Love, Lust and Deception

by Shanti Silos

It all seemed so beautiful. I was finally ready for it. Dream man, you’re welcome to step into my life now. Eager to make that happen I took a lot of precautions: I made space in my house, worked hard on myself and opened up my heart again to be able to receive love. Systematic as I can be, I had planned a few months to be man-ready and start my dating season. But somehow the effect was so big that the men were lining up earlier than I had planned they would.

Prince Charming?!
One of those early birds who made an amazing impression on me was a beautiful man I’ve met at a network event where we both facilitated a part of the program. With his mesmerizing smile and his sparkling eyes he enchanted me. And at with his seducing words and passionate kisses he knew how to charm me. I totally fell for this man. He had everything I wanted. He was extremely attractive, we had long deep conversation, without it just being me who was the one talking and he would be the one listening breathlessly. It was so exciting and felt so good. I went for him a 100% and when he asked me to be his girlfriend and wanted me to meet his parents (he never ever brought a date home before) I was knew he was all in as well. Or at least, that’s what I thought. Little did I know…

I love you
From the beginning I sensed that he lived his life moving forward while he was stepping on ‘the break’ and he seemed to be emotionally closed off. But I was patient. I mean, I’m a master in getting people to put their guard down by guiding them to reconnect with themselves. I was awarded for my patience. This man, who never declared his love to anyone, whispered the sweet words “I love you” in my ear daily. That was really exceptional for someone like him.

On the parking break
The only thing was that he never really fully went for what he believed in. He was even afraid to fully love and be loved. When I asked him to explain himself so I could understand where his way of thinking and acting came from, he let me know that he knew he had massive fears, but didn’t know where they came from or how he could tackle them. He really had no clue.

Lies and deceit
When we were about six months in the relationships, cracks were starting to show and to grow even more in time. After we started living together we really became unsettled, mostly because of all the little untruths he had been telling. Piece by piece all his sugar coated lies surfaced, and at crucial subject he chose for himself instead of for ‘us’ on the moments of truth. I won’t get into that now because that will make him really look like a jerk.
Overall he was a master in transforming his fears into destructive behavior: on tough moments he shut me out emotionally. Time after time he left me out in the cold on very crucial moments, and he also cut me off physically more and more each week. The worst part was that he just kept lying to me, deceiving me, physically as well as emotionally. Every time that I discovered one of his indulgences, he lied again, except when I had clear evidence he couldn’t talk himself out of. In those cases he gave me just enough information and promised to be better, so every time I would stay with him, even though he treated me terribly.

The mask
In the beginning of our relationship he told me that he used to sleep with a lot of women before we met. That he would do and say anything to get them in his bed, to be able to boost his ego and temporarily fill up the emotional void he had been experiencing. Of course I never thought that I would be one of those women. One that he lied to, strategically. One who would follow him into this enormous amount of darkness hiding within him from being blinded by his extraordinary appearance.
I loved this man, I believed him for who he was, and I also saw the goodness and the love hidden deep within him. Why did he live his life bases on the ‘fear of missing out’ and why did he have or had this uncontrollable urge for confirmation in the form of flirting and flattery of so many different women? Less and less he wanted to make love to me. He constantly managed to keep the truth from me, up until the point that he just seemed to follow his own plan, sometimes allowing me access as if I was nothing more than a vermiform appendix. Even when I had a serious break down he wasn’t able to connect with me. And by accepting this demeanor from him, I just drifted away from myself more than ever.

Heavily depressed
I didn’t feel rooted anymore, my inner compass was broke, I forgot what my longing perspective was and I couldn’t find my positive mindset anywhere. My light was almost fully extinguished. My desire to live was totally gone. Week after week I got up with the thought: “What’s the use?” At an unguarded moment, after months of battling, and getting professional help, I realized that it was an option to put an end to my relationship. I didn’t have to stay with a man whose specialty where: creating drama and being destructive.

It hit me hard
After I broke up with him, difficult and painful as it was, I slowly started to get back up on my feet It was hard for me to let go of him completely, so we ended up in this grey area. Of course that didn’t really work, so I was ready for the next step: I wanted to start over with a clean slate, as friends, formal lovers with a certain distance or become a couple again. Either way, I wanted clarity. I was very specific about the fact that I didn’t want any lies anymore and that I would never want to see him again if he didn’t come clean fully. Again: Little did I know’!

He cheated on me every other month the first half of our relationship
After I kept insisting he confessed that he never changed his slutty bachelor ways, not even when we started to be into a serious relationship together. It seemed that he had been cheating on me half of our relationship, with an average of, let’s say every other month – and unprotected as well! The other half of our being together he had to fight against his urges to take these chances, as he’d like to call them, to live out his lusts on real women (long live porn). Still, he had been hitting on women non-stop; sexting via Whatsapp and all of those ‘typical’ ways to flirt to the fullest these days.

Over and out
Again, I was completely blown away, but not in a good way. I knew that the things he did weren’t all that pure, but this was really the last thing I had expected. After I made him tell me all his sexual activities, I kept playing all his acts of betrayal and lying in my head. I was going crazy. Nobody has treated me so bad in my life. It felt like he had put an axe in my back. I didn’t eat for days, felt very angry and extremely hurt. I was just heavily in shock. How could someone treat someone else this way if he claimed to love you? More importantly, how have I been able to let it come to this point and how would I get myself out of it?

Now what
Luckily I’m from a very loving family, and I’m blessed with friends who love me to death. With their help I’ve been able to wrestle myself out of his grip, bit by bit, with root and all. I needed to get out of his world, a world of lies, deception, narcissism, egocentrism, rejection, this world in which lack of self-love, self-confidence and self-worth were the fundamentals. His level of depression, avoidance and hoaxing himself are so deeply rooted. He has developed so many masks to compensate his need for confirmation regarding his likeability to fill up this big void. He especially needs women to admire, adore and/ or sleep with him.

Meanwhile I’m doing everything I can to transform my pain, sorrow, anger and disbelief into personal power and to approach it as a lesson learned. I’ve allowed myself to cry for a week, to let all these negative emotions out and to turn the switch after that. I did not come into this world to be agonized and to suffer. I came here to shine and be able to reignite others. My carefully built up ‘camp fire’ has been reduced to a small flame after the revelation of all the lies and cheating-affairs.

Strangely enough I still wish him all the best. Somewhere in him there is some goodness or light that wants to come out and play. I , He just needs to be able to confront himself with himself. On top of that he needs to ask himself daily: do I choose light or darkness? The choice is his. And NOW, now I have the freedom of choice too. Well, I choose LIGHT!

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future ~
quote from a pastor in India