Let me tell you what's worse than a broken heart...
Please read if you’ve ever been mentally or emotionally abused in a relationship... actually, please read even if you haven’t. Maybe you were the abuser and never knew... Either way, abuser/abusee... Make it stop.
When they can't let you go, and beg you to stay... yet treat you terribly and argue nonstop. When they cry and say they need you, and they scream that they can't lose you... yet it seems you can easily annoy them, and you find yourself feeling like they want you one day and not the next...
They are not in love, don't believe they are.
They do not cherish you, don't listen to those lies.
They are not your best friend, don't fall for that.
They are not your friend at all.
Do not pretend.
You are afraid. You are scared of being alone. So you fight to keep them around. You are terrified that someone who used to love you, know you… live and breathe you… may be perfectly content with never being in your presence, holding your hand, seeing your face, or even letting your memory cross their mind till the day they die.
It's basically a death. You have to live knowing that the last time you spent with them may be the very last till your eyes close forever. Years of having to know they're out there - without you - before that happens. That their life can actually go on.
Sounds like love, but it's not when it comes with anger. When it seems to never work out without harsh words or criticism. It's a rope. You've wrapped it around them and tied your best sailor knot while gripping the other end tight, but it's taut with negative emotions.
Yet you can't let go even when deep down you can't stand the fighting. Deep down you have questioned your emotions before, been completely exasperated with the fights, the lies, and the 2 a.m. screaming battles that only lead to horrible accusations. All of that comes before the "I'm sorry" calls and messages, which eerily seem to be more out of necessity than sincerity.
It's because that person is familiar. Because you got comfortable. Because you have anxiety at the thought of starting over. Because you wonder if there will even be another chance to do so.
Real love can be wild. Everyone fights. Truth... but this is about the continual ones. The roller coasters. The times when you sit back and realize as you're covered in salty tears that the bad truly has outweighed the good. They may just want to leave or they may stick around and control you with lies and broken promises that keep you coming back for more.
Please stop fooling yourself. They are not in love. You are not in love. You are terrified.
It's called oblivion. Being forgotten. Not needed by those who used to need you. Not remembered by those who said they'd never be able to erase their memory of you.
No human being has ever been able to handle it. It makes us hold on to those we don't need. It makes us hurt or be hurt by those we never truly wanted. It makes us say those three little words, believing we mean them in the moment, only to find out later we were holding on to hope, to memories, to ghosts.
But mainly we weren't holding on at all. We were being held... coddled in a way... by fear itself. Letting it lead us to believe there's no future unless it involves the past. Allowing it to shelter us beneath its lies that things, people, places, and our own souls do not need to change over time in order to grow, adapt, and live.
We are human. We will be forgotten by all time and living beings that inhabit this universe in the billions of years that possibly remain. It's inevitable. So stop. You get a fraction of those billions of years on this Earth... a fraction so small it practically seems obsolete. Do not waste it by living in fear. Do not waste anyone else's fraction by dragging out something that would never be as good as what both of you could have if you just let time and change do their jobs. Greatness is out there. Love is out there.
Listen to your heart. Let go.
There's one main truth most people are never able to grasp: Love is easy.
Leaning on someone, depending on them, being terrified of letting them go no matter how many bad memories overshadow your happiness... that's hard. Living a lie out of fear... that's depressing. But the big one... allowing familiarity to disguise itself as love... well, that makes life almost impossible to endure some days. You just have to open your eyes and realize that.
You will be forgotten. You are not alone in that. King Tut, Shakespeare, your favorite celebrity... your family... everyone will be eventually. It's not about being remembered forever. It's about the amazing memories you have stored safely in your own head and heart before your time is up.
So move on. Change. Drop what you're used to when you're at your wit's end with someone who has somehow gone from being your everything to the one who gives you anxiety as you await the next argument, which seems to take place daily.
Maybe it's just the way humans are wired. We don't know how to let go sometimes, and we have no idea what we miss when we don't. The number of tears we didn't have to cry. But over time you will realize your memory of them fades. Because everything is fleeting. It's not longevity we should hope for as beings who must face the reality of mortality. It's truth, kindness, and courage. It's faith in the belief that love isn't as messy as you've made it out to be. It's understanding time doesn't stop and wait for you to catch up.
There are times your heart will break, which may seem bad enough... but there are worse times... times in which someone will fracture your mind, break your spirit, and rip apart your soul. Their words will crush you, and sometimes it may be yours that are capable of demolishing them. The situation will become unbearable, and you will no longer be able to tell if you're crying because it may end or because deep down you wish it would. That’s not heartbreak. Those are the times the pain is so great you couldn’t feel your heart beat anyway, not even if you wanted to. There's other damage you should worry about more and pray none of it has lasting effects. So yes there are things worse than a broken heart, and we bring them on ourselves out of fear.
Those people - those monotonous, crazy, sickening moments of irrevocable hostility and distress - are not supposed to be part of the last memories you have at the end of this short breath we are blessed to call life.
So learn to change. To live. Learn how love is supposed to be. LOVE YOURSELF FIRST. Enough to let go and build your own life. Then realize how simple it would be for someone else to make real love fit into that life.
But please remember... let others do this, as well, because you may be guilty of this control and abuse someday, whether intentional or not. Do not be selfish, let go and let them live.