“I still love you,” I said, feeling the first waves of fear subside from my body.
“I love you too,” he replied, returning the sentiment.
I had just walked down the aisle and was engaged in my own little ceremony. The guy I was about to marry was about to marry someone else. I was about to marry the guy who had just said he loved me. I didn’t want that. I couldn’t care less who married who. Marriage was just a fancy title; it didn’t mean much. He was just a guy with whom I’d done stuff, and now that we were in a long-term relationship, I wished him nothing but the best. I still loved him, and I wanted nothing more than for him to stay that way.
I’m not sure how, but I became infatuated with a certain type of man. I couldn’t help it, really. I was a teenager, living a teenage life, living in the shadow of a much older man. I just couldn’t help it.
No one is perfect, and I certainly didn’t aim to be. I was a brat, yes, and I was a control freak, yes, but I tried to be nice and help people. I wanted to do better, and I tried to be the best person I could be. I made mistakes, sure, but I never intentionally hurt anyone with my actions. I made mistakes, but I never intentionally hurt anyone with my actions.
I just needed to learn to recognize those things in myself, and to recognize the good in others. It didn’t come easily, and it wasn’t a matter of turning around and seeing the good in everyone. I had to work at it, and it’s taken some time, but I’m a lot more forgiving now than I was a couple of years ago.
I had to work at forgiving myself for the way I treated a certain guy.
I had to work at forgiving myself for the way I treated a certain man.
There was a period in my young adult life where I was going through a pretty rough patch. My life was moving in a different direction, and I was dealing with some personal challenges that made me feel like I was moving in the wrong direction. My grades were suffering, and I was struggling to find a job that I enjoyed. I had made some poor decisions, and I was trying to make sense of them all as I grappled with my own demons. But one thing kept nagging at me.
I could’ve easily brushed all of that aside and moved on. I could’ve dismissed it as being something that came and went in my head during those tough times. I could’ve ignored it as just being some inner-conflict that I needed to work through before I could move forward.
But that’s not what I did.
What I did was, for a while, continue hanging out with that same guy. I continued to see him in various ways, and I continued to be happy with the life I was building for myself. And when the pressure got to be too much, I called it quits. I knew better than to keep pretending to be okay when I knew the truth.
I know better than to keep pretending to be okay when I know the truth.
I called it quits, and I didn’t do it lightly. I did it because I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew I had to do better. I did it because I was, and I always will be, a better person than that. I can’t take the same actions again, and I won’t allow myself to be a part of something that would cause more harm to myself and others.
I don’t think it’s healthy, in a relationship or at any age, to constantly pretend to be okay. It doesn’t just send the wrong message — it sends the wrong message on a deeper level. It sends the message that you don’t really matter, that you can’t truly be happy unless you still have someone living in your life.
It sends the message that you don’t really matter, that you can’t really be happy unless you still have someone living in your life.
It sends the message that you don’t really matter, that you can’t really be happy unless you can find someone to love in your place.
I think we need to look at our relationships and see how we can better teach and empower others to be better people. We can’t continue to let a minority of people use us as pawns in their games. We can’t continue to allow some people to constantly use us in their games.
So no, I don’t think it’s healthy to continue to treat another person poorly, no matter how much that person may have hurt you or how much they may have treated you well. I know that there are a lot of people in this world