I’ve spent the last three years of my life navigating a relationship that was intended to result in marriage. I say navigating because like most things that are intended to last forever it WAS NOT easy. Somewhere during these three years, I decided that my way of living and thinking wasn’t good enough. I decided that I needed to attempt to adapt to the way my partner did things and try to view things the way that he viewed them. I took all his criticisms and comments about me and swallowed them whole. I was determined to fix myself, to adapt to this new relationship so that it would be successful and last forever. I began to think about everything that I did was wrong, that it could be better, that I could be better, that WE would be better together if I changed. I was constantly overthinking, I stopped sharing as much, and talking as much because navigating conversations when you’re constantly questioning whether you may say something incorrect or not is overwhelming. I lost sight of who I was. It didn’t occur to me until we broke up that I had lost myself in the shuffle.
The thing about me is I have always prided myself on being able to fulfill what I thought were the needs of whoever I was with. What I failed to realize is that I was literally following a template of what I thought a good partner looked like. It wasn’t until the most recent relationship that I became glaringly obvious that there are men that do not need or even require the things that you have to offer. Those men, are self-made and you will be in their lives because they want you to be, not because they need you to be.
This circumstance was pretty eye-opening for me because not only was I was so conditioned from my past relationships to fulfill certain needs that I began to feel useless when I no longer needed to. I didn’t see my value in the relationship if I wasn’t completing my “routine tasks”. Now, those tasks are things like: being emotional support when circumstances in their lives have changed, cooking, cleaning, ironing clothes, cutting their hair, tying their ties before work and interviews and whatever else falls under the realm of what would be considered a stereotypical American dream type housewife. When I was no longer required to do those things I didn’t understand what made me valuable in the relationship. Anyone could just show up and be present.
What made things even more challenging for me was that the tasks that I was given were so far from anything that I had ever done that was not successful in completing them consistently, which ended up being the demise of our relationship. I can’t even lie, the breakup was jarring but only jarring to the point where I went numb. And instead of taking my typical route of wallowing in my sorrows, I chose not to even acknowledge the breakup at first. I spent a week in my thoughts, writing and reading whatever I could get my hands on, and it felt great.
After the week of not talking to anyone, I felt refreshed and confident, I felt happy. I hadn’t felt that happy in a long time. This made me sad because I would have liked to be that happy within my relationship and I could’ve been if I stayed true to myself. I was never told that I needed to change, but I felt like I wasn’t good enough. My confidence level had plummeted in the worst way when I knew I wasn’t completing my tasks, or I did or said something that required what I thought would be considered a correction. It’s a reason like this that it’s super important to love yourself and who you are before you even bother to build a relationship with anyone else.
The space that I am in now feels so much better. I worry less, I smile more, and I learned and relearned a few lessons. I’m currently spending time reevaluating my goals, strengthening my support system, being more conscious of the state of my mental health, and being the best version of myself that I can be.
CallMeCam 