I always thought that the person you’re supposed to be with is the person who makes you better, never cheats on you, and loves you just enough to be a little jealous in a cute, laughable way. No matter how incredibly insecure they are at the beginning, I thought it would fade, and with its passing, be replaced by something beautiful, and healthier.
I thought that once you dated someone for so long, you would know enough about them, and be comfortable enough around them for there to be no going back.
The kind of comfortable you are when you wake up on his brother’s girlfriend’s couch, under his brother’s girlfriend’s blanket on a Saturday morning wrapped in his arms, ready to kiss him before you even brush your teeth. This is exactly where I was when I realized all of this wasn’t true. I was on his brothers’ girlfriends’ couch, under his brother’s girlfriend’s blanket, alone.
I woke up in a I’m-hungover-and-confused sort of daze. I was hungover because, well, you know, and I was confused because I was alone. He was supposed to be right there next to me. I picked up my phone to text him when I saw it. Panic shot through me. It started its fiery path in my chest and shot straight to my stomach.
Panic and confusion coursed through my veins and welled up inside me so intensely that even my fingertips pounded to the beat of my heart. I wasn’t with me, but that was not why panic had exploded within me, ricocheting off every corner of my insides, spinning my head, and squeezing my heart so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
He had taken screenshot after screenshot of my messages with other people from my inbox. As I read through them the dread worsened. I can only describe this feeling as getting buried in the sand. This is exactly what it felt like to be in the sort of relationship I was in. I was supposed to be packed down into this beautiful mermaid designed from the sand, but instead I just felt heavy and small. The weight of the sand made it hard to breathe.
That’s what seeing those screenshots felt like. I couldn’t move. This was now my new reality. This relationship that had been born out of fear and jealousy; passion and hopelessness was ending. The ending as intense as the love that started it.
The one person I loved more than anything in the world had betrayed me, gone through my phone, and had taken pictures of my very personal messages I had sent earlier that week. I was angry, but I also felt stupid. I ruined this. No, he did. I needed to find him. So I got up off the couch, bracing myself for the end of my “forever”.
That morning, after two years of being together, I was dumped. I was in Delaware. I was supposed to be picking apples on this lovely October morning, but instead, at about 9:00 am, I was dumped. He was always afraid that I would leave him. He feared that just because he thought I was perfect, the whole world would think so too. He thought I would get stolen away. Instead, he pushed me away. No, he shoved me so hard away from him that the pain of it still reverberates around my body to this day like a never ending ripple. Like a rock thrown in the water, my placid lifestyle had begun to fold over.
I can admit now, years later, that I was also in the wrong. Yes, he went through my passcode-less phone and read through all my messages, but wasn't I the one who supplied everything he found? Some of it was stupid like a joke between my male RA and I going into the business of gifting weed together - he hated anything to do with drugs.
But some of it was serious too. I was flirty when I shouldn't have been sometimes (Although, flirting? Not cheating or anywhere near it in my opinion; bothered him though). And of course, the nail in the coffin. The group message where an intimate photo of me was shared.
I did not send it. I told him over and over how that night was a blur, I didn't know, but that I knew myself enough to know that I didn't do it. Lies. I was sick and I didn't know it at the time. Looking back, with hindsight being 20/20 and all, I can recognize that I was ill.
I was going through a big life change that had thrown me into a "happy" episode. Clinically, the term is "manic." Having been thrown into these special happy episodes many times over the course of my life I can now identify my biggest symptom: hypersexuality.
So yeah, without meds, a trigger as small as a change in location can send me soaring. And don't get me wrong, some of it feels amazing. Mostly? It's terrifying. I don't give a shit about anything when I'm in this place. I have no fear. Have you ever lived life with absolutely no fear? It's dangerous as hell and I would not recommend it. Nothing can touch me when I'm feeling like this; I can do no wrong.
So, about a year ago, I considered for the first time that maybe, yes, I was the one who sent the picture. I must have been feeling a certain way in the moment brought on by my imbalanced brain chemicals and loads of alcohol. Absolute recipe for disaster, and indeed disaster struck.
Which; truly, blew my mind. I can say with full confidence that still, to this day, I believe I was madly in love with him. Had I been healthy all the time, this would never have happened. That doesn't make my mental health an excuse for my behavior. Maybe cut me a little slack as that was my first full-blown episode...but knowing what I know now about myself and having learned the inner workings of me, this was totally avoidable.
It was in the realm of "Manic Me" but was absolutely never a possibility for stable me. I don't experience shame over this anymore though. It was a mistake. One I hated making that made me hate myself...but I'm okay now.
Super sorry about that one, Scotty! We got the timing totally wrong!
This story is very cliché; my first real relationship ends because of someone’s misplaced insecurities and it changes my whole perspective on life, and all of a sudden I become this completely different person. Well, yeah, that’s exactly how it is. First, I’m filled with disbelief and a false hope of reconciliation.
Then I become sad. Not just the kind of sad that involves occasional crying, or even the kind that leaves you reminiscing, nostalgia beaming from every fiber of your being. No, I became morbidly, horribly depressed. I was pathetic actually, I’ll admit that. The kind of pathetic that sends seven unanswered messages, the kind that also yields many unanswered phone calls.
Once I got over this hopeless-loss pathetic feeling, I was angry. What was he even looking for? Did he expect me to screw up? We were having a perfectly good weekend and he had to go screw it up and be a freak text message reader!
So in this moment, I changed. I learned that all the things you think about relationships, or about life, may not be exactly true. I think that’s the point of everyone’s first “real” relationship. This is where we learn all the things we imagined, and all our expectations of love, are warped, tweaked, and manipulated.
Maybe you were right about the way holding hands feels, but you weren’t about the way a first kiss should. The whole basis of your life changes; your perspective and your mindset develop differently after that very first heartbreak. That’s where it changed for me.
What I’ve learned is jealousy is a waste of time and that doubt leads to faith. I wasted two years being jealous for no reason, and so did he. I loved him, and he was too jealous to believe me. Don’t be jealous, it’s stupid and immature. It may look exciting in the movies, and seem like an act of passion, but in reality it’s not.
By being jealous, you’re wasting your own time, and you’re wasting the other person’s time. Jealousy is something you need to get past on your own. Not something you bring into a new relationship to work on. Because really, at the end of the day, it's all about loving yourself. If you truly love yourself, jealousy simply has no place.
Being with someone in a committed relationship is actually a secret binding oath that you trust that person. If you’re with someone you don’t trust, get the hell out! Get out. You’re not mature enough. I had to say this to myself many times. I’m not judging you for being jealous; I was immature too, don’t worry.
At least admit you’re jealous, and immature, and stupid, and save the serious stuff for when you’re not! Also, if your significant other cheats on you, that doesn’t mean he/she/they is not right for you. If you want to get back together, then just do it. That’s your decision.
However, if you do decide to get back together, you better believe you’re not even a little bit allowed to implement any sort of rules on them just because they messed up. By accepting them as your significant other once again is the equivalent of saying, “I forgive you, and we’re moving on.” So if you don’t forgive them, and you can’t move on, then get out, get out, get out!
Doubt leads to faith. This concept can be applied with anything. Doubt who you’re with! Just don’t tell them about it. You’re actually, believe it or not, entitled to have your own secret thoughts that no one else knows about. Sometimes in order to appreciate the little things, you need to doubt the big ones. If it’s meant to be, they’ll surprise you.
Actually I have no idea, maybe they won’t. Just know it’s okay to doubt something like your faith, or your marriage, or god-forbid your family or kids one day. Just do it if you need to. Who cares, no one is a mind reader anyway.
And neither was I that October 26th. When I finally met up with him, it ended. It was horrible. He screamed at me, and I cried back. I cried so hard I couldn’t tell the difference between my snot and my tears. We got coffee and we sat in silence. We sat outside in the cold watching people walk by, people laugh, people carry on with their Saturday plans.
I remember thinking how surreal it was. A group of girls would pass by, and I would wonder what they were doing. I wondered if what they were doing was what they had planned to be doing the month before, the week before, or the night before.
I wondered if they knew that what I was doing, sitting outside this coffee shop in silence crying, was; in fact, not what I had been planning to do this particular Saturday. So, I sat. I sat in silence. I sat and listened to everyone else’s lives around me going on because I was so disgustingly sick of mine.
I sat and drank the tasteless drink in front of me for the sole purpose of having something to do with my hands. I sat there and I braced myself for the new life I would take on and the new perspectives I would gain. I didn’t move for a very long time, just thinking, and wondering, and watching. He didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t say anything to him. Our lives were already moving on.
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