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The Cost Of Selfishness

This is going to be a hard post to write. In fact, it may even be the hardest to date.
It all started over 15 years ago just after I had met my partner. See we met while I was working in a theme park and she was staying in a family-owned caravan on the site for a few days. We got chatting and one thing leads to another and I spent the night. After she left to go home I didn't give her a second thought. I was young and slept with whoever whenever and I lived at my workplace so had no time for relationships. Then I see her again about a month later and once again I got to talking and stayed with her for three nights. I found out she lived 10 miles from my home, so we exchanged numbers and planned a meet up when I finished the work season.
Fast forward another month and I am leaving my job and heading home. I decided that to meet up with her and have a night out. Well, we are now into 16 years relationship and have two children together but that almost never happened when after about a year of being together we almost split up because I told her about a girl I had slept with.

It's safe to say I broke her heart and for what cost? Well, the girl I had slept with was someone I knew from being a tare away teenager and I remember how much I fancied this girl. She had the most amazing green eyes and long brown hair but her personality was outstanding.
We had not seen each other for years and I still often thought about her but one day ( i believe it was my birthday) she turned up and joined us for a night on the town. I thought great this is my chance the only problem was, I was in a relationship and so was she. did that stop me? hell no it didn't because as the night went on I could see that we were getting close. Then her partner wonders into the same club and sees us flirting and understandably questions her actions. She got angry with him and to my understanding, they finished right then. I, of course, decided to comfort her and that is when we both tried sneaking off home together. Her partner seen me and she leave the club and followed us out where, when we got in a taxi he desperately tried to drag her back out. She swore at him and told him to get out of her life as the taxi pulled away with us both still inside. Of course, I still had one thing in my mind and that was to feed my selfishness with that moment I have desired for a long time. And We Did!!

At that time i was happy, i got to fulfill my desire and put a tick in the box but i also had to carry the guilt of cheating myself. I thought she would never find out as she lived 10 miles away and did not know my circle of friends. What i didn't bank on was my own mother threating to tell her because I and she had an argument. So i did the best thing i could and told my partner myself. She was heartbroken but she asked me if it was a one-off and said that if she could get to a point of trusting me again then we can still give it a go.
fast forward 15 years on i we are still together with two children and the trust grew back.

The Past Has a Way of Slapping You in The Face

So there I was living my life with two kids, a job, a house, and a family car. Don't get me wrong it's not all smelling of rose's but it a life. I have lost contact with the majority of my friends from my younger days and the closest I get to their lives is seeing random sentences on facebook.
Then one day, out of the blue I get a friends request from the girl that i had that night with all those years ago. Do i accept or reject or ignore, why is she sending me a request now after all this time and what does she want?
All these questions plagued me for about 7 hours until i said "fuck it" and pressed the accept button. I scanned her facebook profile and noticed she had just recently got a divorce from the guy she was seeing when we hit it off. "oh so they got back together then" was my first thought and then i went on to thinking why did they end i wonder? but that really was not going to affect my life so as long as she was happy then great.

######Then Came The message...

Hello stranger how are you? long time no see. hows life treating you?

So I replied and we got to chatting, you know the usual stuff like how many kids you got? what do you do for a living? and then it changed she said before I was sectioned under the mental health act.
I was thrown back at this point. What did she mean?
So i asked her and that is when she told me that her abusive relationship had got her to a point where she wanted to die and she went bat shit crazy and crashed her car. Hearing that, i could not help feel for her and asked how she was today and the answers i got back were encouraging. she is on meds and going to start a 4 year college course to train to be a counselor for people who are in similar situations.
I thought wow! she really does sound like she has gotten better and i wished her the best of luck.

She also mentioned that she vlogged the entire episode of her life placed them on youtube so that people (including herself) could watch them and understand how difficult being psychotic is. So i asked her for YouTube name and said i will watch them so i can understand what she went through.

OHHH I WISH I NEVER

It was the most scariest thing i have seen in a long time. This girl that i remember being the joyful, good looking and with the wildest personality had become something else. I struggled to watch video after video but knew the more i watched, the more i will see positive progress to where she was today.
Then i find this one video where she was having a really bad episode and she touches on the point that put her in that state saying how her ex-husband was abusive and how much she hated him for what she was going through but finishes the sentence with...

"!All because of that one mistake 15 years ago"

That mistake was me.
Not only was I feeling so emotional over the horrors that this girl had gone through but for her to reflect that our night was the start of a chain of events that lead to that car crash, well, that finished me off.
See i went through life not giving this girl a second thought and i went on to build my life to where i am today. But in the background, her story was very much different, she was suffering and playing with her own life.

One selfish moment and poor choice from me caused a series of events for someone else that could of seen 3 children without a mother and a wonderful woman's life taken away.
Goes to show that long term effects of your actions are just as terrible as the immediate effects.

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