Don't come around here no more.

Here I go again, but the infidelity baggage continues. I keep trying to leave it at the curb and go on my merry way, but it's like some horror movie where I look in the back seat, or the mirror, and suddenly realize: It's! Still! Here!

Time check: Cheated on in August 2004; found out in October 2004 after I'd already dumped the guy for more mundane reasons; freaked out. Working my way back to sanity ever since. It might be worth mentioning that the form of the infidelity, not to mention the reveal, were particularly egregious and spirit-shocking. Perhaps everyone cheated on feels that way.

What most surprised me was the incredible blow being cheated on is to one's self-esteem. It's a logic-defying emotional drowning of one's sense of worth. And here I am, still trying to shake it off.

You know, I sit and I think, Well, This is my first serious relationship in years. Some of my feelings and emotions and fears are undoubtedly to be expected as we round the ten-month mark and hit our first Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day. I suddenly felt really invested in Valentine's Day.

Now, I like Valentine's Day as a fun, romantic holiday. I'll even give you that on the occasion that something heavy and romantic happens on Valentine's Day, that's just grand. But one thing I would like not to be about Valentine's Day is friggin' invested. I just want to have fun, for heaven's sake.

As I thought about my feelings and fears recently, I realized that I have a brain gerbil still running on one heck of a negative wheel. I am still thinking about the relationship where I was cheated on. Still analyzing and comparing and trying to identify signs that I missed that time around, that if only I'd been smarter, or stronger or, I guess, flippin' psychic, I wouldn't have been hurt, I wouldn't have been embarrassed, I wouldn't have been the fool. Still struggling with my sense of my own self-esteem within a relationship.

Well, I don't know if this is true or not, but I have decided that my being cheated on had nothing to do with me. I have decided that while maybe I shouldn't have ever given that loser the benefit of the doubt or trusted that anything he ever said reflected any truth at all, I did, because you can't go through life looking for signs that someone is a narcissistic freakazoid.

It's true my crazy monitor got an upgrade, and that in fact has been useful to me at times.

But when I know, logically and gut-wise, that everything is OK, and in fact cool, and in fact probably wonderful, and yet somehow the fear voice is still louder than my mind, heart, and gut, there's something still going on with me, and I'm giving myself a Valentine's Day present right here and right now.

I am done with this fear. Done with it.

My boyfriend and I, we're good people. Evil is out there, and I wish I didn't know that so intimately, but that's not us. We're not perfect, but we're living, you know? We're finding our way.

In the space that is us as a couple, there's simply no room for this suitcase. So I'm setting it down, and I'm moving on.

~

Related reading:

Thoughts on infidelity - Comprehensive. Wise.

a thought on infidelity - Against "window shopping."

The Eyes of Love - Learning to love oneself.

~

Contributing editor Liz Rizzo also blogs at Everyday Goddess.