I met a friend for coffee. She recently went through a disastrous breakup with a loser she thought was “the one” and is dating again and told me all her dating horror stories and that’s she’s still hurt by her ex and asked how on earth she could find a guy and be married and happy. She’s one of my inner circle that knows my past. She wanted to know how I learned to have faith in other people again. I had to think on it for a good while before I could answer her.
Lord, have I been through some should’ve known better, should’ve listened to my parents, Taylor Swift drama. Things that broke my heart more than a few times and I’ve worked really hard to get past a lot of hurt and trauma.
Do I regret it? No, I think I needed to go through it all to become who I am and to have and appreciate the things I am blessed with. What I regret is the way we (my exes and I ) let the relationships end or that I wasn’t strong enough to end them sooner.
I would be single if I had not found Tyler. I work from home now unless I have to go to a trial or deposition. Online dating sucked. From my friend’s stories, it sounds like it’s only gotten worse. I’m not sure how I lucked out.
I’ll never say anything bad about any of my exes. In the words of Carly Pearce:
“I’ve got my side of the story and he’s got his side, too. So I ain’t gonna go and tell you what he did
But I’ll tell you what he didn’t do.
Treat me right, put me first, be a man of his word
Stay home ’cause he wanted to. Always fight for my love, hold on tight like it’s something that he couldn’t stand to lose. The devil’s in the details, I won’t tell the hell that he put me through.
All I know is in the end, it wasn’t what he did
No, it was what he didn’t do”
The first thing I said to my friend was to not settle because of arbitrary pressure she puts on herself for a timeline that is different for everyone. When she finds the right person, she won’t feel the need to beg, convince, or force. Things will feel easy, safe, and grounded. There’s no perfect person, we all have flaws and there’s no perfect relationship. At it’s core a healthy relationship with the right person should fundamentally feel natural.
You can’t make someone love you by giving more of what they already don’t appreciate. How you are treated is so much more important than how much you like someone. I had previously made the mistake of being so forgiving that I overlooked I was being disrespected.
I told her I thought she was putting too much on herself and part of that is because of our world today.
I was where she is mentally at one point. I had a plan. Be married by twenty-five, 2.5 kids by thirty, buy a house somewhere in between. Oh and have a successful career. Looking back it’s hilarious the anxiety and pressure I put on myself to be the perfect daughter, girlfriend, employee, just name it. Because once upon a time, a hot minute ago, thirty was old. Jeeze louise.
I met someone in my young twenties, he was it, and I did really love him. So stupidly so. In many ways, in that relationship and the one that followed after,I lost myself in the pursuit of trying to find happiness in others. That’s not the right way to go about a healthy relationship. You have to be happy with yourself. Nobody can give you happiness. True happiness comes from within. The only ever person I ever truly lost and needed back was myself.
That big heartbreak saved me. It was never supposed to work and I would’ve just kept on trying. The reality is sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows. I should’ve ended that relationship way before we ended. I was afraid. I didn’t want to admit that the relationship was a lesson. Despite the red flags and obvious flaws in our relationship. I pushed it. I tried to move forward with what I thought had to happen because of some arbitrary idea I had in my head of how my life should look.
I needed to stop fighting for something that was never going to work decided to fight to let go. I was starting over after I thought I had it all together.
I told her you can start over or late, lose it all, and fail repeatedly and still be great in the end. I told her in reference to her ex and the hurt she feels that there’s a quote that resonated with me with my breakups. “You didn’t love her! You just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe, maybe she was good for your ego. Or, maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life, but you didn’t love her, because you don’t destroy the person that you love!” -Dr Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy
The following relationship that I had after that nasty break up, I saw the signs and ended it before we got too far in. It still hurt, because we dated for almost a year. Not the same way as that initial crack in my heart. I didn’t want someone where I wasn’t the one thing they couldn’t stand to lose and I wouldn’t settle. I knew my worth. If you’re reading this and need the reminder- don’t be the chaser, be the one who’s chased. You’re the tequila, not the lime.
There’s a popular meme on Insta- losing someone that doesn’t respect or appreciate you is a gain not a loss. She has a heart of gold and has pure intentions. She didn’t lose anything, he did.
She wanted to call her ex and tell him everything he did and everything that she thought of him. I told her not to, there’s no point. Part of maturing is realizing silence is more important than proving your point. One day if she has no animosity towards him she can reach out to attempt to understand but in all reality she’ll never get an answer just like I never did and likely never will. And one day she’ll realize it feels so good to be so indifferent about a person you thought you couldn’t go without. To realize you hadn’t thought about them in a really long time.
One day she’ll be at peace and not feel the need for revenge or drama. She needs to live for today, not what yesterday had taken from her. She needs to be the confident, intelligent, kind, caring, beautiful, vibrant person she is. It’s her time to focus on herself and her happiness.
I forgave people who weren’t even sorry. That’s strength. I had to. Without me letting go, forgiving them, forgiving myself, forgiving the situation, and realizing that it was over, I couldn’t move forward.
The life in front of me is so much more important than the life behind me. I wasn’t going to give up on the woman I’d be in a few years, she was counting on me.
The biggest lesson, I’ve learned was to not bleed on those who didn’t cut me. I couldn’t allow my wounds to transform me into something I am not. It was a lot of self-love to learn how to trust again. Trusting takes risk. Just as in finance, you don’t make gains if you don’t take risks. I eventually took a risk on my husband.
I know my friend, I know she’ll do that. Sometime it takes hearing things you already know but don’t want to hear. In my heart, if the version of her five years from now could see where she will go, she’d be so proud.
I know this will happen for her in my soul. As I’ve gotten older I keep my inner circle small. I don’t show everyone my true me. The people I let in are the people who make me feel seen, heard, appreciated, supported, and loved. They’ve seen my good and my bad and we have similar morals. They know they can call me and I’ll be there anytime anywhere and I know the same of them.
God canceled my plans to save my life. He sent me in the other direction to avoid danger. He fights battles I don’t even know about. His plan is better than mine.
Sometimes things happen and you don’t know why until years later. I know now why I went through all the pain and hurt. I wouldn’t give up the relationships I had. They weren’t bad people. We just weren’t right for each other.
I wouldn’t have met my friend- one of my people, had the plans I had set for myself followed through. I wouldn’t have met many of the most amazing people in my life. I wouldn’t have pushed myself to be as healthy and as successful. I’d never have met my husband.
At the end of the day, had I known how much some things would hurt, I still would’ve had the dance. That’s how you live. It’s how you learn what you want and need.
There’s no secret, no magic wand or potion to make the pain go away. No fairy godmother to help you find the right person who will let you be you and accept you in every sense of the way. Time and faith is what did it for me.
When I hugged her before we left, I told her to “have faith things will work out, not how you planned, but how they’re meant to be”.
Until next time, cheers🥂🍾
Coffee, Cats, & Champagne 