How? What!? Why????!!!

 Sometimes the hardest part of healing isn’t letting go of the person, it’s trying to understand how they could do what they did. You replay it over and over, hoping the pieces will eventually fit together. But when someone’s deception runs deep, there’s no version of the story that makes sense.

When you finally realize someone you loved was never who they claimed to be, the question that won’t stop running through your mind is, How can they live with themselves?

It’s the thing that keeps you up at night after the truth starts to settle in. You replay everything, seeing moments you once brushed aside and stories that don’t quite fit anymore. You start recognizing how carefully they built the illusion. You remember the way they mirrored your emotions, how they made you feel seen and understood, only to later twist that trust into something they could use.

For people who love deeply and mean what they say, this kind of betrayal feels impossible to wrap your head around. Because you could never do to someone what they did to you. You couldn’t lie with that kind of calm or deceive someone who truly cared about you. It’s not in you.

But for them, it’s different. People like that survive by creating their own version of reality. They rewrite the story so they don’t have to face what they’ve done. They convince themselves they were the ones who were mistreated, or that you somehow deserved it. They shut off their conscience because if they ever really let the truth in, it would destroy the image they hold of themselves.

So they keep going. They distract themselves, find someone new, or pretend nothing ever happened. They might even tell people you were the problem. And maybe they can live that way for a while. But underneath it all, there’s an emptiness they can’t escape. It’s a lonely place to live, disconnected from truth and empathy.

Meanwhile, you’re the one left trying to make sense of everything. You’re the one sitting in the pieces, feeling the pain, questioning what was real. But that’s because you feel. You care. You value honesty and connection. The fact that you’re hurting doesn’t make you weak—it means you still have a heart that works, even after everything.

They might be able to live with themselves, but they’re not really living. You, even through the pain, are facing the truth and learning from it. You’re finding your way back to yourself. That’s strength. That’s healing. And that’s something they’ll probably never know.

In the end, that’s what separates you from them. You’re not running from the truth—you’re walking through it. And even though it hurts, that’s where real peace begins.