The Road to BFD was Long and Humbling
Existing in a Kind, Loving, and Secure Relationship *Should* Be the Default. For Me, it Was Not.
Dear friends,
Today, I find myself in a loving, secure, and fulfilling relationship, which, for me, feels like a gargantuan feat. It wasn’t until my late-30s that I felt like I even remotely knew what the fuck I was doing when it came to dating and relationships. In today’s newsletter, I get pretty personal about the long and very humbling road it took to get to this point.
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A few weeks ago, I did something that helped reconcile one of the heaviest debts my heart carried:
I apologized to an ex.
It wasn’t elaborate; it wasn’t flowery. It happened via DM, and I wrote something along the lines of:
Hey, I’m really sorry for how I treated you when we were together. You were really good to me and did not deserve any of that.
Today, I’m in a healthy, secure, and loving relationship, which is something that seemed completely out of the realm of possibly a few years ago. If you asked me about it then, I would’ve said men, on the whole, are the problem. And while there is no shortage of shitty men in the world, I was missing a big piece of the puzzle. Namely, taking responsibility for how my behaviors contributed to my neverending dating frustrations.
It’s hard for me to talk about BFD without feeling a tinge of self-consciousness that I’m coming off as braggy. But then I remember that a relationship like this should be the default. Having someone who listens and does nice things without being asked shouldn’t be some big flex.
I also know that my own journey to getting here was fraught and involved some very humbling reality checks.
My ex and I dated for three years and cohabitated for two. When we broke up, I was in my mid-20s and had a glaring lack of self-awareness about my own toxicity. Convinced I had no responsibility in his decision to end things, I viewed myself as a mere victim who was blindsighted by someone I thought I could “trust.”
What I couldn’t see was that I was controlling, jealous, egotistical, manipulative, and made no space for anyone’s feelings but my own.
I was heartbroken in the way only someone with severe attachment issues could be: one part of me obsessed over him and wanted him back sorely, and another part of me needed to find someone to fill his place as quickly as I possibly could.