Learning my own lesson

I get it. I do. I’m out of a long term relationship, back out in the world, still finding myself. And I get that people want to shield me from making mistakes. Shield me from potential hurt. But sometimes you need to let people make their own decisions, even when you know it’s the complete wrong one for them.

So when I met a girl, despite everyone’s warnings, I went for it. My friends hated her but supported me, my mum did everything possible to try and get me to walk away. They all knew she was a bad egg. But as one friend said to me, “People need to make their own mistakes for themselves. You can be the only person to carry your own regret.” And, as I said to everyone, if you’re all right about her and she treats me like shit, I will take it as a lesson and learn from it.

So, yes, everyone was right. It was the worst relationship of my life. She treated me terribly, emotionally manipulated and gaslighted me. But, as promised to myself and everyone else, I learnt from it. So, here are the lessons I took from her:

• Looks aren’t everything. Looks don’t make you happy. A major problem I faced in my mind was the massive attraction I had for her. I was worried that we would break up and I would never find anyone as good looking as her again. My mum kept saying there are so many people in the world that this theory has no chance of being correct and if I leave I can have someone who I find amazingly attractive AND treats me well. At the time, I ignored her. Looking back… well, she was right. And after her screwing me over so much… the attraction isn’t even anywhere near as strong anymore.
• Take notice of red flags. Yes, I saw them at the start. And yes, I chose to ignore them. There were a few things I should have listened to like the rumours about her, the fact I noticed she maybe drank a lot more than she should. Once the red flags started revealing themselves, they didn’t stop, they just kept getting added to.
• Your worth is not based on one person’s opinion. My ex never ever wanted to even kiss me. I could stand naked in front of her and get no reaction. I felt ugly, fat and worthless. But, the truth was, she was too drugged up to even notice. And just because she took me for granted, didn’t mean that others did or do. I have amazing friends that tell me I was always way too good for her. And I realise now how much bigger my worth is than I thought at the time.
• Don’t give in to emotional manipulation and gaslighting. THEY ARE NOT THE VICTIM! The amount of times she would try and make me feel bad for her were unreal. Even down to when she kissed my friend—it was my fault because she wouldn’t have done it if I’d gotten back with her; it happened on a night out, could I not see that it was purely because it was a night out and wouldn’t have happened otherwise? Yet again, I was another person who couldn’t look past her flaws. Like, shut the fuck up!
• Don’t push your friends away for a partner. Luckily, I didn’t do this completely. But she sure as hell tried to get me to. She was jealous of my friendship with my best mate and would make comments about me hanging out with her too often. It didn’t stop me though. The only one time I pushed someone away was a new friend that my ex decided I’d clearly met on a dating site and fancied. I didn’t meet up with her like I was meant to. Second we broke up, I messaged this new friend who welcomed me back with open arms and now we are incredibly close. I worry about how I would have survived the breakup without the people around me that I had.
• Heartbreak doesn’t kill you. I couldn’t handle how bad I was feeling at the time. I considered turning up on her doorstep, I thought I would never get over her. But I have and I am.
• But I guess the hardest lesson I had to learn was that one of my friends wasn’t as loyal to me as she always made out she would be. She straight out said my ex partner (we’d been broken up a few weeks at this point) was good looking, and I left them alone together not thinking anything of it. A few weeks later, my best friend who worked at the bar I’d left them in was shown CCTV footage of them both kissing. It literally killed me that those two people could do that to me. I was angry, I shouted, and I cut them both out of my life. It hurt like hell, but… it helped me get over my ex and it showed me my ‘friend’s’ true colours. Enough to rid me of them both for good.