My Break Up Is Healing Me
By: Corrin Avchin
It’s been 9 months. 9 months since I have broken up with my college boyfriend. 9 months of meeting new men and inevitably, the conversation turns to ask about dating and the dreaded exes.
Potential lovers steer the conversation to ask about my break up, men slightly interested in knowing who the root of the issue was: him or me. (It was both.) My most common answer to those who ask me what happened, what was our demise, how three years ended abruptly, quietly, and then became under attack almost spontaneously, I say, I fell out of love. Yet, it was a multitude of experiences that led to our ending.
And I’ve met some great men in the past 9 months as well as those who only wanted to cause harm. I’ve passed my way through each of them because I cannot accept anyone into my heart as deeply as I had for him at this moment. I discovered I do love myself and that I want to love who I am. I want to respect who I am. It has been a journey since February to show myself love and respect. I don’t know why at times it is so hard to show myself, love. I am sorting through my feelings, exploring why it has taken me so long to hold myself, and show up for myself when I am sinking.
You could say I’ve been sampling men. When the topic of my breakup is approached, I’ll either whisper or say nonchalantly, I fell out of love, disassociating myself from saying those five little words. A stranger’s gaze will meet mine in the shadows of the dark and I almost let it all stumble out each time. How do you sum up three years in five words? My heart will beat faster, I’ll become antsy because it feels like I am wronging the two of us who lived through it, to say so little, when so much occurred.
I confided to those who I consider close; I confessed my darkest insecurities and worries during and after the relationship. My faults. His flaws. My tone, darker and spiteful when speaking about the sluggish hurt: my words slow and resentful, with me, always ending the topic apologizing to my friends for my darkness. Apologizing for explaining the same stories in different scenarios and for the pity hugs and mournful side smiles. The guilt in knowing I didn’t know what I was doing but knowing something was certainly wrong.
It’s been 9 months. 9 months of inquiry of how I’m doing and the surprise in people’s eyes when I tell them I have never been happier and giving genuine bright smiles in return. Relief. I feel more alive than I have in a long time. I’m empowered because I am without him.
But within the past month, thoughts have started to appear when walking to my car, creeping up from an unknown place, dragging the thought to a spot that will echo in my skull where I will hear it repeat until I give myself an answer: what does it say about me to stay with him for so long? How do I give an explanation for what I allowed for so long? I have started to question what my flaws were during the relationship and frown at the floor with my vulnerable answers.
My thoughts hissing: why is this intrusive thought in my brain? It’s hurting me. I’m hurting myself with nightmarish thoughts. The panic rising in me in recognition at where the hurt was stemming from but simultaneously rejecting and feigning ignorance at not knowing where these thoughts are arising from — -so in defense, I’ll turn up the music to decently drown out my thoughts or to the verbal random shouts of “no!” alone in my room or the shower to stop the thought from coming any closer.
All in an effort to erase thinking about my feelings when it pertains to that stretch of time in my life. To stop me from reminding myself I wasn’t respected or heard for so long. At random points in my day, my gut is sucker-punched by an antagonizing thought about how I was with him because he couldn’t love me and I couldn’t love me and therefore two really unhappy people stayed together for three prolonged years. Hating ourselves. Hating each other. It took me 9 months of fresh air on my goose-bumped skin to acknowledge how much I learned about adulthood, friendship, relationships, anger, arguments, lust, loneliness, infatuation, betrayal, delusions, perspective, desperation, and grief. Even love.
I jumped into a relationship that wasn’t sustainable long before day one. I have to take responsibility for the relationship too; it isn’t one-sided. I do not cast sole responsibility onto him. I am very responsible too. There are secrets deep at my core about what occurred between us; I am uncertain about sharing those because they show the painful truth that I did not always respect myself. Or love me. I wasn’t always a respectful listener and I didn’t always understand why I acted a certain way. I didn’t care about hurting someone who was bleeding right in front of me because I was bleeding too.
There was denial and pain in my voice when there would be an argument that led to the threat of the relationship possibly ending and I’d ask myself after begging him to stay, why? Why do I still believe I need him? I was so unhappy. He was so unhappy. I’d think, why am I staying? Why is he? I would repeat those questions in my head long after the argument was over and the quiet reserved politeness settled between us for days to come just for the cycle to begin over.
I stayed because I wasn’t ready to be as alone as I felt. I thought being with someone for so long showed everyone I was a mature, capable, and healthy adult who could handle an adult relationship. But healthy relationships don’t last on longevity. I deluded myself into thinking the longer the relationship, the more adult I was. In brutal truth, I hated myself so intensely that I wanted to share that hatred with someone.
When I met him, I was grappling with less than a year-old loss. A loss that left me gaping open, asking for any type of attention. From anyone who would give it to me. From anyone who didn’t know me. I shut out my friends after I dealt with a personal loss earlier that year. I shut them out the first year of the relationship; I focused on him and only him. I gave it my all. I fell for him so easily because in the beginning he gave me his undivided attention and absently listened to me and I took that as a green light. I was very desperate to not be alone physically when I was completely alone in my heart. I was alone in my mind with my dark thoughts. In that time period, it was better to be with someone who despised me just as much as I despised myself.
Our relationship was automatically rough for us from the beginning: there were secrets and truths I accepted from the beginning that paved what the relationship would look like. A contract of sorts that gave me an ailing sense of peace for coming up with it myself and actually abiding by what we agreed on. I verbally fought and screamed at the top of my lungs to be heard only to be faced with complete silence. I wanted him to react and when he finally did, I became scared. Scared we were getting worse. Scared I wouldn’t be able to turn back from the collision. I took responsibility that was not mine and apologized when I was not in the wrong.
The last three years were so incredibly hard while simultaneously conflictingly rewarding. I wouldn’t take back the relationship; I don’t regret my time with him. He is the first and only man who gave me an understanding of what the term “make love” can mean. We did have our happy moments but they usually felt so few and far between. He is the only one to know everything about me. We did grow as people but instead of growing together we grew separately, we grew so far apart we no longer recognized one another.
But I am finally now grieving the relationship for what it was, who I was, and who he was. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him. I don’t know who I’d be without knowing him. He helped me grow to be the person I am as I write this. He pushed me to be stronger than ever before. He pushed me to know the love I needed was from myself. I loved him very deeply but it wasn’t a healthy love. He was a placeholder for the hurt I wasn’t ready to delve into.
It took me over three years and 9 months to admit to myself why there were cycles I couldn’t let myself break. Cycles I wasn’t happy with but the alternative felt worse. I grappled at the vast inadequacy inside of myself. It took me 9 months before I could cry over the history between us. I sobbed silently, not at the fact we aren’t together, because I have not wished for any moments to be with him again but I cried for who I was in that relationship. I cried for who he was in our relationship. I cry because of what we did to each other. I cried at what we lacked: compassion, forgiveness, and giving each other grace.
I’ve never been one to forgive after I’ve been wronged. I led myself to believe it is better to hold everything in instead of forgive. But I don’t want to sit with this anymore. I don’t want to stay bitter or angry at what I cannot change. It is not better to stay rigid instead of soft. I rather forgive myself. I want to forgive him. I’ve always demanded my apologies but held back my acknowledgment of the apology because I thought it portrayed weakness and signaling what happened was acceptable. Thinking bitter thoughts is hindering my growth. I have to forgive so I can move through this, not against it. I don’t want to drink the poison for him anymore. For me. For anyone.
When I sat with him on the couch that defining day, telling him I didn’t want to be with him anymore, my voice was small, and I looked at the muted lime green wall instead of even looking at him.
A sob escaped my throat when he spoke because I was still in a place where I didn’t understand the relationship entirely although it was finally ending and shaping into a new form. He spoke with an understanding he had all along. It took me a very long time to recognize the habits and situations I endured were unhealthy. Not only for me but for both of us. His and my perspectives are drastically different — -especially pertaining to us. There are two sides to every story but this is my perspective, my emotions, my story.
Although for the majority, the relationship was unhealthy, I have learned so much. I have learned how I want to love someone in the future. I can be stubborn, unkind, spiteful, and remember the cruelest moments even when they aren’t helpful to remember for anymore. I have to do some hard work to heal my broken bits before I can let anyone else in again. I do not want to repeat ugly habits. I am responsible for what I do with my pain and no one I allow into my heart will ever be able to heal me except for myself.
I comprehend now I cannot change anyone. I have learned you can ask a million different ways for a different answer and still receive the same outcome.
The biggest epiphany I had: it is not someone’s fault they cannot be the person you need.
It won’t matter how much you crave, ask, or plead with the person. If they are incapable of giving you what you need, they will never be able to. I cannot assign blame for someone’s incapabilities. It is like screaming at a fish to breathe oxygen the way we do. They naturally cannot do it.
We naturally could not do it.
And so, the relationship formed into something new in those raw months: a strange friendliness to an abrupt all-devouring hatred towards one another to now an abstract silence.
As a society, we are so great at sharing the positive moments on social media, especially the joyful moments involving a significant other but we don’t share the unraveling about why it did not work once it’s completed. We don’t share the process and the trek of healing.
It’s been 9 months and a lifetime to come. 9 months of finding a way back to myself. 9 months of learning how to live only for myself. 9 months of analyzing and overthinking every single moment between him and me. 9 months has just been the beginning of everything again.
Healing isn’t linear. I’ve faced a lot of truths I have denied myself for years in the past few weeks. I think I’m ultimately healing from the damage I caused myself and him.
2,281 words are not enough to encompass all of my thoughts, emotions, fears, strengths, and complicated love, but it is a push toward forgiveness and acceptance for the past we share.
