She barely even tried to hide it: all those "girls nights" where she would be totally uncontactable for hours on end; the "gym sessions" that went on for most of an afternoon; suddenly "working late" on projects she could barely describe. And we of course almost totally stopped having sex. I say "almost": on the rare occasions we did she showed increasingly less enthusiasm. I should have seen it coming: really early on in our relationship she had confessed to having found it hard to give up (sexually) a particular ex of hers in the past.

I had my suspicions, yet I let it go on. But when you're in love and want desperately for it to work and can't imagine a life without her, you're already deep down the rabbit hole. Your mind will play tricks, jump through hoops, do anything it can to get from the reality it's facing to the outcome it wants. And she knew that.

Of course it was fine for her to meet up with her ex - I'm not so insecure as to deny her the opportunity for closure. Of course I trust her.

It's good she's working late again, shows she's progressing well professionally. I'm glad she goes to the gym so much, she's looking better than ever. It's great she has so many "girls nights", it means we're not mutually dependent. Afterwards, it's safer for her to occasionally stay with a friend rather than getting all the way across the city late at night.

I think that weakness provoked something in her? It brought out a cruelty. Maybe she knew I knew and wanted to twist the knife because I hadn't fought for her?

Whatever the motivation, she basically started rubbing my nose in it.

She'd start to call me, drunk, after her "girls nights" wanting to stay at mine only to arrive with the messy hair and makeup that I had assumed was a cliche, but in reality was such an undeniable sign that she had just been fucked. She'd come to mine straight from "the gym" and ask me for a massage that almost always ended with my mouth on her pussy. I knew immediately she wasn't just excited. I knew it was cum. She'd even answer my phone calls when she was "working late". It wasn't background noise or the radio or just her stretching. I know what a stifled moan sounds like.

It wasn't just that I didn't want to lose her, it was that her cruelty made me sort of obsessed with her. In a weird way, I was in awe. We never had sex and I never asked anymore, yet I found myself paying for more and more: dinner, shoes, dresses, lingerie, even a spa weekend away for her and "a friend". I ate her pussy twice a day but barely saw her naked and yet the worse it got the more obsessed I was.

I couldn't say no, I didn't even want to. Even when it got to the point where she would dress up and leave without an excuse, just a "you know where I'm going, I'll be back later" I just kissed her and told her I loved her.

Eventually, of course, we did talk about it. I barely had to "confront" her, she pretty much openly confessed. But that didn't stop her, or stop her gaslighting.

I guess it can't really be cheating if it's her ex, it's not like he hasn't already fucked her, and before me too. I suppose it is my fault for not being better. It's not malicious, it's just coincidence that he saw her before I did in the anniversary lingerie and heels I bought her.

Why should we cancel the holiday just because I had to stay in the city for work? Why should she lose out? I'd already paid, we couldn't get any money back, what did it matter if he went or if she went alone?

The mind can play incredible tricks, especially when someone helps it connect the dots.