"When you deal with the heartbreak of an unwanted breakup, you need to look very carefully at the person who broke up with you and look very carefully at yourself. If you are radically honest, you will see a myriad of ways that you asked for the breakup to happen as well as the ways that you deserve something better in relation to another" – MUM-
My mum’s advice resonated with me because it is true. A couple of years ago, I was the epitome of a woman scorned. I spent years with a man who not only broke my heart, but also broke my essence. It amazed me that I entered the relationship thinking I was complete, yet once I left, I saw myself half-finished. For quite some time, I allowed this to make me disillusioned, but now I see it as a valuable life lesson. Being dumped was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realize that once you enter a relationship with your eyes closed, you leave it with your eyes wide open.
Like all of my previous relationships, I met my ex-boyfriend when I was fresh out of a breakup. There were no sparks when I first locked eyes with him. No butterflies. No trumpets to herald his coming into my life. He wasn’t different from every other guy. Nevertheless, I spoke to him and inadvertently gave him my number.
Remarkably, the months that followed our epiphanic meeting were nothing short of amazing. Unlike the previous guy who would relentlessly criticise me for my physical flaws, DB made me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on. And for the first time in my whole adult life, I felt alive. It wasn’t long before we fell inevitably and irrevocably in love with each other.
However, we rushed the relationship immensely. We were virtually inseparable. We would talk innocently about our future. We made plans about getting married years down the line. He even gave me a promise ring and would oftentimes introduce me to everyone as his fiancé. At that point of my life, though, I had a lot of sorting out to do. I was mourning the loss of a loved one. But instead of properly going through the entire grieving process, I used him as replenishment for my loss. He became my crutch and my only source of emotional support. Needless to say, it eventually became apparent that we move in together. And so I ignored everything logical that my brain was spouting out at me and hastily moved into his place.
The first year of living together was wonderful because we were candidly playing cubby house. He was the best part of my day and the hours that we spent away from each other felt like light years. He would take me to his gigs because he wanted me beside him while he’s working behind the decks as a DJ. I stopped seeing my friends and doing things that I usually love to do because all I wanted was to be with him. He became the focal point of my existence.
Yet, after a year of bliss, the relationship began to sour. We’d argue about anything and everything. And as we both started to see characteristics of each other that we would otherwise deem as red flags had it not for the circumstances that we got ourselves into, the arguments became frequent and more intense. As months passed, I saw myself changing. I was no longer the carefree girl that had a healthy social life. Instead of figuring out what I wanted in life, I was trying to figure out how to keep a man. I was dependent on someone’s love. And, as is the way with gravity, the fireworks between us ran their course and eventually came crashing down, leaving me dazed and heartbroken with a thousand questions left unanswered.
DB was not only controlling. He was also very manipulative and demanding. I saw myself walking on eggshells and bending over backwards to make things work. And without realising it, my life became all about him. I took up culinary lessons because he didn’t like my cooking. I would wake up 20 minutes earlier every single morning before I go to work while he sleeps in (DJ hours, remember?) to make him breakfast. I would feel extremely guilty if I hadn’t done the laundry in a week and he ran out of clean underwear to wear. I would literally drop everything every time he’d need my help like drive to town in the middle of the night because he forgot something from home (even on those nights when I badly need to rest or when I’m sick). I would oftentimes restrain myself from speaking my mind because I was perpetually trying to avoid potential arguments with him. On top of that, he would throw my clothes out the balcony and threaten to kick me out of his apartment every time we fight.
Ultimately, the relationship became emotionally and psychologically abusive. His demands became more unreasonable and I found myself in perennial struggle to make him happy. It almost felt like I was being performance managed but no matter how much I tried to reach my KPI, my efforts were just not good enough. Not only were his standards impossible to live up to, they were extremely obstructive and perverse as well. I remember contemplating on flirting with other girls when I go out so I could take them home and have a threesome because that was his biggest fantasy. Our date nights were unwittingly reduced to going to swingers' parties. And although we would not have sexual intercourse with other couples, I would unscrupulously allow him to make out and fondle other women because I knew it made him happy. The whole relationship was so toxic that it came to a point where I became very emotionally unstable and volatile. I would oftentimes try to get a glimpse of the man that I fell in love with by ostentatiously attempting to harm myself in front of him hoping that he’d hug me and become that loving person that stole my heart a year ago. Instead, he had me committed in a mental ward. At this point, I was so far gone that not only did I apologise to him for my ‘misdemeanour’ but I also tried to dispute the treating psychiatrist’s conclusion that I have a sound mind. When I was advised to walk away from the relationship, I broke down and stubbornly insisted that everything was my fault and that I was crazy hence, they should think about reassessing my mental health.
Consequently, our malignant relationship finally came to an end in February 2014. I still remember his icy cold stare and his thunderous voice stinging me. I left his place trembling with fear, thinking that I messed things up for good. I was supposed to be heading for work that day but instead, I made a detour to the library and cried for what seemed like an eternity. I kept asking myself why I couldn’t make him happy. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong and ultimately, I blamed myself for the demise of our relationship. I thought I was a terrible girlfriend despite knowing that I loved him with every molecule of my being. And for the first time in my life, I felt like a failure. Naturally, I spent the following weeks crying and begging him to take me back. I hung onto the false hope that we could fix things and that he would eventually come into his senses and take me back into his arms again. To this day, I'm still not certain whether I was holding on to the image of the man that I fell in love with and I was too stubborn to accept the person that he has become or if I was too naive to recognise the red flags at the start of the relationship and I failed to see him for the person that he truly was.
In the months that followed, my heart felt like it lived directly under the thinnest layer of skin, overly sensitive to every thought, loud sound or even touch. Some days I'd go to bed feeling like I have a defaulted cardiac arrest, and I’d wake up feeling the same way only to repeat the cycle again. I spent everyday sobbing and vomiting, haunting my friend’s spare bedroom like a ghost. Apparently, that's what you do when you are 26 and have just been summarily dismissed from your long-term live-in relationship. You cry and snivel and you plead with a God you don’t quite believe in to make it all a bad dream. You sleep fitfully on a blow-up mattress in a room that is not yours and every time you wake up, you have to quell the panic of not knowing where you are by reminding yourself silently, resolutely that this will pass.
Fortunately, I eventually moved out of the vomiting/hysterical weeping stage and into the kindling stage. In fact, if you would have told me then, “You will someday be grateful for your broken heart,” I would have laughed (or more likely cried) in your face. But I say this now: Thank you, dear heart, for being strong enough to fall apart. Thank you, heart, for the precious gift of your breaking. After that devastating blow, something inside of me snapped. I looked at the mirror and I saw this feeble girl staring back at me. How can I love someone if I’ve forgotten how to take care of me? I felt a switch and all of a sudden I was faced with the choice to be pathetic forever or to conquer my sorrow. I decided to conquer. I reclaimed myself. I reconnected with old friends. I went on a spiritual workshop up the coast. I did things for myself and explored new hobbies. I opened myself up to male attention and threw myself back into the dating pool. I focused on rediscovering myself. I regained my self-respect and before I knew it, I was alive again.
It didn’t take long before vivid memories of my failed relationship turn into blurry renditions. And my resentment towards him was replaced with gratitude. After all, he opened my eyes to something greater in life. He taught me that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security. He showed me that LOVE is what’s left over after the passion ebbed and that kisses aren't contracts. The experience taught me to think more rationally when it comes to matters of the heart - not to rely on the idea that happily ever after necessarily exists. And it’s unclear whether there’s someone out there for everyone. I don’t want to be cynical about love, but I don’t want to be naive either.
In addition to that, I still had so many things in my life that I need to straighten out. For so long, I’ve been coasting by blaming other people for my despondent life, yet I forgot I was talking about MY LIFE. I’m the master of my own destiny. I wasted so much time worrying about another person’s happiness that I have completely forgotten how to actually be happy. And so I decided to plant my own garden and decorate my own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring me flowers.
And as I went through this process, I came to terms with why things ended up the way they did. I listened to my truth even when it’s “ugly” and I forgave myself for not being perfect. I see now with clarity that our relationship was toxic. We were not right for each other and I should have walked away a lot sooner, instead of trying to fix something that was destined to be broken. Now, as I begin to see why and how things started to unravel and how I ended up a total mess, I am finally able to grow. In the grand scheme of things, the moment I finally put as much effort into the relationship that I have with myself as I did with other people is the moment that I am able to stop searching for something outside of myself. I am able to find peace -the kind of peace that doesn’t change with the wind. I feel vulnerable and strong at the time because I know that what I have gone through serves a greater purpose. The next time I find love, I will understand my needs and wants better. And I will know myself enough to give myself what I want and avoid falling into the same patterns I was in before this relationship.Yes. Getting dumped hurt like hell but it was in hindsight, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Amazing things are manifested when we face our demons in new and creative ways, and that is true no matter who we are. I decided to build my roads for today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans. And the future has a way of falling mid-flight. But even though the future sometimes frightens me, I look back in the past, and the past before that, and I see that whatever happens, I will always be much better off in the future that I'm scared of than in the past that I left behind.
My story is no different from everyone else's. I've loved and I've lost. But needless to say, I have gained the one thing that matters the most - ME.
