#SelfLove Part 3 of 5

​Just when you think things couldn’t get any better… They don’t! That feeling of happiness, peace, and serenity when we began dating was suddenly gone. #FadingLove
 
I learned of his infidelities while I was pregnant with our son. It broke me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was a ray of light for me in my dark gloomy world at the time. He was a pleasant distraction to my life at home. It’s like we met at just the right time because things were chaos in my home and I didn’t know how much more I could endure before I ran off to escape. My mother’sdrug addiction had only gotten worse, and I was just in a foster home a year or so prior. 
 
When he and I started dating, he became a breath of fresh air, so when this happened, it felt like a pretty hard blow to me physically and mentally. The hurt, the deceit, the disappointment—it all felt like I had been in this place before.
 
I made a decision to stay with him for the time being. I couldn’t raise my son under the circumstances at home, so I had to set all hurt and anger aside for my son’s sake, but his actions changed me and I was emotionally unavailable to him.
 
After a while, I moved on and dated someone else. We had known each other since we were kids, and we quickly grew fond of one another again. He ran the streets, had money, was “powerful”, but his success was not earned in a moral way. 
Although I enjoyed being spoiled with lavish gifts and getting whatever I wanted, I didn’t want to risk my life for it, and condone ruining the lives of others. I also didn’t want to expose my son to such lifestyle, so I knew I had to make some changes.
 
I talked about changes with him, but his lifestyle caught up with him before change could happen, resulting in him being sentenced to 17 years in prison. 
 
That experience taught me a valuable lesson. It had shown me the path not to take in life and helped me to appreciate the hard work I put in every day to make a better life for my son and me. Waking up to earn a legit living, going to college to further my education, and putting in the work to better myself is far greater than the fast, street life. I rest easy at night and I never have to worry about looking over my shoulders, expecting my life to be over at any given moment.             
 
After reflecting on my experiences with love, I realize now that I may have been placing too many responsibilities and setting too high of expectations on my past relationships. I understand now that I may have been looking to the men in my life to fulfill a void that had been created by my parents, particularly my father. As I look back, I believe I was so broken up by my son’s father infidelities because my expectations of him ran deeper than him being just a companion to me. The pain I felt when I learned of his infidelities ran deeper than the average person suffering of a broken heart. It was pain of familiarity. One that I had been exposed to before. I realize now my pain just wasn’t about him and his actions, but about the feeling of abandonment, disappointment, neglect, and deceit. Everything that I had experienced from my father, or lack thereof.