He Didn’t Choose Me. So This Time, I Chose Me.

I used to think I’d never be able to say the words out loud. That if I did, the world would see me as a failure. A woman who couldn’t keep her man. A woman who lost at love. A woman who wasn’t enough.

But I’m learning now—I didn’t fail. I stayed too long in a story that no longer belonged to me.

The truth is, he cheated on me.

Even before I found out, I could feel the shift. Our relationship had already started fading. The calls stopped. The texts changed. He used to call me multiple times a day, just to check in or say he loved me. He used to look at me like I was magic. Now he barely looked at me at all, and when he did, it was with eyes that saw me as a friend—not as his wife.

I kept asking him if something was going on. If he was seeing someone else. He said no every time.

But something in my gut knew. And one day, when I saw his Apple Watch sitting on the counter, I looked through it. I had never looked through his phone in all our twelve years of marriage. But that day… I needed the truth.

And there it was. A message that read, “Good morning baby doll.”
Just like he used to say to me.

The thread continued with “I love yous,” “I miss yous,” and “We’re each other’s forever.”

As I stood there, stunned, the messages began disappearing—right before my eyes—because he was erasing them on his phone.

I confronted him immediately. I asked him who she was, and he lied, saying she was just a client. But I knew. I knew she wasn’t just a client.

I had never seen him so speechless.

And I had never felt so gutted.

The man I loved, the one I gave my loyalty, my body, my sacrifices to—chose someone else. And even after that betrayal, I begged him to stay. I begged him to choose me.

That was five months ago.

In that time, I’ve tried so hard to become more of what he wanted. I cooked more. I became more available sexually. I made changes—trying to find my way back into a heart that had already locked its door.

But it didn’t matter. Because he had already chosen himself.

And I was begging to be loved by a man who had let go of me long before I realized it.

I have been praying to God every day—begging Him to take the pain away and help me feel worthy again. At first, I prayed for God to change his heart, to bring him back to me, to help him choose me. But now… now my prayers are different. Now I pray for peace. For strength. For healing. I ask God to help me love myself again and stand in my truth. I’ve come to understand that we were never meant to be forever—we were meant to be a lesson, a chapter, a placeholder. The more I pray, the more I accept that I was never unworthy—I was just giving my love to someone who couldn’t carry it. And now I know—I deserve to choose me.

Now that I’ve had time to sit with it, I see everything more clearly. I sacrificed so much. I sacrificed my self-respect. My peace. My joy. My voice. My boundaries. I twisted myself into shapes I never liked to make him happy.

But none of it brought him back.

Because love—true love—doesn’t require you to betray yourself just to be chosen.

He’s moving out in a few months, and strangely, I feel relief. Not because I’m not still hurting—I am. But because I’m no longer clinging to something that was never mine to hold on to.

I want a love that doesn’t make me beg. I want a love that sees me, that holds me, that feels like home. I want to be someone’s choice—not their convenience.

He didn’t choose me.
So this time, I chose me.

With love + truth,
💔 Aria Monroe 💗
Healing in real time. Choosing herself on purpose.