I see only someone I no longer recognize—a person who was dishonest, insincere, and incapable of honoring the relationship we once had.
Someone who grew older but not wiser. Someone who appeared strong on the outside, yet was so weak within that he could no longer distinguish between what was right and what was wrong, allowing his own desires to lead him into choices that violated the very principles he once claimed to live by.
Wanting what he saw others have.
Being unfaithful.
Choosing
dishonesty.
And deliberately lying to conceal the things he knew were
wrong.
None of this destroyed only a relationship. It also destroyed the trust and respect that the people around him once had for him.
Had he been able to put aside even half of his ego, perhaps he would not have allowed his own perspective to become so narrow that he mistook the voice inside his head for the whole truth. Perhaps he would have been able to see things as they really were:
What he wanted was not wrong. The path he chose to get there was.
Wanting a different life was not wrong.
Wanting something I could not
give him was not wrong.
Even deciding that our relationship could no
longer continue would not have been wrong.
He never needed to betray anyone in order to choose a different life for himself.
Had he simply been honest—with himself and with the person who had shared a life with him—our separation could have happened with maturity. We might both have been heartbroken, but neither of us needed to be destroyed by it. The relationship could have ended while the trust, respect, and good memories we had built over so many years remained intact.
He could still have been the person I once respected.
Someone I could remember with warmth years later.
Someone I could still say I had once been proud to have in my life.
But that was not what he chose.
He chose dishonesty. He chose lies. He chose actions that hurt someone who had trusted him, until everything that once existed between us was changed beyond repair.
And perhaps that is the saddest part of all.
Not that our relationship ended.
But that it never had to end this way.
We could have said goodbye while still respecting each other.
We could
have walked in different directions without destroying everything good that
had come before.
We could have remembered each other as two people who
once loved and cared for one another as best they could, even if, in the end,
they wanted different lives.
But once he chose to destroy those things and leave the consequences behind, it was no longer my responsibility to clean up what his choices had broken.
What he did is his to understand.
What he lost is his to learn the
meaning of.
And the path he chose is his to continue walking.
As for me, I am finally learning to put down what was never mine to carry.
And now that he has chosen his path,
may he keep walking the road he chose.
🥀 🕊️ 🍂
