As I scrolled through her photos, the double life that Ryan had been living came into clear view. When he said he was out of town with his boss, he was with his girlfriend in Nashville. And that wasn’t the only time. I discovered that everything he told me during our previous six months together had been a lie. All of those times he had work trips or fishing weekends with his buddies or obligations with his kids, he was actually with his girlfriend in Chicago for the jazz festival, kayaking up by the Pictured Rocks with her, or they’d been celebrating New Year’s together. Once he sent me pictures from a basketball game and complained it was hard to be a third wheel with his buddies and their wives. Now I was looking at a photo of him with his arm around this woman from that same day.
I wanted to be loved so badly that I let myself get hurt
Not only had Ryan created intricate lies about why he couldn’t be with me, he texted me during those trips and events saying he couldn’t wait to see me. He told me how nice it was to stay connected. He said he couldn’t wait to be intimate with me. Perhaps worst of all was that he frequently used his kids as an excuse for why we couldn’t get together.
I called him and demanded to know what was going on. He confessed that during the time he originally dated me (and told me he was dating only me), he was dating six other women. Continue reading
