He loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah

The lyrics to The Beatles' song "She loves you" feels fitting in more ways than one.


Last weekend, Giant came clean and told me that he'd lied to me. Not about big, important things, but about little things. To make himself seem better than he was. I hate lies. This is not a small matter to me. I was grievously hurt by Giant's lies, and we're struggling to (re-)build trust between us. That's going to take a long, long time for me to truly get over. He's apologized, but an apology can't mend things overnight.


Yet all along, no matter how hurt I felt, I saw him. He's in pain too. The lies come from a very dark place within him, a place he doesn't like to go. It hurt him so much to be honest with me. To admit that he'd made mistakes. That took tremendous change, and he's showing such a will to change. He wants to be honest with me now. Completely. I see his weakness, but I also see his strength. His courage. And I love him for it. All of it.


Although a voice in the back of my head now always questions his sincerity, I try to trust him. To give him the benefit of the doubt. And he's got me utterly convinced that he cares for me. That he wants to speak the truth, because of me. Because he doesn't want to ruin what we have together. Of this I have no doubt.


When I fall for someone, I fall hard and I fall fast. It's been weeks since I first told him that I love him. He's not responded in kind. He's told me that he cares about me, that he's fond of me, that he enjoys being with me, that he's fallen for me. But not that he feels love.


We've spoken about this, and I've told him that I feel he's worth waiting for. He loved and been hurt before. It's just 9 months since his wife of almost ten years left him. The wounds after that break-up make him more hesitant to love again. This I understand, and accept. And yet, I've felt the imbalance of it all. I've felt alone in my love, unanswered.


So I've pushed him. Not to feel something that he doesn't feel, but to connect with and admit to the feelings he's got. If those feelings weren't love, that was something I was willing to live with. But I didn't want him to be afraid, or to burry his emotions from himself. I didn't want past wounds to get in his way. I wanted to help him heal. So I pushed, as much and as hard as I dared. To make him talk, to make him think.


I didn't really know what would come of it all. Like I said, I was aware that this might lead to him realizing he didn't have any feelings for me at all. And leave me. If that would heal him, I find that the risk (and even the act of being left behind) was worth it.


Last night, he told me that he loves me.


Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! :)