Towards the end of last week I wrote a piece on here entitled ‘I Should Have Known Better‘ which explored my feelings about the end of my last long-term relationship. For those of you who commented offering me support, thank you so much! Knowing that I wasn’t so alone and that strangers would take the time to offer me comfort really helped me to push forward and find a balance again. Needless to say I’ve removed the piece and it’s now comfortably settled in my drafts never to be seen again. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret writing it but I do regret publishing it.
As I’ve said before, I’m undecided as to whether placing negative thoughts into the digital or physical world is actually beneficial as it feels like I’m pouring paint on a canvas and making a mess rather than being constructive. I’m even more uncomfortable with the idea of sharing my inner most thoughts on here for the whole world to see, I’m not strong enough to be that vulnerable.
Anywho, the main reason I’ve retracted ‘I Should Have Known Better‘ was because it offered no solutions to what I was experiencing. So, that’s what I thought I’d write about this time: solutions. I don’t want to fill this tiny piece of the world I own with negativity, I want to fill it with dumb questions that I find funny about my favourite TV shows, rambling videos so you can get to know me and now, honesty. I am an advice and lifestyle writer after all, it’s about time I start writing more of that sort of stuff on here!
In all honesty, I’ve been struggling with one particular subject for a long time now: fantasy vs reality. That is, knowing what is and was real compared to what I imagine in my mind. It sounds bonkers but I can almost guarantee you do this too!
Never is The Fantasy VS Reality Struggle more clear than when you have just broken up with someone you were in love with. In reality, a relationship has ended and you need time to grieve, however that grieving process often includes ‘remembering the good times’ aka fantasising.
Indulging in fantasies about all the snippets of joy and love you shared with your ex-significant can go one of two ways, and neither way is a good choice. Either it can be a short-lived soothing break between the bouts of unbearable sadness or it can magnify the pain of loss, expanding it until it’s overwhelming. It’s easy to become a character in your own Lifetime Movie-esque fantasy: the heartbroken victim who cannot see the shitty, overgrown forest because of one sort of nice looking tree.
Wherever your imagination takes you following a break up, it can only end in making yourself feel worse. Alas, due to the emotional baggage we depart from relationships with it’s easy to see why being swaddled in our illusions can save us from facing up to insecurities, fear and loneliness. Maybe we refuse to believe that all the time and love we invested into that person didn’t payout, or perhaps we don’t want to believe that we were wrong about someone. Whatever the reason, fantasising often comes easier than facing reality.
The most confusing thing about fantasies is that they often parade around as memories: those times you laughed until you cried together, how well he fitted into your social circle and family, all those times he cooked you dinner, how handsome he looked when he’d just woken up. When you’ve just broken up with someone you could fantasise about these ‘experiences’ forever, or at least until someone tells you to get a grip.
I hate to admit it, but I wandered around in the fantasy world I’d built up over five years with my ex for four months before I was dropkicked back into reality. I was given the old “I’m not ready for a commitment” speech, and it was over just like that. Whilst I had been mourning our relationship and struggling to fall out of love, he had already begun seeing someone else - his current girlfriend who he met just a few weeks before breaking up with me.
Sure, it was hard to hear that he’d moved on so quickly but it brought me out of my fantasy world where I hoped we’d work it out and plunged me back into reality pretty quickly. It was a bit awful really. Where fantasies are, by nature, whimsical and forgiving, reality is harsh and relentless. Fantasies will keep you naive and safe, but reality will hurt. So why chose reality? Simple: because it exists, it is controllable and it will make you strong.
I have learned that when it comes to your ex, you must restrict yourself to reality. Yes, there were good times, but there is a reason why the relationship broke down and he probably had just as much to do with it as you.
Think about it: were they insensitive, dishonest, insincere, disrespectful or careless? In my case, he wouldn’t bother to reply to a text for hours or days at a time and he would constantly lie about the most ridiculous things. He was always in debt with someone - usually me - but would spend all of his money going out with his friends. I think he only took me on around four dates throughout the entire five years we were together, and whenever I had a valid point to make he would make me feel crazy, needy and powerless. Yet for four months I focused solely on the times he would come round to my house to surprise me or one time when he made me a photo album when I was away in America for three weeks. TWO THINGS.
Throughout our relationship I lost my value, my boundaries and my dignity by clinging to a man-child who has the same amount of self-awareness of a raisin. But I’m done now, and I hope that you can be too. Chances are that person that you have concocted in your mind, the one you were crazy about, just doesn’t exist in reality. Don’t blame yourself for their faults or for the fact that they changed: that’s on them.
Instead of focusing on them and your past relationship, focus on yourself. Start by asking yourself the right questions. Instead of asking yourself whether he’ll ever come back ask yourself what the facts are. What really happened? What did you ignore or deny? What were the consequences? What are you avoiding by indulging in illusions? Why did you really break up?
Don’t cling to the parts of your relationship that you perceived as good when you spent most of the time miserable. If you can recall every single time that you felt appreciated and stable in your relationship then it probably wasn’t working most of the time. Don’t take actions that any decent human being would bestow on you and place them on a pedestal.
In the future, be aware of red flags. Ensure you maintain your values by setting up boundaries that will stop any BS that comes flying your way. Most importantly, when someone shows you who they really are: believe them.
What do you guys think?
