Because of You, I Deeply Fear Dating Again

I gave you my all. Everything. What you wanted, I wanted. What you desired, I did my best to wish. Your dreams… I supported them. Your laundry… I folded it. Your meals… I cooked them.

When I expressed my feelings, my dreams, my wishes, you just tossed them aside like garbage. When I told you how I was feeling and what I needed to be happy and fulfilled in our relationship, you ignored me.

When you screamed at me when you were drunk, I overlooked the red flags. I would tell myself that it was “okay, he was just drunk,” and do my best to forget it.

When I wanted to make plans for us to hang out with my friends, I would beg and plead for you to oblige, just to end up disappointed. I would make excuses and tell people that we were too tired to hang out, too sick, too broke, anything but the truth.

I knew that what we had was broken – that it wasn’t what it used to be, but I didn’t want to give up. When you invest so much time into one person, it feels like you physically can’t let it go. Because you’ve poured out your heart and soul, it seems that if you walk away, you’re leaving yourself behind too.

One side of you wants to stay; you want to make it work. The other side knows that it will never work, because you already have given your all, and that wasn’t enough.

When I finally got the courage to walk away, I went for it, but little did I know that something else would be running away with me – and that something else was Fear.

Fear that regardless of the warning signs, a tumultuous relationship like this would happen again. Fear that in a society that pressures a young woman to get married and settle down would cause me never to find true happiness with another. Fear that maybe I allowed all this to happen, and perhaps the problem has been me all along.

When I look around, I see so many unhappy couples. People that settle, just like I did. They aren’t happy, but it’s better than being alone. They argue, but at least they have a “plus one” for their company Christmas party. They remember “how it used to be” and use that to justify the dishonesty, the mistrust, and pain.

But what kind of life is that? Maybe you can blame it on my generation for wanting more, or perhaps because we grew up watching Disney Princess movies with iconic relationships, but damn, I want more than that.

I’ve always fantasized about being with a partner that loves me, supports me and my dreams, and uplifts me to be the best version of myself. But when I look around and see so many others in the same pit that I was in before, it can be disheartening.

It’s easy to build up walls made of fear – to stay sheltered in our safe little area where we can’t be hurt again. When the wounds are so fresh, it seems irrational to go out looking for salt to pour on them.

But we can’t allow fear to dictate our lives. Fear is the root of our pain, so we can’t continue to nurture it. We have to get out the shovel and dig down to those deep levels. We have to pull the fear up by the root and never allow it to feed off of our happiness again.

It’s going to be scary to put ourselves out there. We will feel the desire to retreat into our shelters, and we might even have flashbacks to what went wrong before, but we can’t allow those to stop us from living our best lives.

Instead of allowing fear to stifle us, we should allow it to make us stronger. Instead of looking back at the past and mourning what we’ve lost and the mistakes we’ve made, let’s use those as examples of how we can overcome all challenges. We will find someone who treats us the way we deserve; we just have to go out there and live our lives.

After all, the best revenge is happiness.

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