Breakups hurt. It does not matter if you are the one doing the heartbreaking, or someone broke your heart. It feels at times like you wasted time on someone who turned out not to be who you thought they were. You may want to forget that relationship ever happened, but it is important to acknowledge what that person or relationship taught you. There’s good that comes out of the bad in life, and I asked a few people to share what their ex taught them.
“I was in an abusive relationship in high school. He would get really bad and scream at me and push me around. Once we were in a movie theater parking lot and he was screaming at me. So I got out of his car and he ran after me to pull me back in. So I’d have to say I thank him for teaching me what I deserve in a relationship and, trust me, I know it’s not that.”
“I was in a really bad place mental health-wise while in a relationship in high school. I had too much working on myself to do to give any love or attention to another person, and frankly, I treated my ex like crap. Somehow, despite all the anger and sadness I was experiencing that I took out on him, he showed me only love and patience, and I thank him endlessly for that.”
“I would like to thank my ex for teaching me both what love is and is not. We had a lot of great memories together, but also a lot of bad. He had some mental health/ alcohol issues and would leave whenever things got tough. He taught me that despite the good memories, I deserve someone who’s there for me through the bad times as well. He also taught me to stick up for myself and not to welcome someone back with open arms the minute they come running back to me.”
“Thanks to my last ex for teaching me to not force a man to stay if he doesn’t want to stay. I deserve someone who wants to be with me, not someone who can’t decide if he’s my boyfriend or not every other day.”
“Just because a man is nice doesn’t mean you owe him anything.”
“If your gut tells you something is wrong; you should trust it.”
“Thanks to my ex for teaching me that communication is the absolute most important thing in a relationship and also that you can’t expect to change anyone by strongly stating what you believe and hope that they will also start believing it.”
“I’d like to thank my ex for accepting me for coming out as bisexual. A lot of his friends gave him and me a lot of crap and made some really offensive/derogatory comments towards me, but he always stood up for me, and I never really told him how much that meant to me.”
“Thanking my ex for teaching me that you can’t fully love someone else unless you can love yourself first.”
“I’d like to thank my ex for teaching me what emotional manipulation and abuse looks like. Also, for showing me how important the force-field of female friendship is. No one knows you’ve been wronged quite like your girlfriends.”
I’d like to thank my ex-boyfriend for a lot of things. He gave me great music to listen to, and gave me the courage to stand up for myself. I like to think all of us can thank our exes for showing us something, and we wouldn’t be where we are, or who we are without the lessons we learned from them.
*All submissions are anonymous
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