Yes, I'm still here.

As you all know, I’ve been pretty quiet lately. This has been a hard time for me, particularly as I try to come to grips with the betrayal of having been cheated on. It’s made me question so many things, and at times I have wished for that old faith I used to have… somehow I feel like a cosmic hug or a divine promise that everything will be okay would help. Which is quite a reversal from the initial relief I felt at not trying to figure out why God had allowed (or caused) yet another heartbreak to occur.

But I feel so far removed from that old faith, that old belief in god, that I am left with “only” a very human-level coming-to-grips process to help me get through this.

Sure, I have plenty on that plane to help. In retrospect, I had been suppressing a lot of my own doubts in the relationship: namely, I had a persistent feeling of loneliness in being with someone who not only couldn’t relate to my faith struggles (my biochemist ex is an atheist and is fairly antagonistic toward religion) but made no efforts to understand or support me. I sent him the link to this blog but he never read it. I needed him for comfort when dealing with my mom and he couldn’t provide it. He saw no value or relevance in anything spiritual – the entirety of his life is in the material world, and to be honest, even though part of me is drawn to materialist/secular/scientific understandings of the world, there is simultaneously, for me, a bit of emptiness in a completely secular life. Or at least the version of it that my ex lived and represented. He saw no value or use in discussing morality and ethics – he thought it all to be “self-evident” and that people inherently know the right thing to do. He felt no drive or impetus to give back to the world, to use our tremendous material blessings to help others. He had no independent interest in connecting with others and be part of a real community. Perhaps this secular emptiness is most clearly evident in his decision to cheat on me, and subsequently cover it up and minimize it when I finally confronted him.

Perhaps the biggest struggle I'm having is with that sense of unfairness that he is waltzing forward with his shiny, happy, new relationship. It really, deeply hurts that he could throw me away so carelessly and prance away with no repercussions, no consequences, no pain and evidently, no regret. This is when I could really use a cosmic skydaddy to comfort me, to assure me that somehow, some way, justice will be done.

Edited to add: I know the above sounds like I am bloodthirsty or something. I don't think I'm that bad, but it really hurts to think about him "getting away" with such hurtful behavior. I do know that, in the grand scheme of things, others have suffered much greater injustices than me. But this still hurts.