Things I wish I’d known before breaking up with my Ex…
…Who I never should’ve dated in the first place.
That actually says it all. Before breaking up with him, I should’ve known that we never should’ve even been in a relationship. There never should’ve been a relationship to break away from, not because it was completely horrible or terrible, but because it was, on multiple levels and layers, so not meant to be. Did I know all this before we entered the boyfriend-girlfriend axis? Oh yes I did, and I still went along with it. It’s like my whole body screamed at me that “Nope, not this one, not going to be it, na-ah”, and I just went “okay, gotcha, I’m gonna see how this one goes”. To quote a song from Thirty Seconds to Mars: “No, no, no!”. And still, into the relationship we went.
The whole journey from bad to worse began on my first year of university. I was young and new in the city and hardly knew anyone around me, so just imagine the moment when an over-excited student tutor walks into my life and gets all friendly from the word go. I developed a miss-belief that made me think that, oh, I really like this guy, when the reality was closer to oh, I really like the attention. And I did, he gave me so much of his time and his energy that of course any girl would be flattered. But at the same time, he took a lot of mine too.
I wish I’d known that people are not projects for you to work on. You cannot fix them.
You see, I knew that he had some issues with school, work, and himself, but the extent of said issues revealed slowly, like a Russian Doll; there was always something more to it. First there was the slight depression. Then the bi-polarity. Then the minor problems with alcohol. And a tiny drug abuse thing. And then the truly adorable little surprise when he asked me to hide his LSD’s for him because the customs officials might come and make a small surprise visit on him. Mommy, mommy, look what I brought home with me.
I wish I’d known that I was neither responsible for his problems, nor the solution to them.
As our relationship progressed and I watched him slowly dismantle his own life into pieces, I tried to help him. I tried to support him, I tried to get him to search for help, but the reality is that you cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. It’s as simple as that. Then again, if you’re not helping them, what are you doing? You cannot possibly leave at a time like that because they need you. Especially when you’re being told that you’re the only source of happiness and the sole reason for them to even be alive, it really starts to feel a little selfish to exit the relationship.
I wish I’d known that pity and guilt are not reasons to stay in a relationship.
We ended up in a situation where neither of us was really happy, and only fifty percent of us wanted to be in the relationship. I wanted to leave and I wanted it to end, but because it was real life and he was a real person, I was too afraid of what would happen. Not because I was a gift from god that he couldn’t handle losing, but because he was so unstable that there would’ve been no one to watch over him if I wasn’t there on a daily basis. I had adopted the guardian position. Once again, I told myself that this is love. In reality, I was just being a decent human being and was worried for him.
We broke up after we spent the summer apart. He kept telling me how he missed me and I just felt relieved that I wasn’t where he was. I can’t say he took it really well, but anyhow, he’s still alive and ended up getting help.
Nowadays I try to look inside the Russian Dolls before I decide to keep them.
With thanks to Suzie Patterson
