After His Long-Term Girlfriend Caught Us, We Fell Apart

I rationalized our affair with half-truths.

I was single.

I wasn’t the one cheating — he was.

What’s more, his situation was ‘unique,’ as I told myself.

You see, his long-term girlfriend had moved three hours away for work.

Surely, she must have expected him to find attention elsewhere.

Surely, she was partially to blame for abandoning him.

Surely, part of her wanted to be away from him — that’s why she left under the guise of career.

Was I Leading a Double Life?

As time went on, we yo-yo’ed in our communication, not really wanting to be together but still idealizing the unattainability we each represented for each other.

The what-ifs. The passion. The danger.

I guess we were both bored in our own lives, which ultimately means we were bored and sick of ourselves.

In many ways, we’d both become the worst versions of ourselves, yet to each other, we shone like diamonds.

My ongoing self-deception forced me to divide myself into two people: the rational me, who knew this was wrong, and the emotional me, who craved the connection and the escape from loneliness.

What’s more, as his drinking problem became increasingly evident, I became turned off by the idea of a life with him, despite my intense yearning for him.

I was relieved — though a little heartsick — when Jared’s girlfriend moved back into their home together.

His Longterm Girlfriend Finally Caught Us Together

A few years after we’d officially called it off, we were still seeing each other for brief moments every few months.

Usually, we just engaged in conversation.

Key word: Usually.

Then, one fateful night, she caught us together after he failed to come home. I think she must have AirTagged his truck.

That confrontation shattered whatever fragile rationalizations I’d built.

I could no longer tell myself that nobody was really affected.

Jared’s girlfriend, for her part, promptly dumped his ass, taking their home, their business, his truck, and their two dogs with her.

Can I Fix Him?

Having lost everything thanks to his rampant cheating and drinking, Jared was now living on the couches of friends, and hassling me to let him use his card on my AirBnB app.

Meanwhile, he was drinking like a fish, burning through his money, and spending nights at bars and strip-clubs.

I felt a darkness swallowing him up, quickly.

To be honest, I felt scared.

I also felt guilt over the role I’d played in the ending of his relationship.

As a result, I tried desperately to save him from himself, staying up late at night, phone pressed to my ear, sacrificing my own peace to make him laugh.

Several times a week, he’d call me in a panic, screaming about his car being stolen or towed. In truth, he was just too drunk to remember where he’d left it.

Each time, I’d calmly explain what he needed to do: eat something, sober up, retrace his steps. And each time, he’d lash out at me in anger.

By May, it had been over six months since his traumatic breakup, and still, nothing had changed.

He wasn’t working, his construction job long since over. Instead, he was draining his pension, spending his days and nights drinking at the bar, and — I imagine — chasing other women when he wasn’t haranguing me for time and affection.

The final straw occurred — at long last — when he asked to borrow money — money he knew I didn’t have.

I was broke, unemployed, and a single mom, scraping by while living with my parents.

“Fuck off,” I texted before blocking his number, only unblocking it when he showed up two days later and I was able to break things off with him in person.

Did I Vilify a Decent Man?

Though I feel remorse over how things ended, and I do reach out from time to time, he is determined to not see me again.

One day, over a brief phone call, he tells me good news.

He’s no longer unemployed, having begun construction work on a house.

A couple months later, he tells me that he has started his own construction business with a friend.

I begin to think that perhaps hurting him with the truth about his actions has propelled him to finally make positive changes.

A few weeks later, on another call, he tells me that he’s met somebody and he’s serious about her.

I wonder if he’s lying to get me to stop checking in on him.

I’m surprised that he could land somebody in his broken state, but then I remember how charming some women find him.

Five months post “fuck off”, I do still call him from time to time, to check in but also because part of me is clinging desperately to the goodness I saw in him before darkness swallowed him whole.

The Phone Call That Changed Everything

Then, just before Halloween, I receive an early morning text from Jared’s number.

“I need to speak with you,” it reads.

I have the strange feeling that Jared didn’t send that text. I call his phone.

A young, female voice answers. Her name is Iris and she is Jared’s girlfriend. She is much younger than Jared, and has a three-year-old daughter.

She tells me what happened.

The night before, Jared had drunkenly attacked her and her elderly stepfather, beating them viciously until police officers were able to pry him off her.

She sends me the official police report, written by the officer who witnessed some of the violence.

Jared is charged with misdemeanor Domestic Violence as well as a felony for Harming an Elderly Person.

She tells me is in jail, begging her to find somebody to bail him out.

When she tells me that she thinks maybe she can fix him, my stomach turns.

She explains to me that she will make it a condition of bail that he wear an ankle bracelet that detects alcohol and reports it immediately to law enforcement.

I tell her that I do not believe he will change.

She says she disagrees.

Fortunately, her injured stepdad and mother, as well as her daughter’s baby daddy, are terrified of Jared being anywhere near them.

She has people in her corner, desperately protecting her and her daughter.

At the same time, Iris tells me that she had to ask Jared’s daughter’s boyfriend to post bail for him.

She also told all his family and friends what he’d done to her and her stepdad.

Now everyone will hate Jared. Including his own daughters.

Maybe he doesn’t realize that while he pleads with Iris to get him out of jail.

What will he do next?