Two Birthdays Apart

Last year I spent my birthday with the man I had promised to marry. We went to see my favorite musical, he had bought the tickets when we had only known each other for 2 months and my birthday was half a year away. “Are we really crazy to be planning this far ahead?” he had said and I knew what he was implying: We were both still married, and he was going to couples counselling every week. I knew how careful he wanted to be in approaching the subject of our relationship with his wife. Would she know by then or would we still be sneaking around? His question never implied “would we still be together by then”, because that was the only thing in our lives that couldn’t be questioned: We were destined.

On the day, I was excited like a little child. No one had taken me to a musical before. Finally, I had met someone who shared my interests. And how different everything felt when you were madly in love. We went for dinner, then walked to the theatre, holding hands, giggling and laughing, only stopping to kiss passionately. We were still a secret, but we didn’t care much. Today was going to be the best birthday I had ever had, spent with the one man who truly loved me. We both had been going through a lot and had to put up with so much, this was our day to be happy. It was the start of an exciting future, with many more birthdays to come.

My face was glowing all the way through the play as I kept squeezing his hand tightly when he beamed at me. What I didn’t realize was that on that day, he had already slept with 2 other women. One of them was in a relationship with him. The night before he had spoken to her all night, sending her pictures, making compliments, telling her how much he wanted her. I never suspected a thing.

Why would I? He was so besotted with me, trying to spend every second together, messaging me when we weren’t together and we weren’t even official yet, the best was still to come! The sexual tension between us was unreal, I could see and feel it whenever he looked at me and I was addicted to the intimate moments with him. It had gotten to a point where he had called me up on wanting too much sex. He had explained that he couldn’t keep up with my expectations, that he was worried that our relationship would be too focused on sex and he really wanted to do more “couple-y things” with me. It never once crossed my mind that he just preferred to have sex with other women as well.

This year, I spend my birthday with my friends and the woman he was seeing one year ago. I had met her back then, as we all worked together, but I had never spoken to her much. After all, he had made her out to be a “slutty” woman who flirted with everyone in the office. I remember his comments about her “disgusting work attire”. Then, one fatal evening, she had gotten the wrong end of the stick and tried to touch him on the knee and he had fled instantly.

I had felt sorry for her that she had misinterpreted his kind nature, I knew how friendly he was with people. I thought she must have been embarrassed, but I couldn’t speak to her, as our relationship had to stay a secret. But most of all, I hadn’t given her much thought, with everything that was going on in my life, and the intense focus and attention he demanded all the time, I didn’t have a lot of space in my head to examine the situation more closely.

This year, on my birthday, I sit with my friends scrolling through the 1000s of messages that he sent her. “Kara, please eat something”, my friends are barging in, but I feel stunned, scrolling through all the evidence of his double-life. My heart is racing and my whole body shaking until I eventually have to stop and put the phone down. I didn’t manage to go through everything, but I have seen enough to know that everything he ever said to me was a lie.

I read how he was constantly chasing her, trying to coerce her into visiting him, having sex at the flat that I was paying for. I see so many messages that hurt more than anything I have found out about him since he left: The way she drives him crazy, how she is the prettiest woman he has ever been with, many things he said to me. We can tie some of the events together now, but struggle to see how he ever managed to sleep or work, with the sheer amount of messages to both of us at the same time.

We compare pictures, he sent us the same ones … and then there is a video. We both have this, him in his bed, doing things NSFW. He doesn’t say anything. The name of the video is called snapchat_123123. We look at each other, neither of us has ever used Snapchat. We shouldn’t have been surprised but the shock still sits with both of us. There was at least another woman. He told us both that he never had sex with anyone in his life other than his wife. Now we know of 4 women, all in the space of a year. How many have there been before us? Someone who is so good at lying and manipulating does not learn this overnight. He must have years of practice, no doubt. We are both highly intelligent women with a healthy gut instinct, yet neither of us ever anticipated something to this extent.

Then I put the phone down and drink my cocktail. We change the subject, this is my birthday. We get drunk and exchange random stories and dance like no one is looking. We laugh a lot. It is nearly 4 am in the morning when we decide to sleep on the couch together. This couch is not made for 4 people, but as we all snuggle up under the duvets, I look at my friends and I feel it again.

Once again, on my birthday, I am overcome by happiness. I feel happy that I eventually got to know the kind, funny, smart, “sexy and not slutty at all” woman who suffered such a similar fate to mine. I am happy to have my friends who have been there for me in any way they could when I really needed it. Even with all the pain that I am still feeling today, I can clearly feel the love for the 3 of them. A love I mistakenly placed on a man last year, a man who will never understand nor deserve it. As I drift off to sleep I feel this love again, for the 4 of us. This was the best birthday I ever had.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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