Imagine never feeling good enough every time you met someone new who you could possibly be romantically interested in. The crippling anxiety and the fear of rejection pile on your shoulders like an elephant sitting on your chest. Meeting someone new should be fun and something you should look forward to, but in my case, I felt like I was just going to be used and disposed of again.
Without getting into the gritty details of it, I dated a guy for one and a half years. We were long-distance for the entirety of our relationship. Obviously, this in itself was extremely difficult. That is, until what I always thought was the unimaginable happened: he cheated on me with the stereotypical “girl I shouldn’t worry about.”
Did I expect it? Somewhat, because my self-esteem has always been low, but I didn’t think he would actually do it. Not to bash him, but he’s not the cutest.
After it happened, I was wrecked emotionally. I had allowed him to break my heart because I thought I loved him. I have come to know now that what I felt for him wasn’t actual love, something I learned from my feelings for my present partner. Nonetheless, it hurt badly. I had allowed this man into my life, my home and into my family. His actions haunt me to this day.
I’m happy to report that I’m doing okay and I’m extremely happy in my current relationship, but even though it has been some years since this happened, it is still something I think about every day.
The questions still pop into my head: Will I ever feel loved again? Could he cheat on me, too? What am I doing wrong? Why am I not good enough?
After years of many therapy visits later, I realized I have bad co-dependency issues. I felt responsible for what he had done to me. I felt that I did things that caused him to cheat. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but the issue is deeper than just a thought. The feeling of possibly driving someone away to the point that they chose someone else over you, the person they claim to love, hurts like no other. Alexa, cue “Traitor” by Olivia Rodrigo.
I really wish I could tell you that I’ve been able to leave that feeling in the past. Unfortunately, it’s caused issues in my current relationship, but nothing we haven’t been able to get past. Being able to talk about how I feel to someone who’s an expert on how the mind works in therapy helps a lot, but I’m still at a point where it’s still a pressing issue in my mind.
However, within the last year or so, I’ve realized that being cheated on is a learning experience. I was able to truly rethink and discover what it is that I need from a serious relationship. Some of those things are security, trust, prioritization and validation. While these aren’t all of them, I advise my readers to do some self-reflection if you are or were in a similar situation that I was in.
Healing is an extremely difficult, lengthy and painful process for some, but the moment we begin to heal, the faster we notice that things start to change for the better.
While I hope that my current relationship is my last, I can’t guarantee that; no one can. Initially, walking into this new relationship, I had constant doubt in my head. No hope that our relationship could withstand me being away at school and him in law school far away from me. I felt like history was just going to repeat itself. Over time and really listening to the harmful, intrusive thoughts that would clog whatever organ links my brain to my heart, I noticed that the harm I was doing to myself was not just a form of self-harm, but also hurting my partner.
I take every day as it comes and learn to live with my thoughts because they don’t just go away when you want them to. If that were the case, I would’ve tried my best to get rid of them by now. Being accepting of these thoughts and being able to let them go versus letting them rip you to shreds is the difference between the life or death of your mental state. Every day is progress and healing is extremely nonlinear, so I encourage you to not be discouraged if, for a while, you feel like every day is not your day. Trust me, one day, it will be your day and you’ll realize how colorful the world is on the other side of fear.
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