So I am working on both a personal project and with a life coach at the moment, so I decided tonight that I would go back and read my post on breakups now that it has been another year of me being single. Yup 3 whole years. CRIMINAL I hear you say, I know, I agree with you too.
Seriously I still very much share the sentiment of that post; that heartbreak does change you as a person for the better and it's something you grow through. However a year ago, I really believed I was over it, and in the last month I've realised that the baggage I have been carrying around since is not the kind you can fit in the overhead conveniently and access when you want to. I'm paying excess for it and dragging it around like a dead body, every fucking day. And I didn't even know it by the way, I just thought my neck pain was from craning over my desk daily doing my other life sentence.
You see, when you've had your heart broken, your self-esteem might take a battering. As women we've been brought up to tie our self worth to being in a relationship, getting married, having babies and living the fairy tale of happily ever after with our prince charming. So when it a severe relationship breakdown happens you think "why did it not happen for me?". But then if you reconciled your break up the way that I did (that it was all his fault naturally), you go into dating with a false sense of confidence. Like I genuinely thought, I would pick up another boyfriend EASY breezy but knew myself enough to know I wouldn't be in a relationship for a while until I met someone I actually believed was amazing. 3 years later... OK then, this isn't as easy as I thought it would be and I'm seriously struggling to find anything of value.
First disclaimer; I am not going to insult you all and pretend that I have been trying to meet someone consistently and I'm just unlucky. Firstly this year has been pretty much a write off because of lockdown so that's my first excuse. AND I know there are plenty of people who have met someone in this time, but not being able to travel, not wanting to get on the tube, not being able to socialise or bump into people in general, definitely isn't helping! I've also really focused on my career, travelled loads and I've adopted a puppy. Frankie (now a 20KG dog) killed my social life during the time I was allowed out because I was constantly aware he was home alone and my time was limited before his next toilet break.
But then, you do start to look at your patterns when you are dating, or you do if you're a person who tries to be self-aware and take some responsibility, and start to realise that something just isn't adding up. From that point, some people may choose to start dropping their standards, or compromising where they shouldn't or entertaining people they may not have before, but that's really not my style. I am way too comfortable being at home on my own with my dog to be around someone I don't really, really like that much. Through self-development work I was already doing (and have mentioned already in other posts) I knew that my self-worth wasn't where it was supposed to be from the way I speak to myself and take things to heart. I therefore decided to do something different and face my issues head on. I invested in myself and paid someone to tell me what was wrong with me... or as I would now say, what was I perhaps approaching things incorrectly.
Now we've gone all the way back to childhood. My coach has taught me (free therapy here guys!) that what you look for in a relationship is usually what you felt you didn't receive from your parents. She has also helped me see where the beliefs I have about love and relationships come from and what damage I've used to shape them. My issues, which you wouldn't be surprised to hear if you've read my other articles, are security, feeling like a burden and not trusting easily. I don't mean trust in terms of cheating, but trust that someone really likes or cares for me. I take this so far that I don't actually feel safe to truly be myself before I know someone likes me. This is completely backwards by the way! You should be yourself and then if someone likes you, great they're for you, if they don't, no they're not for you. My approach? "oh like me when I completely edit myself to being who I think you'll like and then when it;s safe for me to be me, I will be". It sounds as stupid as it is. But I didn't realise that was what I was doing until I said it out loud.
Matthew Hussey (love extraordinaire and mighty fine) recently said something along the lines of "the scariest thing about not being yourself when you're dating, is that you might miss out on the person who was meant for you". That shit hit hard.
I also know that my last relationship happened and was genuine because I really didn't give a fuck. I was take it or leave it because I wasn't sure and it's much easier to not care whether something develops or not when you're only 25.
So where does all of this pressure that I now feel come from? Yes it comes from me being a perfectionist and a people pleaser and not wanting to disappoint people by staying single because the people who care about me, want me to be in a happy relationship. Yes it also comes from society and the fact that I'm 33 and not on that track to marriage and babies. But I'm a smart enough cookie to know that the pressure is really coming from me. Again if I didn't care, I wouldn't. The critic in me who thinks I'm not good enough to be with and who believes I need to act perfect to get that in my life puts the pressure on me. The critic who constantly tells me I'm not loveable enough, beautiful enough and that I have to pretend to be amazing at all times just to trick someone to be interested in me to "do the work" to get to know me. Yes, I said to my coach that I feel like guys getting to know me or talk to me is work for them. SO fucked up.
I also realised that I wasn't over my last relationship. I was over him, yes, but I wasn't over feeling like I'd already fucked up my chance for relationship happiness and I wasn't going to have that again with anyone ever. The longer I've been single (raw honesty now) the more insecure I've felt about it. Don't get me wrong, there are moments of superiority when my friends are having major arguments with their other halves or dealing with in-laws etc. but I feel like I left that behind and now I'm the one who is behind.
So with my coach I've been working on it. I didn't reply to a drunk text from a guy I really liked at one point because I know I deserve better than that now. I'm just not excited that he thought of me in that moment. It's an insult actually. The audacity!
I also threw away all of the things I kept in a box of my last relationship. It was at the bottom of my wardrobe under a million shoes so I wasn't sitting here crying over it (please don't think I'm that hung up) but I've realised I didn't need to keep hold of it to remind myself of what it feels like to be loved. I will have that again with someone else and it will be better. The biggest break through though is that despite having told myself I am ready to meet someone new, I haven't been. I go on dates with a guard up (and I really hate that term because every girl says it) and am not really open. I keep it one level, and in doing so, I could be anyone to anyone. There's no getting under my hood!
Honestly I think it is sad, that I've let things effect me this much. I hate that I've internalised as much as I have and I have to work as hard as I do now to dismantle it all. But it's also given me my power back a bit too. I know I don't communicate - I expect men to be mind readers and it annoys me that I struggle to be clear verbally on what I need and how I feel. I have no problem doing it in every other area of my life. This isn't a blog post to say I blame me for being single. I mean, I've dealt with some rotters too but I am taking responsibility for the fact that if I want to find love, I need to open myself up to it more. I need to take more risks and I need to really put myself out there. Yes that means not just turning up on a date, but more than that, I really need to own who I am. No apologies, no explanations (another thing I do), no comparisons, and no editing.
Either way I am going to be OK because I am really starting to do the healing from my past experiences, work through it and it will mean I will be a better person in the next relationship I am in, I am also not going to say on this post the obligatory "but you don't need a relationship" because of course you don't, but I do want one. I also need to start being honest about that.
Yours,
Unimpressed with Heavy Bags
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