That wasn't love

As often happens, a picture or meme is what gives me the inspiration for the subjects I write about. This one came up today, "Listen to me, love doesn't leave you traumatized. What was happening to you wasn't love." Today also happens to be the 6 month mark of when I left the man I loved. And I'm still hurting. The most painful part is realizing he never actually loved me.

Two weeks into knowing him he said, "I love you". He was drunk, I was drunk, and my stupid little romantic heart that so desperately wants to be loved believed him. High on endorphins I fell hard for the feeling of that moment. At the time he was saying everything I wanted to hear. He figured out my insecurities immediately, as I'm not one to hide much anyway, and toyed with them while I tried desperately to get back to that moment. He only used the word love to manipulate because he knows an empath loves to hear that

This isn't about detailing all that went wrong, or even passing blame, it's about my acceptance of the fact that he didn't love me. It's about figuring out why I ignored all the red flags. It's understanding why I kept going back. It took me less than 6 weeks to believe what he said. But it's because he said what I wanted to hear. In barely a month and a half I clung to every lie. 

When I was 16 a girl said she was a tarot card reader and offered to do a reading for me. She said to think of a question. She did some card stuff and said, "Whatever your question is the answer is No." My question was will I ever be loved." Her words stuck. This isn't to say I've never been loved. People have loved me but not the ultimate combo of love and acceptance. Accepting who I really am has never been there. Yet I imagined and hoped he accepted me.

There is really nothing to figure out with my questions as I know the answers. I ignored all warnings and kept going back because it felt as close to love as I'd ever gotten. I wanted to believe it was real. Yet I found out he didn't love me at all when I left as he tried to destroy me. He failed but the good memories linger and call to me. I have to recall the horrific things he said about me to suffocate the fantasies. 

I have so many people around me, people that love me, but I'm alone. To hold out hope for some fantasy person that is truthful and accepts me fully is really too much to ask of anyone. We love to hold onto clichés of some "soul mate" or perfect person if you don't stop believing.  There are red flags with the man I'm seeing but I'm acting like I don't care as I know he's not the one anyway. Scary. All I really can do right now is not let it happen again.