When you lose someone that you care about deeply.. it isn't like any other kind of loss. This is the same in many situations. You could lose someone to distance, lose someone to death, lose someone to another.. or even just.. lose them.
I was in a relationship for seven years. We were young and in high school and it was my first real big relationship. I had already been with him for a couple months before I got freaked out about my own feelings and pushed him away. I was almost eighteen and my mother and I were moving again-- or so I thought-- and I was scared. Well, we ended up getting back together and when I turned eighteen I decided to stay and live with him and his parents instead of moving with my mother.
At the end of the first year he had already started hanging out alone with another girl. A girl that would come to ruin the first four years of our relationship to a point that even now I can't hear the name of the girl without a visible tick. Sure, I probably shouldn't have stayed if this was going on and I had asked him before to, for me, stop hanging around with her-- at least alone-- because it made my very uncomfortable.
Anyway, the relationship went sour for a multitude of reasons. He was a narcissistic sociopath and emotionally and mentally abused me, while in the last few years of the relationship I found that because I was unable to speak up to him or talk to him or explain how I felt to him.. my feelings grew hostile and I would punch him in the arm every chance I got. I didnt realize until later that it had meant I had become physically abusive even if it wasn't hurting him-- it was just apparently the only way I could express myself. I have sense gotten help and have relieved my urge to punch anyone in the arm that I couldn't properly communicate with.
Anyway, back to my point. After seven years and the birth of our daughter a few years prior, I couldn't do it anymore. Things had gotten so bad that finally our four year old would come out and say "My heart doesnt understand why you're fighting".. and that was it.
It's been 4 years this coming August and I am single. He had a rebound and then married the next girl. Someone he met four months after we broke up and married six months after they met. We co-parent and that's a situation all its own.
But my meaning for this post.. I'm fine the way I am. We spent our developing years together. 18-25 years old is a time of development and finding out who you are. I didnt get that. So, I'm doing it now. In therapy, of which I am a big advocate for, I finally reached a point that I had to be honest with myself about something.
Why was it taking me so long to heal and get back out there?
Aside from any emotional and mental abuse that left me scarred and terrified of really trying to start anything again.. and then later aside from finally coming into my own and being able to really explore myself single and find myself and my own likes and loves and who I was.. who I am. It was this.. I lost someone that I would have been with forever.
Honestly. Had we truly been able to work things out, he would have been it for me. That isn't like any other break up. It hasn't taken a month, a year, just to get over. It wasn't just heartbreak. It was the loss of a future. It was knowing that I would have been with him forever if our communication skills just panned out. If he had been less this or I had been more that.
No, we weren't perfect for each other and yes I understand that it means that he wasn't "The One" and that someone else is out there waiting for me. But when you love someone and you believe that had youbeen able to just.. communicate better.. that he would have been it for you.. it's not just a break up to get over. It isn't just about realizing that "oh we had a nice time but its gone now". Its a loss of part of yourself, part of your time, part of the future you hoped for together. It's just.. more.
So remember that, when you judge yourself for it "taking too long" to heal over someone. Were they it for you? Could you have seen yourself, at that time, with no one else? Did you have legitimate plans and not just fairytale dreams of being with each other forever? Even if you didnt.. the moral here is that it doesn't take everyone the same amount of time to "get over it and move on". We all need our time and whether it is days, months, years.. don't let anyone else judge you and tell you that you should have moved on already. In my situation I said goodbye to a lot more then degrading words and cold shoulders. I said goodbye to the good times, the memories, the part of the cycle that was nice and perfect and the future we could have had together not just me and him but with our daughter as well.
So you do you.. you take your time.
Do like Sam says in "Sleepless in Seattle" because to many, it does feel as though your spouse has died. Or at least the dreams you had for your life with that person, or the part of that person you dreamt of having that future with.
"Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while, I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while."
Goodnight everyone. And may your hearts heal and your love see the sun once more.
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