Years ago, I was in my mid-20s and enduring the worst (yet not the first) breakup I’d ever experienced. Dumped by a boyfriend I had just moved in with and now sleeping in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house, I believed I would never find love again.
But perhaps one of the worst parts of breaking up was having to delete all the evidence of my relationship from my social media. Yes, I’m aware how petty that sounds, but I was embarrassed. At the time, breaking up felt like admitting defeat, proving to everyone that I couldn’t keep a boyfriend. I must be “too much” or “hard to love,” as my brain already told me every single day.
Breakups leave us vulnerable. When you already battle toxic shame regularly, the ending of a relationship weakens you into the ideal prey for your inner critic. You’re more susceptible to the awful lies it spews, falling victim to negative self-talk and deeply ingrained beliefs about your lack of worth.
It wasn’t about Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, or even its judgmental, nosy audience. It was about my old wounds resurfacing. It was about how I saw myself, as reflected in how others might see me.
“She must be a handful!” I feared they would think. “Another one bites the dust!”
Breakups Are Embarrassing
I wish I could say that I shed this mindset with age, but over time, the more and more failed dating experiences I accrued—which was normal for any single 20-something woman—the more embarrassed I felt. Each one acted as a nail in the coffin. Even a simple first-date-gone-wrong or doomed three-month talking stage triggered the shame.
To be quite honest, I wasn’t even dating nearly as much as my friends or peers. I wouldn’t let myself, because I was so scared of loving and losing—and what that might mean about me—that I wanted to avoid it altogether. Never mind the fact that everyone around me, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, was enduring a similar fate in today’s chaotic dating world. I never once judged anyone else. Just myself.
But perhaps the tip of the iceberg for me was when I finally trusted someone new. I finally let my guard down and, after spending a few years in solitude while working on myself, got into a relationship. Little did I know that while I was head-over-heels in love, my boyfriend was going around telling people: “She’s just temporary.”
There I was, building a future with—or based around—this person, who I loved so deeply, when all along, he didn’t even see potential with me. Talk about embarrassing. I’d never felt so pathetic in my life.
You couldn’t pay me to go back to my 20s.
Redefining Breakups
But that was also a major “aha” moment for me, teaching me to prioritize my own desires, needs, values, and life goals. No lover deserves to be put on a pedestal above you. We’re all just humans, after all.
And over time, I began to see relationships in a different light. Now, in my early 30s, I value every relationship I’ve had, all the connections that brought me where I am today. Had I stayed single, had I never given love a chance again, I never would have learned these valuable lessons. I never would have found security within myself. I never would have met someone who makes love feel both exciting and effortless.
Humans are wired for connection. Many of us crave intimacy and companionship and romance, and that’s not something to be ashamed of. Neither is trying. Even if that means starting over a million times.
Just because your sister found her soulmate in college and your friend married his high school sweetheart doesn’t mean your story is any less inspiring. For so long, I had been viewing breakups as failures, but really, they were simple endings. Not every relationship is meant to last a lifetime. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t special. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be for some time.
Perhaps my ex was right all along: Maybe some love is temporary. And maybe that’s okay.
The post I Thought My Breakups Meant I Was Hard to Love, Then I Learned This appeared first on VICE.
