I once heard the phrase “falling in love is like falling asleep, at first it happens slowly, and then all at once.” But lately, I have been thinking that the opposite is also true. Falling out of love is like waking up; sometimes you wake up slowly, sometimes someone else wakes you up, and sometimes you wake yourself up very quickly.
Love, to say the least, is very tricky. I’ve been in love twice and neither time ended very well. At least, I think that I have been in love twice. It’s so hard when it’s over, once those feelings fade and there is hurt and anger. Then, it’s so hard to know if those feelings were ever true or if you just imagined them for the sake of your own sanity.
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But I think that it is true that falling out of it, is like waking up. Sometimes, it happens slowly. Those feelings start to fade, and over time, even though you know you aren’t meant to be with one another, you still care deeply about them, just not in a romantic way. I feel like this is the easiest because often times the other person will feel the same way, having slowly woken up and realized these things for themselves. That doesn’t always happen, but it certainly makes things a lot easier when it does.
Then, there is having someone else wake you up, and in my opinion, this one is the hardest. This is someone ripping off your rose-colored glasses and forcing you to see the things that you blatantly refused to see. Sometimes when one is in a relationship, it is hard to see all of the red flags. But the people that are around you, like friends and family, can often see the problems that are being ignored. In the worst of situations, it takes someone else to say something to one member of the relationship for them to realize that maybe the relationship, or even the person, might not be what they thought.
Lastly, there is waking yourself up suddenly. One day, you just realize, “this isn’t what I want or need” and decide that it needs to be over. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love or care for the person, it just means that you know there is something else out there someday that is going to make you happier than the person you are with. Sometimes, you just realize that things aren’t working, and other times it’s like a slap in the face that there is something about the person that you don’t like that you didn’t see before. That’s always hard, finding out that the person isn’t who you thought they were. But that happens a lot. True colors always come out eventually.
Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com
It is okay to decide that you are not happy. For no reason should you stay if it is no longer what you want. It isn’t fair to the other person and more importantly, it isn’t fair to you. I know everyone always says to put others first, but that’s wrong. You should always put your own happiness first because sometimes you will lose yourself always looking out for others.
Relationships are really hard. Chances are, if something doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t. Always try to address these feelings, because just ignoring them will allow them time to get worse until they are past the point of fixing.
So end that relationship if it’s not working. Drop that friend. Take that class. Pick up that hobby. Work on you. Cause if you aren’t happy, you can’t make others around you happy.