Bizarre Love Triangles that Become a Square and then a Pentagon…

Erin Schaden
11 min readOct 20, 2024

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Dear T:

Yes, I am writing to you directly. I don’t want you to miss this blog as some sort of innuendo meant for someone else. You are stalking my pages as if there is something you want to know…something you are seeking from me so I thought, perhaps, I would just address this issue with you directly…

I did block him. I thought I blocked him on all the socials…but not being one who has a need to block a great many people and being almost 55, I thought unfollowing him was the same as blocking. Thank you for pointing out it isn’t. I now know how to block as you became aware the other day.

It is creepy you are reading my stuff to be honest. We don’t know each other, but apparently you have known about me for some time now. Knowing the man I loved and spent the last two years with was stepping out on not just me, but the other woman too. Hurting us both in such a painful and awful way. You knew and you said nothing to either of us. You had the knowledge and the opportunity to liberate us both, but you just allowed the painful dumpster fire to continue. What kind of person does that?

It wasn’t that you were going to keep it for yourself forever. It wasn’t that you thought it was none of your business. It was that you were saving it to spring it upon her when the timing suited you. Nice.

I know you think I am a liar and “toxic” and a horrible person. I am not sure what made you leap to this conclusion but that is apparently where you have landed. And this is not to change your mind, but more, to assist you in getting your facts straight, if you will.

ME

I loved HIM. I showed up for HIM. I believed in HIM and in us. Sure, I had doubts all along. But I needed those doubts to be untrue…so I stayed, I remained with HIM while I was living in a constant state of struggle and fear. I hurt myself daily attempting to reconcile HIS words of love and adoration and HIS behavior that didn’t match. All the stories which I now know to be lies. It wasn’t all bad, in fact, I could never ever prove that any of it was bad until SHE liberated me with the truth.

HER/SHE

SHE loved you. SHE wanted a life with you but you abused that love and HER in ways that shall not be addressed in an open forum. You know what you did and so there is really no one to blame for your current heartbreak in that regard. You had it all and you threw it away. Yes, SHE is toxic. Yes, SHE has been a mess. Yes SHE believed him too. Because fuck HE is an amazing liar…the lies so meaningful, so well planted and tended to. Always hitting you where you hurt the most. SHE was vulnerable, ironically in the same ways SHE was to HIM, to YOU. SHE has wounds SHE has been trying to heal. SHE has issues that are long standing, persistent and hard to live with. SHE is doing her best. SHE is actually doing better. And I would like to suggest that maybe if YOU stopped sending HER mean and nasty texts all the fucking time, SHE might get better faster.

YOU

YOU love a broken woman. Well, at least that is what YOU call it. If YOU really loved HER, YOU would give HER the space and understanding to heal that which has almost killed HER. SHE is doing HER best but that is never good enough for YOU. I am not sure YOU can understand in all your maleness, what it is like to have those scars, to have all that history to recover from…it isn’t easy to live with a mind that always picks the familiar hell over the unfamiliar heaven. Sad that you were the familiar hell, so was HE.

THE EX-WIFE

SHE is quite the human being. I hope I get to meet HER someday. I already like HER. SHE is caring, warm, supportive and giving. SHE loves in the truest sense of the word, not of possession and demand, but with HER whole heart open seemingly unafraid to be hurt. I admire HER tenacity and strength and laud HER accomplishment to continue loving someone when it would be so much easier to hate, to leave, to dismiss and to judge. I hastily suggest YOU learn from HER example. Love is not owning. Love, with boundaries, is remaining even when it would be so much easier to run.

HIM

HE is toxic and broken and fucked up. HE is all the things you say HE is although I am not sure “junkie” is a fitting moniker. I have never known HIM to shoot heroin but what the fuck do I know? Clearly, I had no idea who I was dealing with. I am angry with HIM for what HE did to ME and HER. I am hurting because I loved someone who would play two women against each other, lying to us both in order to advance HIS own agendas. I know the way HE is is born of pain and abuse and all the things. I can’t go there anymore because it was this knowledge that kept me stuck with HIM for so long. So I just move on with MY life, shutting HIM out completely. That took me over two years to do, so perhaps you can give HER a little grace, HER time in all of this much shorter than mine. I know, it seems ridiculous, but HE is hard to get over…HIS lies and cunning that good. Believe ME when I tell you no one knows that better than SHE and I.

YOU

What are YOU going to do? Pine away for HER forever? Hate HER for being lost, abused, alone and in pain? Do you not see the level of HER pain, anguish and damage? How can YOU have known HER for as long as YOU have and NOT see? Fuck, really? I know it would be best for YOU if we were the people YOU cast us to be in YOUR version of this whole debacle. WE are all toxic liars who have maniacally fucked everyone over. WE are engaged in some sort of toxic triangle that you apparently very much desire to make a square. Who exactly are YOU in all of this? Stalking ME on socials and then lighting ME up in texts about how awful I am…how can YOU read what I have written and think anything other than how awful this has all been for ME? How much agony, pain, loss and damage I have experienced because of HIM? How can YOU be so interested and disinterested at the same time?

I don’t know YOU, and I don’t want to. I see who YOU are from all the way over here. Someone who will grasp at “facts” but then manipulates those facts into narrative to suit HIS own storyline. If SHE is so awful, why do YOU still want HER so badly? Why are YOU so hurt and hurting if SHE is truly a “worthless piece of trash?” Why don’t YOU take a look at YOUR part in all of this and stop playing the victim? WE all signed fucking up. Sure, none of US knew WE would end up here, but who the fuck ever does? Everything looks good going in…that is why WE fucking go in the first place.

ME

HER and I are not having a sexual relationship. I care about HER, SHE has become a friend to ME. The only other person I know that understands EXACTLY how I feel. I didn’t ever want HER in my life, but now that SHE is here, I am grateful to HER and for HER every single day. SHE is a good person. SHE is loving, caring and a good soul. SHE also has issues that threaten to take HER out on the daily. But SHE is making progress, which would likely progress faster if YOU would stop tearing HER down every single fucking day. YOU can’t have it both ways, SHE can’t get well AND not practice the sickness with YOU. Let HER go. Let HER live and heal and work out HER shit. SHE needs understanding, love and concern. SHE needs someone to show up for HER that doesn’t want anything in return.

I am not trying to fuck HER. Or date HER. Or be anything other than a friend to HER. SHE was an answer to a prayer for ME. SHE provided ME with the proof I needed to heal myself and move on from the death rattling eddy that was HIM in my life. I owe HER everything. So, yes, as weird as the circumstances of our acquaintance, SHE has become a dear friend. Someone I have come to love and treasure in my life. I didn’t necessarily want this dynamic but on the whole, HER entrance to my life has been a gift that just keeps on giving. Perhaps YOU might try to reach a similar conclusion?

I know it would be easier for YOU if I was the liar YOU make ME out to be, but I am not. Just a woman who fell in love with one because of all HER own unhealed trauma from the past. And I stayed way longer than I should have, but fuck if I haven’t grown in leaps and bounds since the day SHE walked into my life. And through this bizarre friendship that was born out of a mutual pain, SHE and I are recovering, one mother fucking day at a time. It is not linear. It isn’t happening on YOUR time line. But it is, in fact, happening.

So, since YOU seem to need to know, let me clear up a few final things…and I share these things with YOU so that YOU too may find some peace:

I am not talking to HIM, nor do I ever want to again.

SHE is not talking to HIM, nor does SHE ever want to again.

I do not still love HIM, that ended for me as soon as I learned about HER.

SHE does still love HIM, and while this hurts YOU, SHE doesn’t do it to hurt YOU, SHE is healing from narcissistic abuse…read up on it, it kind of takes some time to get over.

SHE doesn’t want to love HIM and SHE is working towards healing the broken person within HER that thinks any of HIS beautiful lies were true.

WE are not dating. WE are friends. That is all, hard for YOU to believe I know. But sometimes, people really don’t want anything from each other except to assist in the healing of another…

I have no agenda in all of this. I am quite literally taking each day as it comes. Showing up for HER because I want to and because somehow each of us supports and helps the other one recover from this whole fucking shitshow nightmare.

SHE cares about YOU, but YOUR abusive, mean and nasty texts are scaring HER and making any future friendship with YOU impossible.

SHE is a good person. No, SHE is not perfect but fuck man, look at all SHE survived! Look at all SHE has accomplished. Instead of grinding HER down, YOU could be celebrating that SHE is sober and still alive. It really could have gone a different way.

WE don’t get to choose all the circumstances of our lives. And I am truly sorry YOU and SHE didn’t work out the way YOU planned or wanted, or still plan or want. But if YOU ever loved HER, then YOU owe it to HER to stop all this nonsense and let HER go. Let HER go get well and move on with HER life. If YOU stopped behaving like such a jackass, there might still be a place in HER life. But if YOU keep up the crazy mean narcissistic texting rants (yes I have read them all) YOU are going to lose HER and maybe the EX WIFE too.

See there is something YOU don’t understand…WE may fuck the men, but WE have the sisterhood which will always be stronger than OUR love for any man. Because every woman I know, I want to be a part of HER rising, HER becoming, and HER healing…most often SHE is healing from the bad actions and deeds of men, which is fucked up to the highest degree. So perhaps maybe YOU could see that all the stuff YOU are leveling at HER now is just more of the same, and YOUR insistence that SHE is this awful person, just breaks HER a little more with each passing day. Maybe YOU could rise up too and become someone other than just another abusive asshole in a long line of abusive assholes? I mean, YOU could give it a shot. This whole fucking mess could really become a vehicle for change in YOUR own life, too.

SHE will not reveal your secrets. SHE is not like that. Despite all the bad SHE has experienced in this life, SHE has tended to that tiny ember of goodness that burns brightly within HER. And SHE is attempting to grow that ember to a flame to keep HER warm and living. And perhaps that might be a little easier if YOU stopped trying to snuff it out.

Please. Stop hurting HER. Stop hurting YOU. Just stop. There has been enough hurt to go around on this particular fucking disaster. Let’s all just call it and work to move forward in OUR lives. Healing that which is OURS to heal instead of attempting to level another person with all the unhealed parts of ourselves WE are still quite desperately trying to survive.

That goes for all of us…HIM, YOU, HER, ME, THE EX WIFE. I am not sure about the EX-WIFE, honestly SHE is the only one among us that seems to have HER shit together. I am not sure why SHE persists to be involved in any of this, oh wait, yeah I do…SHE is healed enough to really love HER, even when their relationship changed and ended. SHE is perhaps the only one of US who truly, absolutely knows what true love is really all about. It starts with loving YOURSELF and then, and only then, can you actually give that love to someone else. And when YOU do give that love away, even to broken people who do not understand the gift, do not appreciate the gift, or cannot accept the gift, people like HER love anyway, with boundaries of course because that is the only true way to love…when YOU love yourself as much as YOU do anyone else.

Can’t WE all please move on? Please! There has been enough hurt and pain and loss and suffering for all concerned. I am sorry YOU are hurt and hurting. I am sorry SHE doesn’t love YOU anymore, but I can tell you absolutely, 100% SHE truly did. And there might be a space for YOU in her life, but that window is closing fast, and if YOU keep up the nonsense YOU will lose HER in YOUR life forever. YOU may not like who SHE is growing into, and it may not be what YOU would choose for HER, but SHE is in fact changing and healing and growing. I am sorry that it doesn’t look the way YOU want it to…as someone who has had a very public airing of HER own insecurities and traumas, I can tell YOU that healing very often looks like stagnation and backsliding…sometimes YOU have to go back in order to gain the perspective YOU need to forever alter course. I know, because that has been MY own experience.

I wish YOU healing. I wish YOU love that doesn’t hurt. I wish YOU peace in your heart and mind. And I wish, for just one minute, YOU would actually see the woman YOU love for who SHE truly is instead of what YOU want and need HER to be. I know this may be hard to understand but SHE doesn’t exist for you. SHE exists in spite of you. So many of US women have to survive the men in OUR lives. And it isn’t easy to want someone and need someone and to be constantly disappointed when the person you need to show up for YOU just can’t or won’t. YOU could do your own work. YOU could become a better version of the man YOU are. YOU could become a man that breaks the fucking mold, instead of just another one that leads the long and disappointing line. Think about that, will YOU?

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Erin Schaden
Erin Schaden

Written by Erin Schaden

Who am I? I am all that I write, all that I learn, share and grow. Read and find out? Check out www.nakedrandomthoughts.com for more.

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