Yesterday morning, my (now ex-) boyfriend drove to my house and broke up with me. And it absolutely sucks. After close to a year-and-a-half of loving someone and supporting him through his career failures, ups and downs, fun vacations, cuddles, and a couple fights, it’s just over and he can’t be my #mcm anymore. And that’s a hard thing to accept.
Part of me has an especially hard time accepting it because as of a week ago (and even Saturday night right before bed), it was all him saying some “I love you’s” and me saying the “I believe in you’s” and all sorts of things that don’t make sense in the face of a breakup. All I know is that he went to Mexico for a week for work, things didn’t pan out as we’d hoped, and the morning after he landed back home, he drove to my house to break my heart and then left his keys to my place.
And it is heartbreaking. It’s absolutely horrible that all the hard work and effort I put into making a relationship work (especially with someone who was gone for nearly half the relationship playing professional golf mini-tours) was just tossed aside. And the reasons for the breakup were selfish.. and they were sad – not pathetic, but actually sad in that I feel for him and care about him.
I don’t blame my ex-boyfriend for needing to find himself at 27 years of age. He’s at a crossroads in his life, and he does need to figure it out for himself. I, fortunately enough, know who I am, and it’s kind of a relief because I can’t be constantly supporting someone and giving someone my energy who doesn’t believe in himself and turns on me when things get hard. But I still believe in him, and I still support him. I want him to do well and to succeed, and I told him that.
It’s weird that things like that don’t change – the support and love and care you have for someone – but it helps me feel better knowing that I put it all out there and only told him the truth. I can’t say the same for the person I dated, but that’s something out of my control.
And things have been hard. And now I can be selfish. And I can look back and realize that the relationship wasn’t right. And I can realize that there are things that were great about it, but that overall, I deserved much better. I deserve happiness and someone who will be silly with me without caring what other people think.
So, fellow single people of the world, I hope you’ll join me in realizing that maybe your most recent breakup was the best thing that ever happened to you. You shouldn’t spend half your relationship on Google, looking up articles about communication and why your boyfriend won’t let down his walls even though he says he’s over past relationships (which, when you really listen to yourself and your gut, you know he wasn’t). You shouldn’t tolerate someone calling you “weird” or telling you that you “read too much.”
Someone shouldn’t inhibit your growth; the person you are choosing to love should encourage it. And love is a choice. That’s how my relationship lasted as long as it did – because I chose my ex-boyfriend day-in and day-out even when I knew I shouldn’t or didn’t want to. Because I was committed to us and to make it work. And him ending it and pushing away the person who believed in him the most (and still does believe in him) was his choice.
Don’t ever spend your life with someone who doesn’t choose you and doesn’t listen to you. Time is the most valuable thing you can give someone, so don’t spend it on someone who doesn’t have the same life perspective as you. If you’re an optimist, don’t date a pessimist; you’ll end up having to defend your optimism instead of embracing it.
Or worse, you’ll end up becoming pessimistic and lose yourself and what makes you special. Don’t ignore the red flags. Don’t ever let someone take your inner-light away from you. Defending yourself for just being your silly, loving, goofy self is exhausting. Don’t let him call you weird and tell you that you read too much or that you’re not part of his family (even though you spent Mother’s Day at his parents’ house without him because he was away at golf and even though you’ve been included in, essentially, every family event for the last year-and-a-half and have met most of his family). Don’t take on his failures as your own if he doesn’t reciprocate – even if that’s what you do in love. Don’t ignore your gut. If you were Googling articles like “am I happy” or “how to know it’s time to break up” just 7 months into your relationship, don’t stick around. Trust me. It won’t get better, but you can go find someone who is a better fit.
And when he breaks up with you, embrace it. Because you know you should’ve done it months ago. God puts people in your life for a reason and when that person has contributed all he can to your life, it’s time for bigger and better things. Reach out to your friends and your family. My dad, my mom, my brother, and my closest friends have been incredible in the last 24 hours and have reminded me just how special I really am.
And I am. And it’s hard to think that I might’ve forgotten that along the way in the last year-and-a-half. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? You should be with someone who reminds you just how special you are – day in and day out. I never forgot that. I loved and supported my boyfriend and told him how amazing he was all the time. And I just forgot to tell myself those things when he didn’t.
