At some point, I asked myself several times if it was even worth it, until the last straw broke the camel’s back.
We met in school in 2019. He reached out to me on my family anniversary, and we got talking. I was super single at the time, and all the conversations, the sitting out, and spending time together made me fall in love with him. After about four months of being great friends, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes.
A few weeks into the relationship, the drama started.
As naive as I was, and as someone who hadn’t been in a relationship before, hearing him say “she’s just my fuck-mate” was insane to me. But that was exactly what he said after I caught him cheating, with his next-door neighbor. I asked him, if you know you are still involved with this girl, why did you ask me out in the first place?
He claimed he’d told her he was now in a proper relationship and that whatever they had was over. And somehow, I believed him. This guy would literally get on his knees and cry to apologize. My soft heart would take him seriously every single time. So yes, I forgave him, and we moved on.
But just days later, I was lying on his chest while he video-called her. They did really nasty things on the call. He thought I was asleep, but my sensitive ears don’t sleep. I could hear everything, her soft moans and all.
One day, I ran into her on the staircase when I came to visit. She gave me a slow and condescending look from my head to my toes first, then flirted with him in a very obvious manner. He said nothing, pretending it was normal, and I was just overthinking. When we got inside the house, I was silent because when I’m angry, I don’t talk because I might say something I’ll regret.
He noticed I was angry and said, “Babe, we can talk about this?”
“Talk about what?” I asked. “This is someone you told me you’ve ended things with. If you’re still sleeping with her, why did you come after me? Why make me fall in love with you?”
He said she was just being a bitch, she was the one coming on to him, he was no longer attracted to her, and all sorts of things I now recognize to be silly. But I let it go that day.
It didn’t stop though.
Sometimes we would be hanging out together and she’d call him, claiming it was an emergency. Of course he’d go over, and next thing, they’d have sex. It became too much that I decided he had to move out of that apartment. I took it upon myself to find us a new place, and we moved in together.
He swore to my face that she would never know the new address. He lied. Again. This was in 2020.
About two months after we moved, she came to the house after I had traveled home from school during the holidays, which also coincided with the COVID-19 lockdown. I still made an effort to visit him at least once a month. It was during one of those visits that I discovered she had been to the house.
I saw videos of her on his phone, clear evidence she had intentionally left receipts for anyone, me, to find. We fought. He swore again that they weren’t seeing each other and that whatever they had was over and like a fool, I forgave him. Again.
But long story short, he kept his word that time and moved past her. It didn’t mean he became faithful, though. He just found new ones.
I caught him cheating several times, with women he claimed worked for him. He runs a business that requires advertising, and most of the time they use women as models for the ads so it was easy for him to have a steady stream of women. I later found out he slept with almost all of them.
He lied so much, nearly the whole time we were together. I used to say cheating was my dealbreaker, but love makes you do foolish things. I loved him so much, and he knew it. He knew I’d forgive him, so he didn’t even bother hiding it.
One time, I overheard him telling his cousin that outside of his family, I was the only person who genuinely loved him. He even said that all it took for our quarrels to end was for me to sleep, wake up, and just like that, I would be over it.
I thought, “So because I have a soft spot for you, you think you can treat me anyhow?”
Each time he messed up, he would gaslight me. And because I was always the one trying to keep the peace, I would just let it go.
Until one day, I didn’t. I finally said, “This is it. This is the end.” He didn’t try to plead or stop me, he simply said if that was what I wanted, so be it.
Two weeks later, that same girl, the “fuck-mate” moved into his apartment. They started living together, cohabiting like a proper couple. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, so just two weeks after we fought, she’s already moved in? That means it was all true.
Maybe I was just the side chick in their relationship after all. Because how do you explain someone moving in that quickly, making cooking videos online (she’s a chef), and acting like she owns the place?
That was the final straw.
I moved on and after six months of no contact, he called me. He said he still thinks about me, that he never stopped loving me. The audacity of him to say that shocked me.
You’ve been living with a woman for six months, and you still have the effrontery to call me and say nonsense?
I told him, “You know what? The next time you do this rubbish, thunder will fire you. Get off my phone.”
But he didn’t stop. He kept talking to mutual friends, telling them to talk to me. Meanwhile, the girl was still living in his house. It was just so wild because how can you have a woman in your house while trying to get another one back?
I guess we’ll never know. I learnt a lesson, though. There are men who cheat without remorse and I experienced one. It was a lot.
But I survived it.
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