We All Have A Choice
(With misogyny and life in general)
Theres a saying I read in a grief self help book not long after I lost my infant child in a car accident that really resonated with me. It was along the lines of ‘you always have a choice. You can choose to become bitter or better.’ At the time those were some incredibly powerful words to hear. Why? Because I had a choice. I didn’t have to stay hurt and angry forever. Instead of feeling like all this pain was happening TO me while my heart and mind were held captive, I realized I had more control than I realized. That was the turning point in my grief where I went from secretly suicidal to actually believing it was possible to climb out of the deepest, darkest, seemingly endless pit my soul-my very being-had gotten lost in.
Truly understanding that we ALL have that same choice-choosing to be better over bitter-is crucial when it comes to how we view the opposite sex and relationships.
Truly understanding that we ALL have that same choice-choosing to be bitter or better-is crucial when it comes to how we view the opposite sex and relationships. Who of us that have dated a fair amount of people in our lives haven’t had some pretty bad experiences at some point? I’m not talking about someone simply ghosting, haunting, orbiting, etc. you (Confession: I looked some of those up). I mean the kind of relationship you were fully invested in only to find out later you were cheated on, used or manipulated. This is the type of heartache where post relationship your heart physically hurts or it goes the opposite direction and you feel numb. Hell, maybe you cried until you felt numb. The aftermath made you stop doing what you enjoyed, you didn’t want to eat (or maybe you overate. You do you.), sleep too much/too little and your thoughts were consumed with the other person.
After a relationship that goes that spectacularly wrong-and ESPECIALLY if bad relationships are a recurring thing for you-you might start thinking ALL guys or ALL women are like this or that. You may not even say stuff like that to a friend but the idea insidiously begins to take hold and you have thoughts like: all men/women will hurt you, use you or take you for granted in some way.
Some of us may be mature enough to recognize we had a part to play (however big or small) in our relationships demise or even go so far as to internalize the notion that something is irreparably broken in us (hint: it isn’t) that seems to invite heartache from others. The strange thing with both of those ideas is that often when we view ourselves as part or all of the problem some part of us wants to concurrently reject that guilt. We then have a tendency to want to place blame on the other person or even a whole group of people just to escape that uncomfortable feeling. That’s not to say we shouldn’t take responsibility for our part to play in our relationships. We should. The exception is an abusive relationship. Barring that exception, the very real grief we experience after a failed relationship or string of relationships can exponentially magnify blame for both us and others.
Why does grief over a failed relationship magnify blame towards ourselves and our ex partner? Because our relationships are like magnifying glasses. And mirrors. Ok both. Actually more like those annoying yet hard-to-resist magnification mirrors that show us all our little imperfections. It can be beyond irritating and deflating to see our own issues brought to light especially from a loved one. Even more so if we thought we had already grown past, healed from or otherwise dealt with those issues.
So then it becomes easier after all is said and done to both feel bad about ourselves and also blame the other person for making us feel bad. And if it happens again? And again? Then there must be something wrong with the whole damn lot of them (men or women) right? Except if you’ve gone through any type of therapy (or had an epiphany?) you realize that YOU are the common denominator in your relationships. Instead of taking an extreme approach by butchering your self esteem or blaming a whole gender you have the choice to think soberly and realize that you being a factor in all your relationships doesn’t mean you’re bad. It doesn’t mean you’re unloveable. And it certainly doesn’t mean no one will ever want to be with you.
Instead of taking an extreme approach by butchering your self esteem or blaming a whole gender you have the choice to think soberly and realize that you being a factor in all your relationships doesn’t mean you’re bad. It doesn’t mean you’re unloveable. And it certainly doesn’t mean no one will ever want to be with you.
Realizing you are the common key in your relationships means only you can work on you. It is not your job to work on others. And it is not their job to work on you. All you ever have to do is work on being the best you that you can be if you want better relationships.
And if you are willing to take a more expansive view of people in general you see that we all have our issues. That hurt people unfortunately really do hurt people as trite as that expression is. Some will go through life continually hurting others without seemingly caring or even realizing it until something major happens to them (or not). But that doesn’t mean all men or all women are bad or want to hurt you. In fact, I believe none of those generalizations are about men or women (men vs women?) anyways. They’re about feeling hurt by other people. It’s just easier to be lazy and lump a group of people together than to see them as individuals with baggage (that we all have to some extent) or take a look at ourselves and our relationship choices.
Sure there are those people out there that are either subconsciously or consciously attracted to you because they need something you have or because you are hurting also and like attracts like. And they do crappy things. But either way people doing what they do isn’t anything under your control. And do you really want that to poison you from a potentially great life with a good partner? There’s nothing wrong with feeling hurt. It’s what you do with it that matters. You have a choice. Never forget that. Being bitter is a choice. Blaming a whole gender for what a relative few you feel have done to you is a choice. But so is choosing to expand your understanding of humanity and striving to become better.
