Infidelity, Beyoncé and Lemonade

“What’s worst, lookin’ jealous or crazy?”
(Hold Up, from Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade)

Finding out I was cheated on was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced in my life.

The confession came one day in the middle of the night, me laying in my bed, in the arms of the man I loved.

It took a while for it to hit me. Maybe it was the calm tone he choose to break the news, the fact we were in a safe place where we could talk about everything (believe me, everything), or maybe it was the idea that speaking up by his own will made it less worse.

It needed a few seconds in silence to process the information. And then it hit me: I had been betrayed.

Me of all people, who fought so hard for honest relationships, who always kept the door open to discuss any kind of topic, who have always been so painfully transparent about what I do and how I feel asking nothing more in return but reciprocity. Someone I trusted completely lied to my face and betrayed my trust.

Having an open mind, being loving and a wonderful lover, none of those things protected me from the pain of a selfish guy who decided to deceive me to get what he wanted. Have I mentioned that he cheated on me without condoms soon after convincing me that we needn’t use them since our relationship had gone serious? Cruelty on top of everything.

I remember the sensation of drowning in my sheets while my tears forced they way out. He tried to hug me, relativize, say he loved me, talk about it, and all I wanted was to disappear.

It didn’t take long for anger to quick in – hard.

I sobbed, I yelled, I cursed him, I smoked, I trembled from head to toes. How could someone whom I loved and admired, whom I shared my secrets and tears with, someone who asked to live with me, who claimed to love me and made plans for the future with me, consciously inflict me so much pain?

That nigh, it took me a long time to calm down and the feeling in the end was a combination of exhaustion, sadness and disillusionment. Loved seemed like a farce to me. Trust was surely a huge utopia. And for me, I was a major fool. For letting someone hurt me so much. For having expected reciprocal fidelity. For believing in him when he said I was crazy for thinking he could be having an affair with her.

Being cheated on on killed me a little and threw me in some of the darkest days I’ve ever lived. I will never forget that.

Beyoncé just released her new album Lemonade and many songs talk about infidelity. The lyrics are filled with fierce words about her husband Jay-Z. Some songs tore my soul in two.

I went to be looking up to Queen Bee. It’s not an easy task to transform the pain of betrayal into art, to display your broken heart to the world and live your life without the need to hide anything.

My hope is that, by writing about it, as she did, I will find some sort of sublimation for this scar that I never wanted, but that will always be here.

“I’m telling these tears, “Go and fall away, fall away”
May the last one burn into flames”
(Freedom, also from Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade).