am assuming you will never talk to her again? I am wondering if I will even want to be friends with my ex. I am not making contact so its up to him and we shall see if I feel like responding. So we are sailing in the same sort of sea, you and I. And I hope you are feeling better tonight. Shit, I cant even be alone in my own home to process in private. Please take care of yourself though. Her karma will come back three fold is my belief and she will be miserable. HELL, shes already miserable, you have to be to do that sort of thing.

Be well and trust your process

[xxazurexx]

It helps to talk about it, get it off your chest off a bit.

I don't think you need explain and to anyone why you think you were so blind for so long.

It sounds like cheating is something she has been doing from the very start and all of these little outings to her parents, working differing shifts, etc is something she did from the start. How would you know she is and was cheating, if she was doing nothing differently and from the start? The first sign someone is cheating, is that their usual routine changes.
When we live with someone for a long period of time, we get used to their routine and we know their routine. And if this pattern changes, it gives cause to suspect that something isn't right. One of my first signs that my ex H was cheating, is that he started going out at night with a friend....something he'd never done in the whole ten years I was with him. He'd go out to the pubs through the day, never at night. He also began making excuses to go out at evening, ie: he was helping a friend move some furniture and similar reasons. One night he didn't come home at all. Said he'd been banged up in a police station all night for fighting - total and utter lies. There's other stuff, but the thread isn't about me....

But still, I overlooked this change in his regular pattern and because I thought he'd never cheat on me. Cheating was something that happened to other people, it wouldn't happen to me.....I'd trusted him TOTALLY!

I guess it just goes to show that even though we think we know our partners, we never 100% know them or can be sure of them.

You aren't the first, you sure as heck won't be the last.

And best thing is, you DO get over it.

[BeingAlpha]

Wow man -- this is utterly horrible. I would tell you that its going to be okay but the sheer magnitude of how this is going to impact you is not going to take its grip for a few days and months. I recommend you take out your phone delete her number, log into your email account and delete everything that you ever sent or received from her. Normally I wouldn't say delete pictures from your HD -- but in this severe of a betrayal I think you need to wipe your memory of this person and that includes wiping your HD of her.

DO NOT answer any phone email, etc.. there is nothing that can be said to explain this, if she cares for you at all she will simply just NEVER contact you again...but shes selfish so I can already expect that you will get some sort of contact -- I would create a block rule on email right now. If your cell provider has it I would also create a block there. You DO NOT want to hear from her -- it might give you self affirmation but it won't be worth the emotional cost.