This is a sponsored feature. All opinions are 100% from Her Campus.
You deserve better: three words that everyone who has been broken up with, cheated on, or lied to is familiar with. In fact, these three words are proven to be the most effective, and the quickest way, to console the people around us, with the littlest effort required. “Don’t worry, Emily, the breakup is a good thing, because you deserve better.” And that’s all it takes. The heartbroken are healed with the idea that, yes, I AM better than my ex, and they DON’T deserve me. But what if we actually don’t deserve better? What if we are just as flawed, and disloyal, and dare I say, just as sh*tty as our exes? What if breakups actually blind us to our own faults, and our ex-lovers were warranted in their decision to leave us?
Though I have consoled myself with the words “I deserve better” time and time again, breakup after breakup, I’ve come to the harsh reality that I have been just as, if not more, inconsiderate and disrespectful than my exes, and made my own fair share of mistakes. I’ve balanced multiple guys at a time without any of them knowing. I’ve kissed exes’ best friends. I’ve lied. I’ve cheated. I’ve done every typically “shady” thing in the book. So how then can I feel justified in saying that “I deserve better?” And at the end of the day, what exactly is “better?” Does better mean nicer, or smarter, or more chivalrous, or like anything, does “better” mean something different to everyone? I mean, surely, we can’t all be striving after the same type of partner. Like they all say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
So while that friend from high school might think that “you deserve better” than your recent ex-boyfriend—maybe, just maybe, their definition of “unworthy” and “unsuitable” is different than yours. Or worse, you may actually not deserve better. In the end, your mistakes and missteps may even be more punishable than the missteps of the boyfriend or girlfriend that left you.
And I have to ask, why do we all consider a partner leaving us as the ultimate sin, and the ultimate betrayal? I can almost guarantee that these same people that parade around with their “I deserve better” posts on Facebook, are the same people who have broken up with their partners of the past, and are surely the same people that have committed these “horrible” offenses themselves. Truly, how many of us have ghosted potential suitors, canceled dates last minute, lead someone on, hooked up with multiple people once, and ultimately, been unfaithful? And unfortunately, the answer is probably “all of us.”
But really, stop and think when the last time we put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, actually was. When have we ever truly made the effort to empathize with the heartbreaker, rather than the heartbroken? Because the truth is, when we broke up with our ghosts of girlfriends past, did we really do it to be spiteful, or hurtful? Or was it simply because we wanted what was best for us, and our own lives? At the end of the day, people in general, even our exes, aren’t against us, they’re just for themselves. And though a breakup DOES somehow feel like ultimate betrayal, wouldn’t we rather be broken up with than strung along for the ride that is their emotional uncertainty?
For some, this may be too big of a pill to swallow, and too frightening a thought to accept. It is very probable that all of us, including myself, will have days where we deny these truths solely because the proposition that we “deserve better” is much more comfortable a thought, than the concept of our exes simply not needing us anymore, and us no longer being beneficial to their growth and happiness.
I have always been an advocate for “all is fair in love and war.” And though I am heartbroken, and sad, and missing my ex every day, can I really blame them? Are they really the villain in my story, like everyone is telling me that they are? Or this simply one of the moments in life where the roles are reversed, and I am not the heartbreaker, but the heartbroken?
With that, I want everyone to stop telling me I deserve better. And more importantly, I want you all of you to stop telling the heartbroken people in your life that they deserve better.” One: because it is thoughtless and cliché, two: because we have no way to really define what “better” is, because “better” is subjective, and three: because to say that our exes were “not good enough for us” is a rather harsh and cruel judgment of the people around us.
No, I don’t deserve better. And you don’t either. However, we all DO deserve someone that wants us back, because living in a one-sided love affair is the closest thing to hell we’ll ever know.