What I’ve Learned About Love, after many years...
You taught me that I can’t trust men…
They lie, cheat, use and manipulate their way through relationships. They are selfish and take you for granted. The more you love them, the less they appreciate you. They always believe the grass is greener elsewhere. They make endless excuses for their bad behavior and almost always end up blaming their thoughtless behavior on the very person they hurt.
They take accountability for nothing. Any/everything that is, was or ever will be wrong with the relationship is your fault. On occasion, they offer vapid apologies.. just to get you to stop talking or crying. They have no idea what they are apologizing for because they don’t mean it.
They pretend to be everything you want until they have you. Then they slowly reveal who they really are, which is often quite different from who you fell in love with. (There’s a term for this: ”Bait & switch”).
They tell you everything you want to hear without regard for honestly. They tell you things to keep you near, for purely selfish reasons. They may do this FOR YEARS OF YOUR LIFE. Their words often do not match their actions/behavior. You continually feel conflicted, confused, yet keep getting sucked into the romance of their words & promises…over and over, because while so very cliche, love truly is incredibly blinding. It’s only much later that you realize you were seeing everything through rose colored glasses.
When you try to talk or confront them directly with any issue, they: Deny - Deflect - Attack - Blame…you. What was intended to be a constructive conversation turns into the equivalent of walking through an active land mine while napalm drops on you from above. You become so pre-occupied with all the bobbing & weaving, deflection, excuses and blame that nothing gets resolved. You end up exhausted, crying and frustrated. Meanwhile, they drift off to sleep peacefully, having successfully avoided answering a single question or clarifying anything ..(meanwhile, you stay up all night replaying the events until your brain is ready to implode).
They will keep you in their life Long after they have silently decided you aren’t the right person for them. They will never directly tell you this. They lie and placidly assuage your concerns because they know that if you knew the truth you would leave them, and they like to have you around. You take care of them when they are sick, listen to their problems, clean the house, keep them company when they feel like having companionship, etc.. so they keep you around and use you for their own selfish reasons.. while at the same time making sure you feel insecure and inadequate in the relationship.
What I have learned about love is that TRUE LOVE is selfless and that is extremely rare. Most people just want something from you. Most people hide large parts of who they really are. Most people want you to ‘complete’ them, fix them, entertain them, fill a void, etc.
True love is when you care more about the other persons happiness than you do about having that person in your life. True love is wanting the other person to be happy EVEN IF IT’S NOT WITH YOU. True love is about compromise & equality (without bitterness, resentment or an egotistical, duplicitous agenda). When you truly love someone you would never do anything intentionally to hurt the person.
True love is supposed to be nonjudgmental, unconditional, selfless and pure. True love can only exist where there is mutual respect. Yeah, maybe it’s old school, but it doesn’t change the truth of it.
Love is not supposed to hurt. Not like this. It’s not supposed to leave you feeling manipulated, used, betrayed, rejected, insecure, lost, confused, lonely, broken, jaded, scared, deeply disappointed and inescapably sad. That is NOT what someone who truly loves you does to you. However, that is what truly loving someone can do to you.
I’ve also learned that no matter how difficult it is, you have to keep moving. You can’t remain in a stagnant, toxic situation forever because it will eventually destroy you. As the saying goes, “If you can’t fly then run. If you can’t run then walk. If you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward”. (thanks, MLK)
Finally, I’ve learned that closure is a mostly a myth. If I waited for closure, I’d be waiting until I was sprouting grey hairs. There is no closure when you are limping around with a deep, gaping wound..and psychological abuse leaves wounds that last a very long time although they are invisible to most. The only thing you can do is make a decision to change your life, start stitching yourself back together, and move on. Put one foot in front of the other and MOVE, even if your mind takes a while to catch up. That’s okay. The rest is merely a future therapy bill.
I don’t know if I’ll ever dare to love someone again, as I loved you. I do not think I’ll ever give that much of myself to another human being for the rest of my life. I lost important pieces of myself that I’ll be trying to recover and repair for years to come.
You could have had me. I would have loved you until the end of my days. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with you. (That’s what I thought that ring meant). My love for you was pure and selfless. You had my respect, unconditional love and loyalty. But you chose to slowly burn the house down, with me in it. I hung on to you until you nearly incinerated me and sucked almost all of the light & life out of me.
All I can do now is numbly, blindly follow my shaky feet out the door, while my mind reels with pain, confusion and the deepest disappointment I’ve ever felt. I keep telling myself: “Don’t think, just go.. keep moving no matter how hard each step seems”.
For now, all I can do is lock all this shit up in a filing cabinet in my brain.. for another day, after I’ve started my life ALL OVER AGAIN. Thanks for teaching me about ‘love’.