Tonight….I had many plans for writing. Lots of things from
my day that I could have talked about…but the last part of my day led to a
discovery that has taken precedent.
I have been lied to.
It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. I get lied
to all the time…I have kids. I also have a husband who often says things that I
know are flat out lies to avoid confrontation. The little white lies... I am used to them. Not that I condone them,
rather I find them akin to an irritant. A pebble in the shoe.
This wasn’t that kind of lie.
This was the kind of lie where you discover that someone isn’t
who they pretend to be.
This isn’t really a problem for the casual relationship. We
all pretend to be someone that we are not sometimes. It just seems to be part
of our fallen nature to need to be better than we really are. And we lie to the
world and ourselves at times to try to project an image that is different from
reality. We suck in our gut when an attractive person walks by. We greet and
smile one another as we glide into that church pew pretending the morning went
smoothly. We basically paint, spackle, and whitewash all the flaws and cracks
in our persona to appeal to the world around us.
But there are those with whom we wear no masks. These are
the intimate few that we build our lives with. These are the ones that we
really are closest to. These are the ones we love. They know us. They know our
ugly sides, our bad moods, our fears, and the things that make us vulnerable.
And when someone knows you like this…you believe that you know them too.
And when you realize that one of those people who make up
your inner circle is not who they pretend to be with you…it is destructive. The
foundation of this relationship is intimacy and honesty. And when you have
spent hours, nights and weeks at a time with a person and laid your soul bare,
you assume that the other person has done the same.
It wasn’t really an overt lie. It was more of a lie of
omission. But it was an omission so great that it showed that our relationship
wasn’t built on trust. This person, whom I love didn’t trust me enough to tell
the truth.
The discovery of the truth then has revealed more than just
the omission. It has put a spotlight on our very relationship. And it has
revealed that the love and friendship that I have had with this person is
lopsided.
I know this person loves me. And I love this person. But
what has come of this is a destruction of our intimacy. This person has robbed
our relationship of true intimacy. Will she keep my secrets? I don’t doubt she
will. She loves me. But does she trust me with hers? The answer is no.
And this breaks my heart.
She has built a barrier between us, and tonight I discovered
that it exists.
This is not the end of our relationship. By far…it would
take much more than this. I will always love her. But sadly the barrier changes the very nature
of the relationship that I believed we had. And that is where the damage has been done.
The innocence, the intimacy, and the trust have been replaced with doubt.
Dishonesty is a thief.
And I feel like a part of me has been stolen.
The hardest part of all of this is that I love this person
too much to make her hurt. So she will not learn the truth. She had a need to
hide a part of her life from me. And I will just go on letting her do so. The reality is that things will go on being
the same as they were because for her…nothing has changed.
But for me….things will not be the same.
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