Finding myself

Obsession

It's been almost a year since the day I found out.

I didn't think he was capable of doing such thing. He always says that if you want to do something like that, you should first break up with your partner. He has been saying disrespecting things about people who was found doing it. So I thought I was safe. 

I was wrong.

It was March, I had my day off and it was the worst day of my life so far.

I knew something was off when he agreed to take me watch "Beauty and the beast" without much complaining. I had a bad feeling for weeks. He wasn't the same. Sometimes he was too good to me and sometimes he was so distant. But the thing who made me want to find out what was going on was that he has been taking hours talking with "friends" who were really strangers in a chat room. I knew which one and I visited it too sometimes but he was never online when I was home. 

He was always talking when I worked. Everyday he waited until it was time for me to leave for work and then he was losing himself in the virtual world. Sometimes he even was late to meet me. When I asked him about this chat room and why he was in there for so many hours, he said that he liked it because he found some real friends that could make him laugh, that they were playing games and that he could be a Dj and choose whatever song he wanted to play.

I was curious so I installed a child protection program in my pc.

I didn't check it for two or three days but then one Thursday that I had a day off and we were both at home, I decided to see at last what he was saying all day in this chat. He was downstairs at the garage with his father. I was in our shared bedroom and I opened the child protection program I had installed in my pc. What I saw made my mind shatter, my whole body tremble uncontrallable and my heart ... My heart, my poor heart I think it broke. I think , no, I know it is still broken, still trying to heal.

Pm to D : I looooooooooovvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeee you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was the first thing I saw when I opened the screenshots of the previous day. There was a message that he send to someone with this exact wording. I tried to read some other things but I couldn't understand. I couldn't process how my boyfriend for 8 years now could tell something like that to a stranger in some random chat. My boyfriend who hasn't said that to me for a while now, probably for years.

I managed to sustain myself and as calmly as I could I opened the door and called his name. He heard me, he asked what was wrong and I asked him to come upstairs. I couldn't look at him but I couldn't wait I had the need to know. I asked him about the chat. What exactly he has been doing in there, who "friends" he has been talking to, who female "friends" he has been talking to, what exactly he has been saying with these "friends".. 

He answered to everything without lying but also without saying the truth.  So I asked : "Why are you saying to D that you love her?"

He said that they were playing, that it is just a joke and they are friends. I didn't believe him. I found out his profile and his password and I signed in with them. Several people tried to talk to me but I didn't answer. I was waiting for her but she didn't come.

The next day I had to go for work. I didn't want to go but there was no way I could not to. So I went but while in the train and the whole time that I was supposed to work, I was holding my cellphone and I was checking online the child protection program.

He visited the chat again.

I brokedown. Until this time I hadn't cry but now the tears couldn't be stopped. Every colleague including my boss asked me what happened. So I told them. I don't no why. I just couldn't keep it to myself. I wanted everyone to know how devastated I felt, how used and deluded I was.

That day I didn't work. I was there but I wasn't. The next day the same. Then it was Sunday.

I was thinking what I had to do. I had to leave him I knew that far. But how? He have been living together for so long, we have grown together, we had a life together. I don't know how all these married couples could break up so easily. He was my family I didn't want to leave, I wanted her to leave.

That Sunday we talked. Looking back now I don't think he was honest with me. I asked if he wanted to break up. I asked if he wanted me to leave our house. I asked if he loved her. He said no.

He said that it just happened. One day they were talking like friends, they confessed things to each other and one day they told each other the L word. He had started to feel things about her but they never met or even talked to the phone. She was married and she lived across the country but I couldn't shake the feeling that if she wasn't things would have been turned differently.

I was thinking it was time to break up but then he didn't really cheat, he was just talking, haven't I done worse?
Oh yes I had. One day I had kissed someone so why break up if he said he'll stop?

We didn't break up but I was obsessed. I was trying to find ways to know every single thing he was doing when I wasn't with him.

I bought recording devices and hid them in our house. I asked a friend to make a man's profile in this chat so I can observe undetected. They still talked just not from my pc. I couldn't tell him what I knew because I didn't want to talk about it.

Then she dissapeared. She wasn't talking to him and he was looking everywhere for her. He got careless and signed up from my laptop. I witnessed their first conversation after her dissapearance and it was like watching a movie. It felt real.

I could tell my boyfriend was in love with another woman.

I didn't know what to do. I thought it was my fault. Maybe I wasn't a good girlfriend, maybe I didn't do enough for him. I started to collapse.

I was acting normal but I didn't feel normal. I couldn't understand why he was doing that to me. I've been giving him everything I have. My time, my love, my money everything he ever needed and I could give, I gave it freely. Everything I had was for him. Everything I was was for him.

When I couldn't leave him alone not even to go to work I decided there was time to see a doctor.

I went to psychiatrist only one time and only for an hour. I would go more if I had enough money.
I went because I thought I was obsessed. It's been months since I caught him talking with her and I was almost certain he stopped but I couldn't be sure. So everytime he wanted to go somewhere without me I found excuses to either tag along or make sure he was really going where he said he was going.

The psy told me that it was normal not to trust him but the way I feel dictates why I feel unsecure. That was it!

That's when I realized I should stop depending so much on him and start depending on me instead.

That's when I realised exactly what had gone wrong with me.

I had stopped caring about ME. I didn't have my own dreams and hopes anymore. I build my life around everything HE wanted and me? Where was I?

I didn't know. I didn't even know what I wanted in life. If I could pay for more therapy sessions I would do it. Someday I'll definately do it because with just one short session I knew what the problem was!

Some time in my life's journey so far I had lost myself. And now was the time to find me and bring me back...