How I got over an eight-year-long relationship

The Breakup —

Three months back I celebrated the first anniversary of my singlehood. After 8 years of relationship with my high school boyfriend, the separation was obviously very painful for both of us. But the arrival of a new person in his life too soon broke me on many levels that I could not think of one good reason that could have come out from the breakup. All I could feel was that I made the biggest mistake of my life and I have lost the one for me forever.

How it was handled —

The first 6 months were harsh, kept going through the denying, accepting and moving on phases but in circle, while doing all sorts of stupidity that a normal person does after a breakup like getting drunk and letting a guy you barely know, kiss you just to escape the image of your ex sleeping with somebody else on your bed or having a totally unintended one night stand in which you wake up in the morning, find yourself in someone’s bed, feel the shock, and slowly turn to look at the guy’s face and cover your mouth with one hand to stop the “FUCKKK!!!” from coming out loud.

Later on, to explore the perks of being single I indulged myself in several little flings, and the longest one lasted 15 days. The men I got involved with at this stage as a 25-year-old single gave me my fair share of weird dating experiences. It was like some TV show named Expectations vs Reality.
Let me give you a glimpse of that —
1. I could never imagine a gentleman by look, well-mannered & chivalrous by feel type of guy can ask me for money on the first date, totally ignore my frowned face on this and then might even shamelessly expect me to bare every expense that is to come(Yes!! people like this exist).

2. The next one, I don’t know if it was a challenge for him but he went to the length of his capacity of knitting lies, to get me in a room with him, alone on the very first meeting. This guy, I tell you, had talent; his lies were simple, fresh and believable, hence dangerous. He had created a whole parallel universe where events were so complicated and fragile that if we wanted to meet, we had no other option but to go to a hotel room and spend the whole night together or everything will fall apart and something terrible, terrible will happen to the world. So intense…phew!!

I did not meet him obviously! My friends kept me from falling into such shit(I was too vulnerable and a newbie to figure this out myself at that time).

3. Another one was obsessed with selfies. He replied to my “Hi, whatsup!!” with a picture of him from a certain angle and kept sending them in between the conversations as supposedly the answer to my questions.

Now, can you guess two primary objects of an image which came in response to “Had dinner yet?” ?

Yes! You are right — 1. his face 2. the food. From that certain angle.

If you come across such guy — Just Block Him! That dude wants to get pampered, he is missing his mom and you can’t fill those shoes and that is not YOUR job anyway.

Jokes apart, every time I started seeing someone, I had my heart in my sleeves. So ready to fall in love again. Soon I received a mini-heartbreak from a guy whom I never actually dated but felt very strongly for.

They were all the wrong ones for me and I was wrong for them.

Because I was being brutally honest about everything I also expected all these people to never lie to me about anything which was as stupid as expecting the bull to not attack you because you are a vegetarian.

This situation also makes you attackable for the people waiting to take advantage of women’s vulnerability. People pretending to be your friends. In my case, it was someone I deeply respected, somebody, at my workplace, in a very high position and almost twice my age(cliche! I know). Luckily my instincts always had my back, alarmed me in every potentially harmful situation and always got me out. But my capability to put trust in people was left somewhere there crumbled on the floor.

But these were all the result of my own choices.

Hitting the rock bottom -

After creating all the mess needed for me to realize that it was a path of self-destruction I started counting the blessings I still had. Turned out, I had everything that we take granted for while we have it- family, health, friends, and a career. I have wasted so much of my energy, tears and time(almost a year by then) making it all about that one awful event- the breakup, craving love from that one person who walked out of my life by choice.

Surprisingly, all this drama did not have a negative impact on my work. My career was my escape & my pride.

Ulterior Motive —

I didn’t initially write this to present a story, almost each one of us has some sort of similar experience, there was hardly anything new. But putting it on paper opened up a whole new perspective. It gave me a new pair of glasses to see how it changed the course of my life, shaped my expectations from the future and helped me understand what impact did these series of events made on my mental/emotional health?

While it made me highly sensitive, prone to anxiety, and for a while desperate to find someone else to fill the hole in my heart, it also made me strong as an individual, gave me the courage to walk away from things that are not worth it, and made me truly believe in myself.

I had my first three days solo trip a month ago. I took a major decision of leaving the job and the city that no longer contributed to my happiness. Started gathering resources, making charts, time tables and notes for the things that I wanted to do next. Developed habits to read two different types of books, meditate and eat right every day. Now, this… is healing.

If I had found someone at the time when I was desperate, the relationship would have been a band-aid to my wounds. The guy could have suffered because of my insecurities and need for validation at that time. I might have hurt him.

I don’t want to erase the memory of those eight years with my ex (even though I sometimes wish otherwise) because that is a huge chunk of my life. And I was happy in most of it. Now I am just as happy in friend’s company, feel just as calm hearing my parents voice, and just as hopeful for my dreams but even more confident.

My takeaways from this chapter?

• Things may or may not happen for a reason but we definitely have some control over how we choose to see the outcome.
• Friendship is way more precious & helping than it often gets credit for.
• The gut feeling is basically a product of logic and facts produced by the subconscious mind that our conscious mind chooses to ignore when charmed by someone or blinded by trust. Hence always, always, always believe it.
• Career is a strong pillar that will support you throughout your life, your emotions should not have the power to sink it.
• We never know what the future holds for us but it can always be far better than the past. It’s up to us to make it so.
• And last but not least — Be better but be you.

Thanks for reading. Do clap if you liked it. :)