"Lies do not become us."- Westley

I want to share a little story.

I was in love once. I thought I had met my dream woman.  I adored her in every way.  I loved her family, and they accepted me as one of their own.  This didn't happen overnight of course, there was a period of pursuit and getting to know each other.  I spent months trying to prove myself, my worth, my intentions.  It was quite a journey.  She was very astute, and had been down this road before.  I was so in love...

Well in the act of sharing my past with this woman, I left out a few details.  At the time, I didn't think too much of it.  It isn't like I sat down and decided to deceive this woman.  In fact, I was much more open with her than I had ever been in the past in my relationships.  My nature has always been a little on the cloak and dagger side of things, and I was actually surprised at how easy it was for me to open up.  Over the months ahead, more and more layers were peeled back in the getting to know each other process.  I had many opportunities to fill in the blanks I had left, but I was worried that these few details would shed me in a lesser light.  I continued to let them slide.

We continued to fall in love.  It was an amazing journey.  It was interesting and challenging at times, every day I loved a little more and every day I felt a little more accepted in the life of this woman.

Well, the details I glossed over eventually came to the surface and I was asked about them.  I was "called out" even, and I finally had the chance set the record straight, and  to pull back that final layer, but out of fear of what I thought would happen, I made up a lie.  I didn't mean to.  I didn't want or intend to.  I just did.  I was transported back in time to being a 5 year old boy with crumbs all over his face when his parents ask if he had swiped a cookie from the cookie jar.  I should know better by now.

Well, over the next months, my lie turned into 2, 5 a dozen.  It was a tailspin I didn't know how to correct.  I saw the crash landing coming, and I knew I would have to come clean, but I knew that this little omission from over a year and a half ago had spun out of control.  I was about to lose my mind over it.  I had a very poor view of myself and my worth in the relationship.  All because I thought i would look a little bit better way back when this topic first came up.  The problem is, what I stood to lose way back then, would have been much easier for me, but more importantly for the woman I had grown to love even more dearly and the woman's children, who I had also become very fond of, and who had become very fond of me.

I know that now she thinks that the man she grew to know, and the man she fell in love with is nothing but a liar.  I am sure she wonders what else I lied about.  I am sure she questions everything I had ever said to her.
The truth is, no other lie had ever passed my lips in our relationship.  Just this one topic.  Just this one secret i refused to let go of.  I didn't give her the ability to decide if she could live with the truth from the beginning, and now i know she can't live with the lies.  I underestimated her.  The heart and compassion of the woman I fell in love with were much bigger than the issue I held back from her.  It may have taken her some time to think about it all.  It may have taken me a little longer to progress along the relationship path with me, but I know she would have acted much differently than I feared when I first pulled the veil across.

Well, now I have come clean.  Through a sequence of circumstances, I proceeded to ruin her birthday, and I knew I had to just get it out.  I have shared the secret in it's entirely.  I have pulled back the veil and let the details I had omitted come to light.  I had let it eat me from the inside for several months, and it was literally robbing me of the tremendous joy that this relationship had provided.  It had taken a toll on her as well, and i hated that it was.  To tell the truth meant losing her.  To keep lying made me feel like a freshly spooned out avocado.  Hollow, flimsy and pretty much useless.

She took it much the way I feared she would way back at the start.  We had been struggling very much lately, mostly because of the hole that was eating me with this half truth and how it had burrowed deeper and deeper into the love I feel for this woman. 

I don't blame her.  What seemed so innocent so many months ago, has cost me the most important thing in my life.  I sit here humbled and ashamed, and pray that the hurt I have caused can be healed.  I doubt that I will ever be welcomed back into the family as I had been, I doubt I will ever again hold the hand of this woman I love so dearly.  I will carry on, bury myself in my work, and play as much hockey as I can, and hope and pray that I have learned this lesson, once and for all.  I will miss what I had.  I will miss the laughter of the most beautiful little girl i have ever had the privilege of knowing.  I will miss the most perfect hug I ever experienced.  I hope I have not done any irreversible damage. 

"What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."- Sir Walter Scott

"We are men of action, Lies do not become us."- Westley

Where is that time machine when we need it?