Returning to Broken Love

Good Morning Everyone. I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. Please note, this is an unusually long post today. I have a lot of ground to cover.

So, today's topic is Returning to Broken Love. You might ask what Broken Love means -- I'm talking about getting back together with someone who's broken your heart. Devastated you.

I don't do it. Ever. Have never. Will never.

There's something about the physicality of a broken heart. Now I know that when someone breaks it, it doesn't really fall apart, but it sure does feel like it. And I'm not talking about high school broken hearts, I'm talking about real true adult broken hearts. (And I've never been married, so I can't speak for what happens in a divorce. This is from a single woman's point of view.)

When you think you've found the "one". You are giddy and in love and everyday is Heaven on earth, there is no other person in the world who means as much to you ever. There is the promise of something "more", of a lifetime together, perhaps. There are years invested, and friends and family, vacations, commitments.

And then, he does something so inconceivable that you just can't believe it. He breaks your heart.

Let me tell you about Richard. We were incredibly in love. He was a chef, I was a restaurant manager, we started dating and somewhere around the two year mark we built and opened a restaurant together, almost from the ground up. I helped with everything, from ordering to hiring, cooking, waitressing, building, picking out tile, redecorating. You name it, he cleared everything through me before he made the final decision. We had our first opening night and invited 100 of our closest friends and clients. It was magical. Things couldn't have been better.

We had our second opening night for the community at large. I was there already greeting guests, serving drinks, when he walked in with another woman. A woman I knew from town. A woman I had no idea he had been seeing on the side, while I had been slaving away helping him with the restaurant.

I literally heard my heart snap in half. After the initial shock, and the dead silence of having the customers watch me to see what I would do, (because it was a small town and everyone knew us as a couple) I walked out of the bar right then and never looked back. Sure he called, and tried to explain, and cried and begged me to come back, but I refused to even take his call. Two months later, the gossip killed him and he lost the business.

I was bereft for about 6 months. Really. I lost almost 30 pounds. I refused to see my friends. I was totally humiliated. I cried ALL the time. I lost a part of myself that I couldn't get back. I swore I would never fall in love again.

Cut to Nevada 10 years later. I started a relationship with Terrence, but I never let my heart get completely involved. I was very leery of the whole "love" thing. But then he was accused of a crime he didn't commit and he asked me to stand by his side, to support him. So I did. Our relationship changed after that. (I knew he didn't do it, and the judge ruled he didn't do it. It was a set-up.)

Sitting in a diner, having a turkey sandwich with my best friend, I realized I was in love with him. I denied it, of course, because I wasn't ever going to be in love again. But there it was. So I committed to him and the love. To make a long story short, 3 months later he told me he was in love with someone else. My best friend.

Yeah.

But she wasn't in love with him. They tried dating, it didn't last 6 months, and she married another guy. Of course he came begging back to me and I turned him on his ear.

The reason I'm discussing this topic today, is that my ex, Monster Child's father, has come back to North Carolina. I'm not going to get into the where-for's and why's about our break-up, it's just too ugly. But it did get me wondering why I won't get back with him.

People change, absolutely, and he has, for the most part, done a complete 180 from where it was that broke us up. But, throughout the last 8 years, he's broken my heart more times than I can count. I gave him chance after chance, because I did love him with all my heart and he is my daughter's father and I thought a family should really try.

The last two years without him around have been hard on The Monster. She loved her Daddy, and now he's back, she's over the moon. And I never wanted to take her away from him, but he was just so damned toxic. He was killing both of us, the three of us, so I made him go.

But now he's gotten his shit together and I'm happy for him. I like the fact he can come over to my house and we can have a civil conversation instead of screaming, or crying or throwing things. I have made peace with my ex. I have to get along with him, he is my daughter's father. I have forgiven him (for the most part) of all the things he's done to me. But I will never forgive him for breaking my heart.

He's asked, The Monster has begged, why he can't move back in. Why we can't be a real family again. How do I explain to my 6 yr. old about broken hearts. About losing trust and hearing lies and the damage it causes.

Once my heart is broken, it takes a long time to heal. And mine has so many scars on it right now, it's held together with super glue and duct tape. Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't fall in love ever again. That's a whole other blog post. What I'm saying is, I won't attempt to rekindle a dead fire. I won't ever get back together with a man who's broken my heart.

Tell me -- How about you? Would you, or have you, gotten back together with someone who broke your heart in a major way? Or is once it's over, it's over?